工資差異、技術升級、特殊性人力資本與勞動移動之研究

Abstract

Using Taiwan`s industry-level panel data from 1988 to 1999, this paper examines the wage-gap between skilled and unskilled workers and the skill upgrading of industries by considering both underlying demand and supply factors. Regression results show that both demand and supply side factors matter. The closing of wage gap is from demand side by market-oriented production and trade structures that stabilize the relative demand for unskilled workers and from supply side that a widespread education in Taiwan for the past forty years has tremendously changed the quality structure of labor supply. The composition of lower education workers has dropped significantly, while that of higher education workers has increased. As for the skill upgrading, engaging more R&D activities and trading with more technologically advanced countries together with the increasing size of the supply of high skilled workers contribute to technology transfer and spillovers which ultimately lead to skill-upgrading of the domestic economy. The results of the paper also shed light on policy implications that help to close the wage gap and at the mean time upgrade domestic production skills.