Wage Dispersion in Finland: Searching for Human Capital

Abstract

In Finland, shifts in compensation have been of a kind comparable to those in the United States, similar but with a moderate, increasing wage variance between plants, an increasing gap between average non-productive- and productive-worker wages, and an increasing share of non-production workers. In the boom period of 1995- 1998 the education premium rose. Despite the rise in individual heterogeneity, there has been no major increase in wage dispersion. The entire rise in wage dispersion has taken place between plants, while the education premium dispersion has risen mainly within plants. At the same time, the distribution of capital and Research and Development (R&D) investment across firms has worked in the direction of mitigating wage inequality.