Technology and employment. Twelve stylized facts for the digital age

Twelve stylized facts on the relationship between technology and employment are proposed in this paper as a summary of current trends, conceptual issues, methodological approaches and research results. They include the following: 1. Technology is shaped by social relations; 2. Technology saves human labour; technological unemployment is a serious concern; 3. In the digital age the nature and boundaries of work are changing; 4. Different technological strategies have contrasting employment effects; 5. Industries differ in their employment dynamics and role of technology; 6. We can see the employment impact of technology at the firm, industry and macroeconomic levels; 7. Technological change is a disequilibrium process; demand and structural change matter; 8. Business cycles affect technological change and its employment impact; 9. The impact of technology is different across occupations and skills; 10. Labour market conditions are relevant, but employment outcomes are not determined in labour markets alone; 11. In emerging countries employment outcomes are jointly affected by technology and catching up; 12. Technology is an engine of inequality; profits benefit more than wages, wage disparities increase. They have important policy implications in several areas of public action

Monetary policy, rule-of-thumb consumers and external habits: a G7 comparison

This article extends the standard New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model to agents who cannot smooth consumption (i.e. spenders) and are affected by external consumption habits. Although these assumptions are not new, their joint consideration strongly affects some theoretical and empirical results addressed by the recent literature. By deriving closed-form solutions, we identify different demand regimes and show that they are characterized by specific features regarding dynamic stability and monetary policy effectiveness. We also evaluate our model by stochastic simulations obtained from the Bayesian parameters estimates for the Group of Seven (G7) economies. From posterior impulse responses, we address the empirical relevance of the different regimes and provide comparative evidence on the heterogeneity of monetary policy effects among countries.