The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality

We build an endogenous growth model with automation (the replacement of low-skill workers with machines) and horizontal innovation (the creation of new products). Over time, the share of automation innovations endogenously increases through an increase in low-skill wages, leading to an increase in the skill premium and a decline in the labor share. We calibrate the model to the US economy and show that it quantitatively replicates the paths of the skill premium, the labor share, and labor productivity. Our model offers a new perspective on recent trends in the income distribution by showing that they can be explained endogenously. (JEL D31, E25, J24, J31, O33, O41)

Workplace Heterogeneity and the Returns to Versatility

In the canonical random on-the-job search model with continuous firm heterogeneity, I show that a mean-preserving spread of the firm-productivity distribution raises the returns to mobility, i.e., the inter-firm mobility of workers as measured by the number of outside contacts per employment spell. Both sorting and rent-share mechanisms play a role. In a further contribution, I distinguish frictional and structural impediments to mobility in order to establish a link between mobility and skills via the concept of versatility. Versatility enhances a person’s mobility since a mismatch between job requirements and the person’s skill set is less likely to occur. I provide some statistics in support of the discussed mechanisms. The findings are particularly intriguing in light of the concurrent rise in the productivity dispersion across firms and in the skill premium in many countries.

Revisiting Capital-Skill Complementarity, Inequality, and Labor Share

This paper revisits capital-skill complementarity and inequality, as in Krusell, Ohanian, Rios-Rull and Violante (KORV, 2000). Using their methodology, we study how well the KORV model accounts for more recent data, including the large changes in the labor's share of income that were not present in KORV. We study both labor share of gross income (as in KORV), and income net of depreciation. We also use nonfarm business sector output as an alternative measure of production to real GDP. We find strong evidence for continued capital-skill complementarity in the most recent data, and we also find that the model continues to closely account for the skill premium. The model captures the average level of labor share, though it overpredicts its level by 2-4 percentage points at the end of the period.

Trade, skill premium and the gender wage gap: Evidence from manufacturing industries

The paper assesses the impact of trade liberalization on the labour market by focusing on skill wage premium. The paper tests these effects by developing a monopolistic competition model with two factors of production characterized by their skill levels (skilled and unskilled labour). The paper finds that tariff’s level reductions cause a moderate increase in the wage gap. Thus, our analysis shows that a 10% decrease in tariffs is accompanied by a 16.1 % increase in the skill premium. Also, the same level of tariffs’ cut will on average increase the gender wage gap by 26.8%. The study implies that trade liberalization tends to benefit more workers in the skilled labour market compared to workers in the unskilled labour market.

Structural Change, Economic Development, and the Labour Market

This chapter addresses the relationship between structural change and the income distribution. It raises the question of whether structural change increases or decreases income inequality. The chapter presents a multi-sectoral model in the so-called canonical modelling tradition. In this model the distributional outcomes depend on the mix of the labour supply in different technology classes and skill biases in technological change. Whether structural change has an effect depends on the specific country. When it does have an effect, it mainly benefits high-skilled labour. The skill premium for high-skilled labour thus contributes to increased income inequality. Both the relative supply of skills and skill-based technological change tend to increase income inequality, though not in all countries.