Product market competition, returns to skill, and wage inequality

This article examines the effect of product market competition on firms' willingness to pay for workers of different skills. Using a panel of UK workers and two different quasi-natural experiments, I show that returns to skill within an industry increase with competition. I also investigate the mechanisms behind this relationship: in addition to the indirect effects that operate through union bargaining and skill-biased technical change, there is evidence for a direct effect of competition beyond those channels. I provide an explanation for this finding based on the relationship between competition and the sensitivity of profits to cost reductions.