Increasing skill premium and skill supply - steady state effects or transition?

I challenge the existing literature that claims that strongly biased technology is necessary to observe a simultaneous increases in the skill supply and the skill premium. I highlight the importance of the joint determination of the direction of technical change and skill formation, as there is a positive feedback between them. Technological progress is driven by profit oriented R&D firms, where profits are increasing in the amount of labour that is able to use these technologies. Therefore, when the supply of high-skilled labour increases, technology endogenously becomes more skill-biased. A more skill-biased technology leads to a higher skill premium, which increases the incentives to acquire education, and the supply of high-skilled labour rises. During the transition to the steady state, both quantities increase simultaneously. I map the dependence of the transition path of the economy on the initial skill supply and relative technology between the high- and the low-skilled sector. I find that, contrary to the previous literature, the skill premium and the skill supply can increase jointly even if the bias of technology is weak.

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Source https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-00972941
Author Barany, Zsofia
Maintainer CCSD
Last Updated May 5, 2026, 16:59 (UTC)
Created May 5, 2026, 16:59 (UTC)
Identifier hal-00972941
Language en
Rights https://about.hal.science/hal-authorisation-v1/
contributor Département d'économie (Sciences Po) (ECON) ; Sciences Po (Sciences Po)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
creator Barany, Zsofia
date 2011-07-05T00:00:00
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harvest_source_id 3374d638-d20b-4672-ba96-a23232d55657
harvest_source_title test moissonnage SELUNE
metadata_modified 2024-07-12T00:00:00
relation info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/hdl/2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09i8hj481h4
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