Does education really help? : skill, work, and inequality / Edward N. Wolff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wolff, Edward N.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Labor supply--Effect of education on--United States.

Labor supply.

Labor supply--Effect of education on.

United States.

Occupational training--United States.

Occupational training.

Income distribution--United States.

Income distribution.

Physical Description:

xi, 308 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.

Summary:

This book challenges the conventional wisdom that greater schooling and skill improvement leads to higher wages, that income inequality falls with wider access to schooling, and that the Information Technology revolution will re-ignite worker pay. Indeed, the econometric results provide no evidence that the growth of skills or educational attainment has any statistically significant relation to earnings growth or that greater equality in schooling has led to a decline in income inequality. Results also indicate that computer investment is negatively related to earnings gains and positively associated with changes in both income inequality and the dispersion of worker skills. The findings reports here have direct relevance to ongoing policy debates on educational reform in the U.S.

Contents:

1 Postwar Trends in Income, Earnings, and Schooling 3

2 Technology and the Demand for Skills 32

3 Wages and Skills 72

4 Productivity and Skill Change 107

5 The Growth of the Information Economy 141

6 Skill Dispersion and Earnings Inequality 161

7 Skills and Changing Comparative Advantage 201

8 Conclusions and Policy Recommendations 227

Data Appendix 246.

Notes:

"A Century Foundation book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-297) and index.

ISBN:

0195189965

OCLC:

61353040

Publisher Number:

9780195189964

Online:

Publisher description