Abstract

The proportion of UK people with university degrees tripled between 1993 and 2015. However, over the same period the time trend in the college wage premium has been extraordinarily flat. We show that these patterns cannot be explained by composition changes. Instead, we present a model in which firms choose between centralized and decentralized organizational forms and demonstrate that it can explain the main patterns. We also show the model has implications that differentiate it from both the exogenous skill-biased technological change model and the endogenous invention model, and that UK data fit with those implications. The result is a consistent picture of the transformation of the UK labour market in the last two decades.

中文翻译：

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英国作为技术追随者：高等教育扩张和大学工资溢价

摘要

1993 年至 2015 年间，英国拥有大学学位的人数增加了两倍。然而，同期大学工资溢价的时间趋势却异常平稳。我们表明，这些模式不能用成分变化来解释。相反，我们提出了一个模型，其中公司在集中式和分散式组织形式之间进行选择，并证明它可以解释主要模式。我们还展示了该模型具有区别于外生技能偏向技术变革模型和内生发明模型的含义，并且英国数据符合这些含义。其结果是英国劳动力市场在过去二十年中的转变的一致画面。