Internationally comparable wage data are scarce. In this paper, we present a novel data set with annual wages for 162 occupations from 188 countries between 1953 and 2008.
We show that between countries, differences in the wages paid for comparable work have increased.

Within countries, wage premia for skilled occupations have declined considerably in many countries, most notably in lower income countries.

We present a simple model of human capital accumulation, and show that the model can account for key features of the evolution of wage structures.

Overall, the results suggest that convergence in the levels of human capital across countries has been a driver of wage structure convergence over the past six decades. Joint work with Remco H. Oostendorp