技能偏向技術之變化在所得分配與不均度的影響

Abstract

此研究目標是分析技術變革對收入不平等的影響。為此，我建立動態一般均衡模型，該模型包含 2 個代表性家庭和一個代表性企業。企業使用三種投入：高技能勞動力、資本和低技能勞動力。此模型中，資本和高技能勞動力是互補的，但是資本和低技能勞動力是替代品。藉此模型，我推導出工資差距方程式。藉由此方程式，我透過反事實分析，拆解出了高技能勞動力偏向技術成長率在薪資差異的重要性，以及發現高技能勞動力的變化可以歸因於資本積累過程，其中包括技術進步在內，以及高技能勞動力供給的上升。

In the present research, my goal is to analyze the effects technological changes have over income inequality. To do this, I construct the bases of a Dynamic General Equilibrium model that incorporates 2 representative households and a representative firm that uses three inputs: skilled labor, capital and non-skilled labor. The central element is that capital and skilled labor are complementary and capital and non-skilled labor are substitutes. Later on, through the marginal productivities’ theory as a base, I derive a expected wage gap. By doing this, I pretend to isolate the skilled-labor productivity growth during the last twenty years. With this series, I proceed to construct counterfactuals holding constant to a given level some of the variables which determined the skilled-labor productivity. By doing this I am able to identify which are the main contributors of the dynamics observed in the skilled-labor productivity. Some seasonal phenomena are observed and after controlling these, I am able to conclude that the rise of skilled-labor productivity can be attributed to the capital accumulation process which internally includes technological outbreaks; and a rapid increase in the skilled-labor supply.\nThe thesis is distributed in six major sections that can be broadly describe as follow: in the first section I present the research question of this thesis, I will talk about the motivations of this research, its importance in the international status quo and present descriptive figures to understand the inequality problem. Furthermore, I give a brief introduction to the technology – inequality problem. In the second section, I present a literature review in which I describe more extensively the technology – inequality problem and some other papers describing in a broader way the technology – inequality problem asides of the skilled-biased hypothesis, this section is quite enlightening but puzzling as well. Enlightening due to the fact that a big variety of methodological approaches have been conducted internationally and for different time gaps; puzzling because, as we will see, the conclusions obtained can be contradictory in occasions, open to methodological improvements in others. In the third section I present the model constructed for this research. To be as clear as possible, I start from the basics of the modelling, proceeding to the basic description of the two representative households (agents) used and the representative firms with all its special features. This section isolates the skilled-labor productivity to later on estimate it with available data. In the fourth section I start with a data description, its sources and some methodological treatments done to data. Continuing in this section I estimate the desired series and proceed with some counterfactual calculations of skilled-labor productivity and over income and consumption gaps endogenously determined by the model. In the fifth section, I present the conclusions derived from the exercise earlier done and some general conclusions regarding the entire research done. Finally, some further comments about the present research are done and the bases to continue and improve this study are cemented in the Appendix. Of how to construct a more realistic model and some further analysis that could be done with the present model.