Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market / Daron Acemoglu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Acemoglu, Daron.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w7800.

NBER working paper series no. w7800

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2000.

Summary:

This essay discusses the effect of technical change on wage inequality. I argue that the behavior of wages and returns to schooling indicates that technical change has been skill-biased during the past sixty years. Furthermore, the recent increase in inequality is most likely due to an acceleration in skill bias. In contrast to twentieth century developments, most technical change during the nineteenth century appears to be skill-replacing. I suggest that this is because the increased supply of unskilled workers in the English cities made the introduction of these technologies profitable. On the other hand, the twentieth-century has been characterized by skill-biased technical change because the rapid increase in the supply of skilled workers has induced the development of skill-complementary technologies. The recent acceleration in skill bias is in turn likely to have been a response to the acceleration in the supply of skills during the past several decades.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2000.