Resumen de Wage Inequality in Spain, 1980-2000: the case of male head-of-household

Manuel Hidalgo-Pérez

• I use quantile regression to simulate counterfactual densities to decompose Spanish wage inequality evolution over the period 1980- 2000 into changes due to observable prices, labour market composition and prices of non-observable worker characteristics. Our empirical results are threefold: first, wage inequality follows a counter-cyclical trend from the mid-eighties onwards; second, changes in both prices and composition play an important role in this evolution; and third, changes in observable prices mirror this behaviour above and below the median, while, non-observable inequality below the median increases from 1985 onwards, following a different trend above it. Finally some tentative explanations are given.