Premium
Rising Wage Inequality, Returns to Education and Labour Market Institutions: Evidence from Ireland
Author(s) -
Barrett Alan,
Callan Tim,
Nolan Brian
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
british journal of industrial relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.665
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-8543
pISSN - 0007-1080
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8543.00119
Subject(s) - earnings , economics , labour economics , distribution (mathematics) , wage , wage dispersion , inequality , dispersion (optics) , demographic economics , efficiency wage , mathematical analysis , physics , mathematics , accounting , optics
Institutional factors and increased supply of skilled labour have been advanced in an effort to explain why some countries have experienced smaller increases in earnings dispersion and in returns to education than the USA and the UK. Ireland has had a highly centralized wage bargaining structure and the supply of skilled labour has increased sharply in recent years; hence, relatively little change in earnings dispersion might be expected. We compare the distribution of earnings in Ireland in 1987 and 1994 and find a surprisingly large growth in earnings dispersion. In addition, using a decomposition technique, we find that much of this is accounted for by increasing returns to measured.