On the impact of the TFP growth on the employment rate: does training on-the-job matter?

TFP growth, unemployment, training, human capital depreciation, capitalization, creative destruction effect

The impact of technological and organizatioanl changes on labor flows. Evidence on French establishments

This paper investigates the effect of organizational and technological changes on job stability of different occupations in France. We first develop a basic matching model with endogenous job destsruction. It provides a structure to the empirical analysis, where we extensively exploit a unique data set on a representative sample of French establishments. The adoption of information technologies is positively correlated to labor flows of blue collar workers while most of the new workplace organizational practices positively influence the managers’ turnover.

Unemployment and Endogenous Growth with Capital-Skill Complementarity

We construct an endogenous growth intertemporal general equilibrium model with two types of jobs and two types of workers. We allow for job competition between high- and low skilled workers on the low-skilled segment of the labor market and for on-the-job search for high skilled workers. Matching processes are represented by matching functions à la Pissarides. Workers search intensities are endogenous. We distinguish between embodied and disembodied technological progress and endogenize them through a learning by doing process based on capital accumulation. Social returns to capital are imposed to be constant. Biased technological change is introduced via embodied technical progress and new technologies-skill complementarity relationship. The model reproduces quite well the producivity slowdown puzzle, the unemployment rate evolutions and the relative wage stability observed over the last decades. It suggests strong interactions between embodied technological progress, biased technological change, discouragement effects on job competition.skill mismatch, equilibrium unemployment, ladder effect, macro dynamics, endogneous growth, productivity slowdown, learning by doing

Low-Skilled Unemployment, Capital-Skill Complementarity and Embodied Technical Progress

We construct an intertemporal general equilibrium model with two types of jobs and two types of workers. We allow for job competition between high- and low-skilled segment of the labour market and for on-the-job search. Matching processes are represented by matching functions à la Pissarides. Workers search intensities are endogenous. Biased technological change is introduced via embodied technical progress and a capital-skill complementarity. The model is calibrated and simulated to evaluate the impact of various types of shocks. The model reproduces quite well the unemployment rate changes and the relative wage stability observed over the last two decades. It suggests strong interactions between biased technological change, discouragement effects and job competition.Skill mismatch; equilibrium unemployment; ladder effect; macro dynamics

Technological and organizational changes, and labor flows: evidence on French establishments

This paper investigates the effects of organizational and technological changes on job stability of different occupational categories in France. We conduct an empirical analysis in which we make extensive use of a unique data set on a representative sample of French establishments. Working with various indicators of labor flows (gross labor flows, hiring rate, firing rate, net labor flows and churning flows), we find that the use of new technology seems to have a positive effect on aggregate job turnover and, more specifically, turnover among manual workers. In contrast, innovative workplace organizational practices are related to lower turnover among clerical workers and intermediate professionals and have a positive effect on churning among manager

Does the growth process discriminate against older workers?

This paper seeks to gain insights on the relationship between growth and unemployment, when considering heterogeneous agents in terms of age. We introduce life cycle features in the endogenous job destruction framework à la Mortensen and Pissarides (1998). We show that, under the assumption of homogeneous productivity among workers, firms tend to fire older workers more often than young ones, when deciding whether to update or not a technology: there is an equilibrium where the creative destruction effect dominates over the capitalization effect for old workers, whereas the capitalization effect dominates for young workers. This discrimination against older workers can be moderated when we introduce heterogeneity (in terms of productivity) among workers. We also provide empirical support for these theoretical findings using OECD panel data and numerical simulations of the model

The Spanish productivity puzzle in the Great Recession

Desde mediados de los años noventa hasta 2007, la economía española presentó tasas de crecimiento de la productividad inferiores a las de otros países de Europa, como Alemania, Francia o el Reino Unido. Esa tendencia, sin embargo, cambió con la llegada de la crisis. La evolución de la productividad agregada en España durante la Gran Recesión ha respondido en gran medida a las condiciones adversas del mercado de trabajo, pero no solo. Este trabajo utiliza una muestra longitudinal de empresas manufactureras y de servicios entre 1995 y 2012 y señala que el reciente aumento en la tasa de crecimiento de la productividad agregada española también responde a la evolución de la productividad total de los factores (PTF) y a efectos composición. Mediante la combinación de la información procedente de los balances contables, el tipo de convenio colectivo y las importacionesexportaciones, se documenta que el acceso a mercados externos y el hecho de disponer de un convenio colectivo a nivel de empresa están positivamente correlacionados con el nivel medio de la PTF de la empresa durante todo el período. Además, las estimaciones indican que la PTF presentó una correlación negativa con la proporción de trabajadores temporales durante el período de expansión —1995-2007—, mientras que el signo de esa correlación se invirtió entre 2008 y 2012. Por último, el cambio en el signo de la correlación parece estar relacionado con la diferente composición de los trabajadores temporales que continúan empleadosWhile Spain has traditionally underperformed its European peers in terms of labor productivity, the trend reverses after 2007. The evolution of aggregate productivity in Spain during the Great Recession is shaped largely, albeit not exclusively, by the adverse conditions in the labor market. Using a longitudinal sample of Spanish manufacturing and services companies between 1995 and 2012, we show that the recent increase in Spanish aggregate productivity is also responsive to the behavior of total factor productivity (TFP) and to composition effects. By combining the information at fi rm level on balance sheet items, collective agreements and imports-exports, we are able to establish that a collective agreement at the fi rm level and access to external markets are positively related to TFP performance during the whole period. In addition, our estimates indicate that fi rm TFP was negatively correlated to the proportion of temporary workers during the expansionary period, 1995-2007, whereas the sign of that correlation reversed during the crisis, 2008-2012. Finally, we relate this sign reversal to the changing composition of temporary workers in the labor marke

Changes in the skill structure of the labour force. An empirical application to the Spanish case

Over the past two decades the Spanish economy, as well as many other economies, has known a process of skill upgrading in its labour force. Although many previous studies on this phenomena took as reference non production workers, the present study focus on high skilled labour force. Most of the variation in this qualified labour force has been within industries which points to internal reorganization of firms as the origin of this shift. To analyze the impact of physical and technological capital introduction on the wage share of skilled workers, a regression format based on the translog cost function has been used. Results show the positive influence that both stocks have had on the share of skilled. Furthermore, they are able to explain by their own most of the observed change in this shareWithin and between industrial effect, capital-skill complementarity, education expenditures

Optimal time switching from tayloristic to holistic workplace organization

The introduction of information and communication technologies over the past decades has fostered a process of internal workplace reorganization of firms who have tried to maximize their performance. Using a two stage optimal control technique, this paper provides analytical solutions to the conditions under which an economy decides to adopt a new organizational regime characterized by multitasking and an horizontal hierarchical structure (holistic organization). We consider two flexibility options : a) the possibility that only a part of the labor force is shifted to the modern wokrplace organization and, b) the possibility that the loss of productivity is not permanent. In all cases we conclude that the modern organization is adopted if and only if the productivity gains in the capital-goods sector compensate both the loss of expertise suffered by workers and he drop in consumption.