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The skill premium and the ‘Great Divergence’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

JAN LUITEN VAN ZANDEN
JAN LUITEN VAN ZANDEN*
Affiliation:
Utrecht University/International Institute of Social History, Cruquiusweg 31, 1019 AT Amsterdam, jvz@iisg.nl
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Abstract

This article analyses the long-term development of the skill premium in western Europe in a global perspective, on the basis of data on wages of skilled and unskilled construction workers in more than a dozen European countries and regions, and in a number of non-European countries such as India, China, Japan, Russia, Korea and Indonesia. It shows that already in the late medieval period the skill premium in western Europe had fallen sharply and became, from the fifteenth century onwards, much lower than in most other parts of the world economy. Only in southern China, and perhaps also in nineteenth-century Japan, did the skill premium fall to an equally low level. The explanation for these global patterns focuses on factor proportions, the quality of institutions and demand-related factors. Moreover, it is argued that the skill premium measured in this way is also a predictor of long-term economic performance.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review of Economic History , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 121 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © European Historical Economics Society 2009

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