The Spanish technical change : a regional and a dynamic analysis (1994-2007)

Abstract

Studying wage dispersion, many researchers have found that the skill premium (the ratio of skilled workers¿ wages to unskilled ones) has increased after 1979 in many developed countries, when there was a very sharp increase in the supply of skilled workers. The recent consensus is that technical change favours skilled workers, replacing tasks previously performed by the unskilled and exacerbating inequality. In the Spanish case, Nuñez and Alfaro (2009) have found evidences of a decline in the wage premium during the nineties. So, in this paper, we distinguish between skilled and unskilled workers differentiating the efficiency units of both types of workers. Moreover, we calculate the Spanish technology frontier and the technology differences between the Spanish Regions in 2006 and we analyze the evolution of the Spanish technology frontier over 1994-2007, testing the kind of technical change. In addition, a coherent Spanish wage micro-data base is achieved, using data from Eurostat: ECHP and EU-SILC.