Off and Running? Technology, Trade, and the Rising Demand for Skilled Workers in Latin America

Abstract

Sanchez-Paramo and Schady describe the evolution of different countries, which is consistent with skill-biased relative wages in five Latin American countries-technological change.Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.They o Trade appears to be an important transmission use repeated cross-sections of household surveys, and mechanism.Increases in the demand for the most skilled decompose the evolution of relative wages into factors workers took place at a time when countries in Latin associated with changes in relative supply and relative America considerably increased the penetration of demand.The authors have three main conclusions: imports, including imports of capital goods.o Increases in the relative wages of the most skilled The authors show that changes in the volume and (university-educated) workers took place concurrently research and development intensity of imports are with increases in their relative abundance in all of the significantly related to changes in the demand for more countries except Brazil.This is strong evidence of skilled workers in Latin America.Their research increases in the demand for skilled workers.complements earlier work on the effects of technology o Increases in the wage bill of skilled workers occurred transmitted through trade on productivity and on the largely within sectors, and in the same sectors in demand for skilled labor.