The technological determinants of long‐run inequality

I explore the effect of skill‐biased technological change and unbiased technological progress on long‐run inequality using a theoretical model in which the supply of skilled and unskilled workers is endogenous. The main assumption of the model is that young agents can finance their education and become skilled workers by borrowing against their future income on an imperfect credit market. I show that whenever the rate of unbiased technological progress is sufficiently high there is no steady‐state inequality, independent of the degree of skill bias. If instead the rate of unbiased technological progress is low, then the long‐run skill premium increases with the technological skill bias. Therefore, similarly to the short run, in the long run higher technological skill bias may cause higher inequality. However, contrary to the short run, in the long run unbiased technological progress is more important than technological skill bias in determining inequality. I also discuss how the efficiency of the educational technology and the degree of financial development affect long‐run inequality.     

基于技术进步的浙江省能源消费回弹效应研究

基于技术进步对经济增长的贡献和环境负荷分解模型,对浙江省1990年以来技术进步对GDP增长的贡献、能源消费回弹效应及能源回弹量进行实证分析。其中,对技术进步的测定采用城镇单位在岗职工工资总额和农村居民纯收入作为劳动因素,以期更合理地体现劳动对经济增长的贡献,同时对多元回归模型的多重共线性进行滞后差分变换,以期得到更为精确的实证数据。     

Adjusting to a New Technology: Experience and Training

How does the economy react to the arrival of a new major technology? The existing literature on general-purpose technologies (GPTs) has studied the role that mechanisms like secondary innovations, diffusion, and learning by firms play in the adjustment process. By contrast, we focus on a new mechanism: the interplay between technological change and two types of human capital—technology-specific experience and education. We show that technological change that requires more education and training, like computerization, necessarily produces an initial slowdown. On the other hand, technological change that lowers the training requirements, like the move from the artisan shop to the factory, can produce either a bust or a boom. We identify three key properties that determine the outcome: (1) the productivity of inexperienced workers, (2) the speed with which experience raises productivity, and (3) the level of general skills required to operate the new technology.     

Advances in supervision technology and economic welfare: a general equilibrium analysis

We analyze the impact of improvements in the technology by which employers monitor their workers. It is unclear a priori whether workers should benefit or not from such advances. On the one hand, they decrease the total costs of hiring workers and stimulate labor demand. On the other hand, as supervision becomes less costly employers tend to substitute monitoring for wages as a means of motivating workers. We show how the impact on firms and workers of such technological progress depends on the nature of the labor market equilibrium (i.e. whether there is full employment or not) and the cost (technology) of monitoring. A distinct possibility is that unemployed workers welcome the changes in supervision because they promote employment, while employed workers resist such changes and the more intensive supervision they encourage.     

Technological expectations and adoption of improved technology

Attention is focused upon the adoption (demand) rather than the creation (supply) of new technology, which improves from time to time. Based on the expected flow of technological progress over which the firm (demander) has no control, it must decide either to adopt the current best available technology or to postpone adoption. The distinguishing features of the model are that more than one technological innovation is anticipated and expectations about the likelihood of such innovations are revised as time passes since the last innovation. Our analysis shows that the firm will adopt the current best practice if its technological lag exceeds a certain threshold; moreover, as time passes without new technological advances it may become profitable to purchase a technology that has been available even though it was not profitable to do so in the past.     

Worker Personality: Another Skill Bias beyond Education in the Digital Age

We present empirical evidence suggesting that technological progress in the digital age will be biased not only with respect to skills acquired through education but additionally with respect to non‐cognitive skills (personality). We measure the direction of technological change by estimated future digitalization probabilities of occupations, and non‐cognitive skills by the Big Five personality traits from four German worker surveys. Even though we control for education and work experience, we find that workers who are more open to experience, emotionally more stable and less agreeable will tend to be less susceptible to digitalization. We also find that future technological progress may not continue to hollow out the middle class as much as it did in the recent past. These results suggest that education and labor market policies should put more emphasis on children's and workers’ personalities to strengthen their labor market resilience in the digital age.     

Population Growth, Technological Adoption, and Economic Outcomes in the Information Era

In this paper we argue that population growth, through its interaction with recent technological and organizational developments, may account for many cross-country differences in economic outcomes observed among industrialized countries over the past 20 years. In particular, our model illustrates how a large decrease in the price of information technology can create a comparative advantage for high population growth economies to jump ahead in the adoption of computer- and skill-intensive modes of production. They do this as a means of countering their relative scarcity of physical capital. The predictions of the model are that, over the span of the information revolution, industrial countries with higher population growth rates will experience a more pronounced adoption of new technology, a better performance in terms of increased employment rates, a poorer performance in terms of wage growth for less skilled workers, a larger increase in the service sector, and a larger increase in the returns to education. We provide preliminary evidence in support of the theory based on an examination of broad wage movements, employment changes, and computer adoption patterns for a set of OECD countries. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: O33, J31, J11.     

Employer-provided training,innovation and skills in post-Soviet countries

This paper analyzes the extent of employer-provided training in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine and investigates its relationship with innovation, having international business contacts, use of computers at work, reported skills shortages and other firm characteristics. It contributes to the literature by examining different types of training – initial on-the-job learning, more formal in-house training and external training, which is provided by firms to two categories of workers – white- and blue-collar workers. After controlling for a range of firm characteristics, we find a positive link between technological innovation and intensity of training of all types provided to white-collar workers that points to the technology-skills complementarity. Furthermore, the level of computer use at work is a significant determinant of the incidence and intensity of external training provided to white-collar and blue-collar workers.     

马克思相对过剩人口理论视角的我国当前失业问题探析

马克思的相对过剩人口理论是伴随着资本主义社会资本积累和资本有机构成提高而产生的,对研究我国当前的失业问题具有重要的理论指导意义。劳动力总供给大于总需求、产业结构调整、科学技术进步与广泛应用、劳动力素质与市场需求脱节等是我国当前失业问题产生的原因。其解决对策主要有,保持经济稳定增长,增加社会财富;发挥人口优势,大力发展第三产业;加快科技创新,推进社会分工;实施扩大就业战略,努力实现充分就业;改革教育制度,提高劳动者就业能力等。     

Poverty traps in a frictionless world: The effects of learning and technology assimilation

We study an endogenous growth model of technology assimilation through an adaptive learning process defining the accumulation of technological knowledge among both workers and industrial clusters. The assimilation of new technology and the arrival rate of innovations are both based on the distance from the technological frontier to the current technological development level of the country. We illustrate how, even if technological innovations become immediately available to all countries, and absent educational and institutional frictions among countries, differences in technological development levels allow for the existence of poverty traps leading to the economic stagnation of technological laggards.     

RECENT TRENDS IN JOB TRAINING

This paper analyzes new data on job qualifications and training. Between 1983 and 1991, the share of workers reporting skill-improvement training on their jobs increased as did the wage premium for this training. Even in 1991, however, 58 percent of all workers reported no training on their jobs, and 44 percent reported needing no special qualifications to obtain their jobs. Training rates are especially low for young and less-educated workers. Skill demands appear to have shifted toward general and cognitive skills—best taught in formal training programs and schools—and away from specific and manual skills acquired through informal on-the-job training .     

EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT-THE CANADIAN CASE*

This study assesses the relationship of education and economic growth, economic development and economic progress in aggregate, in structural and in micro-economic terms on the basis of one hundred years of Canadian experience. Education is considered as a factor of input. The contribution made by knowledge resulting from additional education expands the capacity to produce, and increases the demand for goods and services and the desire for greater leisure. The dual function of education is stressed: the demand and supply effect. Education is examined both as a cause and a consequence of economic growth, economic development and economic progress, through its contribution to the quality of the labour force, earning capacity, both individual and national, productivity, the rate of economic growth and the character of economic development. The Canadian experience suggests that educational progress generally occurred in line with economic development during the first eight decades, with the real take-off in educational advancement only occurring in the last two decades, when the nation reached the stage of technological maturity and high mass-consumption. Among the reasons for the lower ratio of gross national product devoted to education in the first eight decades were the low priority attached to education, the emphasis on investment in physical capital because of its shorter pay-off period than investment in human capital, and the heavy reliance on a substantial flow of immigrants who had obtained their education and training abroad. A distinct change occurred, however, in the last two decades, partly as a result of new technological challenges and partly as the result of changes in private and public attitudes, as the recognition of the rewards of education in terms of individual advancement and social progress led to a greater willingness to devote an increasing proportion of the nation's resources to investment in human capital, long pay-off periods notwithstanding.     

General training by firms, apprentice contracts, and public policy

Workers will not pay for general on-the-job training if contracts are not enforceable. Firms may if there are mobility frictions. Private information about worker productivities, however, prevents workers who quit receiving their marginal products elsewhere. Their new employers then receive external benefits from their training. In this paper, training firms increase profits by offering apprenticeships which commit firms to high wages for those trainees retained on completion. At these high wages, only good workers are retained. This signals their productivity and reduces the external benefits if they subsequently quit. Regulation of apprenticeship length (a historically important feature) enhances efficiency. Appropriate subsidies enhance it further.     

国际直接投资技术扩散与技术进步的经济学分析

现代经济与社会的竞争在一定程度上就是技术的竞争,对技术进步的需求成了人类社会的普遍需求。国际直接投资是技术扩散的主要途径,无论是东道国还是母国都可以通过国际直接投资的技术扩散效应获取技术进步,而跨国公司是推动这一进程的主体。技术扩散的系统主要包括以下要素:技术、技术供方、技术需方、技术转移渠道、技术转移促进及障碍——政府、政策、制度、文化及其它。从经济学的角度分析,技术进步的需求旺盛且刚性增长,技术进步的供给旺盛且回报递增,且技术进步的效率受技术扩散系统诸因素的影响。     

技术进步与服务业的融合和互动——基于中国投入产出表的分析

文章从分析投入产出表的视角出发,探讨技术进步与中国服务业融合和互动的实际表现.通过对典型年份服务业直接消耗系数的对比,发现大多数服务部门来自高新技术产业投入的比重都有不同程度的上升.从服务业影响力和感应度角度进一步验证了随着服务业与技术进步和现代高新技术产业的融合程度的加强,服务业与其他产业的关联更加紧密的结论.计量分析结果与服务业发展的事实相符,即在技术进步的推动下服务业要素投入结构向资本劳动比不断上升的方向转变,其直接表现是对高新技术产业和产品的投资需求增大.通过对服务业各个部门影响产出增长的技术进步因素进行分解,认为运输邮电业、公用事业及居民服务业、金融保险业等部门的技术变化贡献对产出的影响主要取决于自身技术变化情况,而国民经济整体技术进步对其产出的贡献处于次要位置,商业饮食业则相反.最后,提出促进服务业与技术进步融合及互动发展的对策和政策建议.     

Testing for uniform wage trends in West-Germany: A cohort analysis using quantile regressions for censored data

The rise of unemployment in West Germany is often attributed to an inflexibility of the wage structure in the face of a skill bias in labor demand trends. In addition, there is concern in Germany that during the 70s and 80s unions were pursuing a too egalitarian wage policy. In a cohort analysis, we estimate quantile regressions of wages taking account of the censoring in the data. We present a new framework to describe trends in the entire wage distribution across education and age groups in a parsimonious way. We explore whether wage trends are uniform across cohorts, thus defining a macroeconomic wage trend. Our findings are that wages of workers with intermediate education levels, among them especially those of young workers, deteriorated slightly relative to both high and low education levels. Wage inequality within age-education groups stayed fairly constant. Nevertheless, the German wage structure was fairly stable, especially in international comparison. The results appear consistent with a skill bias in labor demand trends, recognizing that union wages are only likely to be binding floors for low-wage earners.     

人工智能、技术进步与劳动力结构优化对策研究

人工智能作为一次新的技术革命,必然带来巨大的社会效用及经济效用。随着人工智能技术的发展与应用,理论界就人工智能对劳动力替代范围进行了激烈讨论。基于技术演进视角,划分了六次技术革命,分析历次技术革命给劳动力及劳动力结构带来的影响,尤其是以人工智能为代表的技术变革对劳动力结构产生的影响。同时,构建了人工智能、技术进步影响劳动力结构的计量模型。实证分析结果表明：人工智能发展和技术水平提高会增加技能劳动与非技能劳动的相对供给,有助于劳动力整体质量提高和劳动力结构优化。最后,针对性地提出人工智能时代优化我国劳动力结构的对策建议,为解决我国的劳动力转型、失业、教育改革及产业升级等问题提供借鉴。     

Precautionary Demand for Education, Inequality, and Technological Progress

This paper offers an explanation for the evolution of wage inequality within and between industries and education groups over the past several decades. The model is based on the disproportionate depreciation of technology-specific skills versus general skills due to technological progress, which occurs randomly across sectors. Consistent with empirical evidence, the model predicts that increasing randomness is the primary source of inequality growth within uneducated workers, whereas inequality growth within educated workers is determined more by changes in the composition and return to ability. Increasing randomness generates a precautionary demand for education, which we show empirically to be significant.     

New technology and old institutions: An empirical analysis of the skill-biased demand for older workers in Europe

Using panel data from nine European countries over the period 1970 to 2007, we examine the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on the demand for older workers (aged 50 and over). We find evidence of a decrease in demand for older workers in the 1970s and 1980s. It can be argued that the impact of ICT on demand for older workers is skill-biased. However, the skill-biased demand for older workers is mainly reflected in the skill-biased changes in employment shares rather than relative wages. There is some evidence of a gradual deskilling of older workers. We find that labour market institutions such as the national minimum wage, social pacts on wage issues and union density mostly benefit skilled older workers, while coordination of wage setting, extension of collective agreements, social pacts on pensions and centralisation of wage bargaining can alleviate the adverse effects of skill-biased technological change.     

Special Interests and Technological Change

We study an OLG economy where productivity growth comes from two alternative sources: process innovation and learning-by-doing. There is a trade-off between the two in so far as frequent technological updates reduce the scope for learning on existing technologies. A conflict is shown to arise between the young and the old, because the former favour innovation while the latter prefer learning. We model the interaction between overlapping generations and policy makers as a dynamic common agency problem, where competing generations invest a certain amount of resources to lobby either for the maintenance of the current technology or the adoption of a new one. By focusing on truthful Markov perfect equilibria, we characterize the political equilibrium and show its dependence on the underlying demographic, technological and preference parameters.