Shifts and Twists in the Relative Productivity of Skilled Labor: Reconciling Accelerated SBTC with the Productivity Slowdown

Skill-biased technical change is usually interpreted in terms of the efficiency parameters of skilled and unskilled labor. This implies that the relative productivity of skilled workers changes proportionally in all tasks. In contrast, we argue that technical changes also affect the curvature of the distribution of relative productivity. Building on Rosen's (1978) tasks assignment model, this implies that not only the efficiency parameters of skilled and unskilled workers change, but also the elasticity of substitution between skill-types of labor. Using data for the United States between 1963 and 2002, we find significant empirical support for a decrease in the elasticity of substitution at the end of the 70s followed by an increase at the end of the 80s. This pattern of the elasticity of substitution has contributed to the slowdown in labor productivity in the late 70s through the 80s and to a speedup in the 90sAssignment, SBTC, output growth, cointegration and regime shifts

Technotopics Essays over onderwijs en arbeidsmarkt voor betatechnici.

Ook met bijdragen van: Bart Golsteyn, Robert de vries, Inge Sieben, Jasper van Loo en Dany Jacobs

Wage Elasticities of the Supply of R & D Workers in the Netherlands

No abstract.

Do Low-Skilled Youngsters get Better Jobs in Countries where Internal Labour Markets Dominate?

In this paper, we analyse to what extent the quality of the jobs of low-skilled young workers is affected by the labour market structure in various European countries. We focus on the differences between countries in which internal labour markets (ILM) are prevalent and countries in which occupational labour markets (OLM) dominate. We expect that low-skilled young workers in OLM countries have no access to skilled jobs and therefore only find employment in the secondary segment of the labour market, whereas in ILM countries low-skilled young workers have opportunities to develop their skills in firm internal labour markets when they succeed in entering these markets in times that the economy is booming. The results of our empirical analysis show that low-skilled youngsters are indeed better off in ILM countries than in OLM countries, with respect to the permanency of a job, employment in non-elementary jobs as well as participation in continuing vocational training. However, in ILM countries low-skilled young workers are more often involuntary employed in part-time jobs than in OLM countries. With respect to the likelihood of employment in elementary jobs and participation in continuing vocational training the ILM versus OLM contrast is, as expected, larger in manufacturing, where internal labour markets more frequently occur, than in the service sector.education, training and the labour market;

Are computer skills the new basic skills? The returns to computer, writing and math skills in Britain

The large increase in computer use has raised the question whether people have to betaught computer skills before entering the labour market. Using data from the 1997 SkillsSurvey of the Employed British Workforce, we argue that neither the increase in computer use nor the fact that particularly higher skilled workers use a computer provides evidence that computer skills are valuable. We compare computer skills with writing and math skills and test whether wages vary with computer skills, given the specific use that is made ofcomputers. The regression results show that while the ability to write documents and to carry out mathematical analyses yields significant labour-market returns, the ability to effectively use a computer has no substantial impact on wages. These estimates suggest that writing and math can be regarded as basic skills, but that the higher wages of computer users are unrelated to computer skills.labour economics ;