Skills and Capital Over Time and Across Countries

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Caselli
Keyword(s):  
Technical Change ◽  
Relative Efficiency ◽  
The United States ◽  
Elasticity Of Substitution ◽  
Positive Trend ◽  
Technology Choice ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Skill Bias ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Using Data

This chapter examines whether the trends in skill bias observed in the United States are common to other economies and extends the time series analysis to include capital. It first estimates, for each country, the skill bias from data on the relative supply of skills and the relative wages of skilled workers before constructing labor supply in units of equivalent unskilled workers. Finally, it calculates the augmentation coefficients using data on overall labor and capital shares. The results show that skill-biased technical change is a remarkably global phenomenon and that every country registers a positive trend in the relative efficiency of skilled labor. When the elasticity of substitution between two inputs is less than 1, technology choice shifts toward the input that becomes more scarce.

Skilled Labor, Unskilled Labor, and Experience Over Time

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Caselli
Keyword(s):  
Technical Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Elasticity Of Substitution ◽  
Relative Wage ◽  
Unskilled Labor ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Skill Bias ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Joint Behavior ◽  
Over Time

This chapter examines what the joint behavior of relative wage and relative supply reveal about the underlying changes in technology, with a focus on the United States. It distinguishes workers by two characteristics: skill and experience. It classifies the labor force into four kinds of workers: experienced skilled workers, inexperienced skilled workers, experienced unskilled workers, and inexperienced unskilled workers. The equation takes into account the quantities of unskilled inexperienced inputs, unskilled experienced inputs, skilled inexperienced inputs, and skilled experienced inputs, as well as the elasticity of substitution between unskilled inexperienced and unskilled experienced workers, and skilled inexperienced and skilled experienced ones. The results confirm many previous findings of a significant skill bias in technical change between 1960 and 2010, and also reveal an experience bias in technical change over roughly the same period, especially among skilled workers and since the 1980s.

Technology Differences over Space and Time

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Caselli
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Technical Change ◽  
Technology Choice ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Production Factors ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Flexible Framework ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
Over Time

This book examines how countries use their productive resources—such as workers, skills, equipment and structures, and natural resources. It develops methods to assess the efficiency with which productive inputs are used, and how these efficiencies vary across countries and over time. The book finds that richer countries use skilled workers relatively more efficiently than unskilled workers, and equipment and structures relatively more efficiently than natural resources. They also are relatively more efficient users of labor than of capital. Technological change tends to make countries particularly efficient at using skills and less efficient at using capital. Technical change also favors experienced workers. In order to interpret and understand these findings, the book presents a theory of technology choice. In this theory, firms pick technologies that make the most efficient use of the most abundant production factors when these factors are good substitutes for the less abundant factors. Firms pick technologies that make the most of less abundant factors when other suitable factors are not available for substitution. For example, rich countries, where skilled workers are abundant, use skilled workers efficiently, as these are good substitutes for unskilled workers. This flexible framework can be applied to other pairs of inputs, over time, and across countries. The book has significant implications not only for the theoretical understanding of development and technological innovation, but also for government formulation of industrial policy and multinationals making decisions about what to invest in and where to make those investments.

Skilled and Unskilled Labor

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Caselli
Keyword(s):  
Relative Efficiency ◽  
Wage Rate ◽  
School Quality ◽  
Elasticity Of Substitution ◽  
Perfect Competition ◽  
Relative Wage ◽  
Unskilled Labor ◽  
Skilled Worker ◽  
Skill Bias ◽  
Skilled And Unskilled Labor

This chapter examines how skilled and unskilled labor vary across countries by taking into account the wage rate for skilled labor and the wage rate for unskilled labor, based on the assumption that labor markets approximate conditions of perfect competition. The equation to be used implies that the relative wage of a skilled worker is decreasing with the relative supply of skills. However, for a given supply of skills the relative wage also depends on the relative efficiency with which skills are used. The chapter first estimates the skill bias, the relative supply of skills, and the skill premium before deriving a calibrated value for the elasticity of substitution. It then presents the key empirical results for the skill bias in technology across countries and goes on to discuss alternative skill thresholds. It also considers the implications of differences in school quality and the implications of capital–skill complementarity.

scholarly journals US particulate matter air quality improves except in wildfire-prone areas

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (31) ◽  
pp. 7901-7906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crystal D. McClure ◽  
Daniel A. Jaffe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Particulate Matter ◽  
Fine Particulate Matter ◽  
The United States ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Positive Trend ◽  
Modis Aod ◽  
Moderate Resolution ◽  
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ◽  
Using Data

Using data from rural monitoring sites across the contiguous United States, we evaluated fine particulate matter (PM2.5) trends for 1988–2016. We calculate trends in the policy-relevant 98th quantile of PM2.5 using Quantile Regression. We use Kriging and Gaussian Geostatistical Simulations to interpolate trends between observed data points. Overall, we found positive trends in 98th quantile PM2.5 at sites within the Northwest United States (average 0.21 ± 0.12 µg·m−3·y−1; ±95% confidence interval). This was in contrast with sites throughout the rest of country, which showed a negative trend in 98th quantile PM2.5, likely due to reductions in anthropogenic emissions (average −0.66 ± 0.10 µg·m−3·y−1). The positive trend in 98th quantile PM2.5 is due to wildfire activity and was supported by positive trends in total carbon and no trend in sulfate across the Northwest. We also evaluated daily moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol optical depth (AOD) for 2002–2017 throughout the United States to compare with ground-based trends. For both Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) PM2.5 and MODIS AOD datasets, we found positive 98th quantile trends in the Northwest (1.77 ± 0.68% and 2.12 ± 0.81% per year, respectively) through 2016. The trend in Northwest AOD is even greater if data for the high-fire year of 2017 are included. These results indicate a decrease in PM2.5 over most of the country but a positive trend in the 98th quantile PM2.5 across the Northwest due to wildfires.

scholarly journals Unpacking Skill Bias: Automation and New Tasks

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 356-361
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu ◽  
Pascual Restrepo
Keyword(s):  
Technical Change ◽  
Canonical Model ◽  
Skill Premium ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Skill Bias ◽  
The Past ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Productivity Gains ◽  
Industry Level Data

We extend the canonical model of skill-biased technical change by modeling the allocation of tasks to factors and allowing for automation and the creation of new tasks. In our model, factor prices depend on the set of tasks they perform. Automation can reduce real wages and generate sizable changes in inequality associated with small productivity gains. New tasks can increase or reduce inequality depending on whether they are performed by skilled or unskilled workers. Industry-level data suggest that automation significantly contributed to the rising skill premium, while new tasks reduced inequality in the past but have contributed to inequality recently.

scholarly journals The extent of upskilling of the argentine labor market: a simple analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (56) ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Alexis S. Esposto ◽  
Luis Federico Giménez
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Demand ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Skilled Labor ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Simple Analysis ◽  
Job Growth ◽  
Skill Requirement ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Using Data

Over the last three decades the labor market of most developed countries have experienced a sustained period of upskilling. This means an overall increase in the skill requirement of jobs determined by the demand for skilled labor. This suggests that their labor demand has become more skill intensive, shifting towards skilled workers relatively to unskilled workers. An analysis of job growth of the Argentine labor market between 1997 and 2009 using data from the EPH, evidences a process of deskilling over this period, with serious implications in terms of competitiveness and about issues related to increasing social and economic inequality.

GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD? THE COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCY OF MINORITY DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (01) ◽  
pp. 2050002
Author(s):  
GREGORY B. FAIRCHILD ◽  
YOUNG KIM ◽  
MEGAN E. JUELFS ◽  
ARON BETRU
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Relative Efficiency ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Depository Institutions ◽  
Comparative Efficiency ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Racial Ethnic

We examine the relative efficiency of a unique set of banks, Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs). MDIs are led by minorities and typically serve minority populations. Given Social Economic Status (SES) skews across racial/ethnic groups in the United States, operation within minority communities appear, prima facie, to be relatively expensive and thus inefficient. We examine the return on assets (ROA) and small business lending efficiency of MDIs when compared to what we categorize as “non-MDI” depositories, ceteris paribus. We also examine these institutions for a period that includes a recent environmental shock, the 2008 financial crisis and the post-recessionary period. Using data from the Reports of Condition and Income (call reports) for a substantial set of FDIC-insured banks in the United States, we apply a data envelopment analysis (DEA) to determine how a set of MDIs perform relative to comparable institutions. Recognizing that MDIs are not homogeneous, we also examine relative efficiency across types of MDIs by racial/ethnic grouping. The results indicate that MDIs are not less efficient systematically and that there are differences across MDI types.

The Police and the First May Day Strike for the Eight-Hour Day

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Mitrani
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Police Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Chicago Police Department ◽  
May Day ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Common Problems ◽  
Chicago Police ◽  
Skilled And Unskilled Workers

This chapter examines how the Chicago Police Department dealt with the first May Day Strike of 1867 demanding employers to adopt the eight-hour day. In the period after the Civil War, a new working class emerged in the United States. By the 1860s, this working class was coalescing both because an increasing number of people worked for wages and because those wage workers were increasingly coming together in a variety of collective ways to address their common problems. Chicago was a key center of both aspects of working-class formation; workers both formed unions and pushed for legislative reform. The division between skilled and unskilled workers was the central dividing line in the Chicago labor movement throughout this period, and it largely correlated with ethnicity. This chapter first considers labor's reaction to the growth of a wage labor economy that stripped even skilled workers of their independence before providing an overview of the May Day March that saw the Chicago Police Department confront large crowds of angry workers calling for the implementation of the eight-hour law.

scholarly journals Changes in Unemployment and Wage Inequality: An Alternative Theory and Some Evidence

1999 ◽  
Vol 89 (5) ◽  
pp. 1259-1278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Technical Change ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
Qualitative Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Single Type ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
The Past

I present a model where firms decide what types of jobs to create and then search for suitable workers. When there are few skilled workers and the skilled-unskilled productivity gap is small, firms create a single type of job and recruit all workers. An increase in the proportion of skilled workers or skill-biased technical change can create a qualitative change in the composition of jobs, increasing the demand for skills, wage inequality, and unemployment. I provide some evidence that there has been a change in the composition of jobs in the United States during the past two decades. (JEL E24, J31, J64)

Migration and the Internet

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas John Cooke ◽  
Ian Shuttleworth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Unobserved Heterogeneity ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Using Data ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Dynamics Models

It is widely presumed that information and communication technologies, or ICTs, enable migration in several ways; primarily by reducing the costs of migration. However, a reconsideration of the relationship between ICTs and migration suggests that ICTs may just as well hinder migration; primarily by reducing the costs of not moving.  Using data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics, models that control for sources of observed and unobserved heterogeneity indicate a strong negative effect of ICT use on inter-state migration within the United States. These results help to explain the long-term decline in internal migration within the United States.

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