scholarly journals Do Recessions Accelerate Routine-Biased Technological Change? Evidence from Vacancy Postings

2018 ◽  
Vol 108 (7) ◽  
pp. 1737-1772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad Hershbein ◽  
Lisa B. Kahn
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Wage Growth ◽  
Relative Wage ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Biased Technological Change ◽  
Job Vacancy ◽  
Skill Requirements

We show that skill requirements in job vacancy postings differentially increased in MSAs that were hit hard by the Great Recession, relative to less hard-hit areas. These increases persist through at least the end of 2015 and are correlated with increases in capital investments, both at the MSA and firm levels. We also find that effects are most pronounced in routine-cognitive occupations, which exhibit relative wage growth as well. We argue that this evidence is consistent with the restructuring of production toward routine-biased technologies and the more-skilled workers that complement them, and that the Great Recession accelerated this process. (JEL E24, E32, J24, J31, J63, L23, O33)

The dollar, trade, technology and inequality in the USA

1998 ◽  
Vol 166 ◽  
pp. 78-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Anderton ◽  
Paul Brenton
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Relative Wage ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Wage Bill ◽  
Sudden Rise ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Trade Competitiveness ◽  
The Impact ◽  
High Skill

The US experienced a considerable increase in inequality between skilled and less-skilled workers during the early 1980s—a period which corresponds with a large temporary appreciation of the dollar. This article investigates the reasons behind this rise in inequality by evaluating the impact of trade with low-wage countries (LWCs) and technological change on the wage bill share of skilled workers (which is designed to capture movements in inequality arising from changes in both the relative wage and employment opportunities of the less-skilled). We find that an increase in US imports from LWCs—encouraged by the large appreciation of the dollar in the early 1980s—seems to explain some of the rise in US inequality in low-skill-intensive sectors, but that technological change (proxied by R&D expenditure) explains the rise in inequality in high-skill-intensive sectors. However, given that the timing of the sudden rise in US R&D expenditure corresponds with the appreciation of the dollar, it may be the case that the deterioration in US trade competitiveness during this period contributed to the rapid increase in the rate of technological change via mechanisms such as ‘defensive innovation’. Hence one might also argue that the technology-based explanation for the rise in US inequality could actually be a trade-based explanation.

scholarly journals What Employers Want from Interns: Demand-Side Trends in the Internship Market

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Shandra
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Career Transition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Entry Level ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Education Experience ◽  
College Career ◽  
Skill Requirements

Internships have become a ubiquitous component of the college-career transition, yet empirical evidence of the internship market is limited. This study uses data from 1.3 million internship postings collected between 2007-2016 in the United States to (1) identify trends in internship education, experience, and skill requirements over the Great Recession and recovery periods; (2) evaluate how these trends correspond to those observed in the traditional labor market; and (3) assess robustness across labor market sectors. Results indicate that internship education and skill requirements increased substantially throughout the recession and recovery periods, indicative of a longer-term structural shift in employer expectations about internship hiring. Additionally, growth in internship education and skill requirements largely outpaced growth in non-internship education and skill requirements over the same period, suggesting potential substitution of non-interns with interns. Post-recession employers still consider internships to be entry-level positions—yet now expect interns to have skills in hand.

scholarly journals DIRECTED TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE: A KNOWLEDGE-BASED MODEL

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tailong Li ◽  
Shiyuan Pan ◽  
Heng-fu Zou
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Scale Effects ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Developed Country ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Biased Technological Change ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Directed Technological Change

In a knowledge-based growth model where skilled workers are used in innovation and production, skill-biased technological change may lower average R&D productivity via an innovation possibilities frontier effect that eliminates scale effects. We show that skill-biased technological change increases the skill premium even if the elasticity of substitution between skilled and unskilled workers is less than two. Trade between developed countries promotes skill-biased technological change, thus raising wage inequality. Trade between developed and developing countries has differing effects: it induces relatively skill-replacing technological change and lowers wage inequality in the developed country but has the opposite effects in the developing country. Finally, we show that trade can stimulate or hurt economic growth.

The Effect of Labor Market Institutions on Salaried and Self-Employed Less-Educated Men in the 1980S

ILR Review ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Krashinsky
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Real Wage ◽  
Wage Growth ◽  
Labor Market Institutions ◽  
Market Institutions ◽  
Biased Technological Change ◽  
Real Value ◽  
Market Trends

Less-educated workers exhibited negative real wage growth from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Frequently cited to explain this pattern are such labor market trends as union decline and the falling real value of the minimum wage, but also of concern is the possible contribution of decreased demand, caused by factors such as skill-biased technological change. To investigate the relative importance of these determinants, the author, using CPS data, compares the experiences of wage-and-salary workers with those of the self-employed. Wages apparently declined little for less-educated self-employed workers, but greatly for similar wage-and-salary workers. Because self-employed workers are affected by the same demand shocks as wage-and-salary workers but are not subject to labor market institutions such as the minimum wage or labor unions, the author concludes that the main source of the observed negative real wage growth was the decline of labor market institutions, not skill-biased technological change.

The Skill Shortage in German Establishments Before, During and After the Great Recession

2014 ◽  
Vol 234 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lutz Bellmann ◽  
Olaf Hübler
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Working Time ◽  
Firm Characteristics ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

SummaryThis paper investigates the development of skill shortages during the period 2007-2012. Using the German Establishment Panel of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), we find differences across the years before, during and after the Great Recession. Furthermore, we analyze the importance of firm characteristics and that of certain, specific measures with respect to the skill shortage.The empirical analysis reveals that the relative skill shortage in the service sector during the Great Recession was more substantial than before and after 2009. The opposite pattern is observed for working time accounts. Firms with a high share of female workers typically experience usually less difficulty in finding qualified employees to fill jobs. However, during the Great Recession, the opposite was observed. Young firms facing competitive pressure, high wages, and without working time accounts that did not hoard skilled workers in the past tend to skill shortage. The estimations confirm that apprenticeship and further training serve to reduce the number of unfilled, high-skill jobs. It is also helpful when the firm has developed a plan for its personnel requirements. Other measures such as retaining older workers or hiring foreign workers were not successful. Ultimately, a skill shortage within a firm is often only a short-term phenomenon and less often observed over a longer period.

scholarly journals Universal resilience patterns in labor markets

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Esteban Moro ◽  
Morgan R. Frank ◽  
Alex Pentland ◽  
Alex Rutherford ◽  
Manuel Cebrian ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Economic Resilience ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
Skill Requirements ◽  
Us Cities

AbstractCities are the innovation centers of the US economy, but technological disruptions can exclude workers and inhibit a middle class. Therefore, urban policy must promote the jobs and skills that increase worker pay, create employment, and foster economic resilience. In this paper, we model labor market resilience with an ecologically-inspired job network constructed from the similarity of occupations’ skill requirements. This framework reveals that the economic resilience of cities is universally and uniquely determined by the connectivity within a city’s job network. US cities with greater job connectivity experienced lower unemployment during the Great Recession. Further, cities that increase their job connectivity see increasing wage bills, and workers of embedded occupations enjoy higher wages than their peers elsewhere. Finally, we show how job connectivity may clarify the augmenting and deleterious impact of automation in US cities. Policies that promote labor connectivity may grow labor markets and promote economic resilience.

scholarly journals The lack of wage growth and the falling NAIRU

2018 ◽  
Vol 245 ◽  
pp. R40-R55 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N.F. Bell ◽  
David G. Blanchflower
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Phillips Curve ◽  
Wage Growth ◽  
Considerable Part ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Wage Equations

In this note, we argue that a considerable part of the explanation for the benign wage growth in the advanced world is the rise in underemployment. In the years after 2008 the unemployment rate understates labour market slack. Underemployment is more important than unemployment in explaining the weakness of wage growth in the UK. The Phillips curve in the UK has now to be rewritten into wage underemployment space. Underemployment now enters wage equations while the unemployment rate does not. There is every reason to believe that the NAIRU has fallen sharply since the Great Recession. In our view the NAIRU in the UK may well be nearer to 3 per cent, and even below it, than around 5 per cent, which other commentators including the MPC and the OBR believe.

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