Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to offer an empirical investigation of the real wage differential between skilled labors and unskilled labors. The main data set for thesis comes from individual-level employee data over the period 1998-2012.Following the Mincer earnings function, we examine the impacts of R&D and globalization on labors’ earnings in Taiwan's manufacturing sector. The results show that R&D and FDI have positive significant effects on the wages of skilled labors in the manufacturing sector. It implies that R&D and globalization would increase wage inequality. We next examine whether the effects of R&D and globalization on wage inequality vary across industries with different capital intensities. We first categorize industries in Taiwan's manufacturing sector into two groups, "capital-intensive industry" and "labor-intensive industry. We find that R&D investments would increase wage inequality in labor-intensive industry. Moreover, Both R&D and FDI investments would increase wage inequality in labor-intensive industry.