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Decomposing Changes in Male Wage Distribution in Brazil

Income Inequality Around the World

ISBN: 978-1-78560-944-2, eISBN: 978-1-78560-943-5

Publication date: 27 August 2016

Abstract

Between 1995 and 2012, the wage distribution of male workers in Brazil shifted to the right and became less dispersed. This paper attempts to identify the reasons for that movement in male wage distribution, focusing on the impact of education expansion on wage distribution. The Oaxaca-Blinder (OB) and Recentered Influence Function (RIF) decomposition results show that both changes in returns on skills and upgrades in the composition of work skills contribute to increases in the average wage and wages at the 10th and 50th percentiles. The shifts in returns to skills had a decreasing impact on wages at the 90th percentile and are identified as the primary force reducing wage inequality. Education expansion had an equalizing impact on wage distribution, primarily through the decline in return to education.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

We thank two anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper.

Citation

Wang, Y., Lustig, N. and Bartalotti, O. (2016), "Decomposing Changes in Male Wage Distribution in Brazil", Income Inequality Around the World (Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 44), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 49-78. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0147-912120160000044009

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited