Abstract

ARANGO, Luis Eduardo; POSADA, Carlos Esteban  and  URIBE, José Darío. Changes in the structure of urban wages in Colombia, 1984-2000. Lect. Econ. [online]. 2005, n.63, pp.9-42. ISSN 0120-2596.

Between 1984 and 2000 important variations were registered in the relationship of the wages between workers of higher and lower education levels that altered the degree of inequality in the distribution of labor income. Between 1992 and 1998 there was an increase in the above mentioned relationship that probably contributed to an explanation of the reversion in the previous trend of income deconcentration. Our estimates indicate that such movements of wages were caused by changes in the relationship between demand and supply of workers with different education levels, in accordance with the conventional model of wage determination. Moreover, we do not reject the hypothesis of the occurrence of an intensive technical change in the use of workers with higher education levels during the nineties, whose effect on demand was so high that it could not be compensated by the increases in supply.

Keywords : Relative wages; demand and supply of qualified labor; CES production function; biased technical change.

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