revised version published in: Journal of Economic Studies, 2023, 50 (6), 1281-1296
Wage inequality is a highly debated topic in policy and academic circles. Policy makers typically consider that a policy promoting the equalization of education levels among the individuals of a society – pushing everybody towards tertiary education – is a good strategy to fight wage inequality. Academics are more pessimistic. This article stresses that a policy of "tertiary education for all" does not necessarily reduce the overall level of wage inequality. It may reduce wage inequality due to differences in education levels among individuals, but it may also increase wage inequality due to differences in unobserved abilities among individuals.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.