The Growth of Low Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the U.S. Labor Market / David H. Autor, David Dorn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Autor, David H.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Dorn, David.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15150.

NBER working paper series no. w15150

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

We offer an integrated explanation and empirical analysis of the polarization of U.S. employment and wages between 1980 and 2005, and the concurrent growth of low skill service occupations. We attribute polarization to the interaction between consumer preferences, which favor variety over specialization, and the falling cost of automating routine, codifiable job tasks. Applying a spatial equilibrium model, we derive, test, and confirm four implications of this hypothesis. Local labor markets that were specialized in routine activities differentially adopted information technology, reallocated low skill labor into service occupations (employment polarization), experienced earnings growth at the tails of the distribution (wage polarization), and received inflows of skilled labor.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2009.