Stepping Stone Mobility / Boyan Jovanovic, Yaw Nyarko.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jovanovic, Boyan.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Nyarko, Yaw.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w5651.

NBER working paper series no. w5651

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1996.

Summary:

People at the top of an occupational ladder earn more partly because they have spent time on lower rungs, where they have learned something. But what precisely do they learn? There are two contrasting views: First, the Bandit model assumes that people are different, that experience reveals their characteristics, and that consequently an occupational switch can result. Second, in our Stepping Stone model, experience raises a worker's productivity on a given task and the acquired skill can in part be transferred to other occupations, and this prompts movement. Safe activities (where mistakes destroy less output) are a natural training ground.

Notes:

Print version record

July 1996.