Educational Upgrading and Returns to Skills in Latin America: Evidence from a Supply-Demand Framework

23 Pages Posted: 13 Nov 2017 Last revised: 13 Feb 2022

See all articles by Sebastian Galiani

Sebastian Galiani

University of Maryland - Department of Economics

Guillermo Cruces

Universidad Nacional de La Plata - Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS); IZA

Pablo Acosta

World Bank

Leonardo Gasparini

Universidad Nacional de La Plata - Faculty of Economics

Date Written: November 2017

Abstract

This paper documents the evolution of wage differentials and the supply of workers by educational level for sixteen Latin American countries over the period 1991-2013. We find a pattern of rather constant rise in the relative supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers over the period. Whereas the returns to secondary education fell over time, in contrast, the returns to tertiary education display a remarkable changing pattern common to almost all economies: significant increase in the 1990s, strong fall in the 2000s and a deceleration of that fall in the 2010s. We conclude that supply-side factors seem to have limited explanatory power relative to demand-side factors in accounting for changes in the wage gap between workers with tertiary education and the rest.

Suggested Citation

Galiani, Sebastian and Cruces, Guillermo and Acosta, Pablo and Gasparini, Leonardo, Educational Upgrading and Returns to Skills in Latin America: Evidence from a Supply-Demand Framework (November 2017). NBER Working Paper No. w24015, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3070039

Sebastian Galiani (Contact Author)

University of Maryland - Department of Economics ( email )

College Park, MD 20742
United States

Guillermo Cruces

Universidad Nacional de La Plata - Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS) ( email )

Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y
Sociales, Calle 6 e/47 y 48
La Plata, Provincia de Buenos Aires 1900
Argentina

HOME PAGE: http://cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar

IZA

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Pablo Acosta

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Leonardo Gasparini

Universidad Nacional de La Plata - Faculty of Economics ( email )

1900 La Plata
Argentina

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