1,721,541 research outputs found
The "Task Approach" to Labor Markets" An Overview
Get PDFAn emerging literature argues that changes in the allocation of workplace “tasks” between capital and labor, and between domestic and foreign workers, has altered the structure of labor demand in industrialized countries and fostered employment polarization—that is, rising employment in the highest and lowest paid occupations. Analyzing this phenomenon within the canonical production function framework is challenging, however, because the assignment of tasks to labor and capital in the canonical model is essentially static. This essay sketches an alternative model of the assignment of skills to tasks based upon comparative advantage, reviews key conceptual and practical challenges that researchers face in bringing the “task approach” to the data, and cautions against two common pitfalls that pervade the growing task literature. conclude with a cautiously optimistic forecast for the potential of the task approach to illuminate the interactions among skill supplies, technological capabilities, and trade and offshoring opportunities, in shaping the aggregate demand for skills, the assignment of skills to tasks, and the evolution of wages
The unsustainable rise of the disability rolls in the United States: causes, consequences and policy options
No full textTwo ailments limit the effectiveness and threaten the long-term viability of the U.S. Social Security Disability Insurance program (SSDI). First, the program is ineffective in assisting the vast majority of workers with less severe disabilities to reach their employment potential or earn their own way. Second, the program’s expenditures on cash transfers and medical benefits—exceeding $1,500 per U.S. household—are extremely high and growing unsustainably. There is no compelling evidence, however, that the incidence of disabling conditions among the U.S. working age population is rising. This paper discusses the challenges facing the SSDI program, explains how its design has led to rapid and unsustainable growth, considers why past efforts to slow program growth have met with minimal and fleeting success, and outlines three recent proposals that would modify the program to slow growth while potentially improving the employment prospects of workers with disabilities. Because these proposals depart substantially from a program design that has seen little change in half a century, their efficacy is unproven.Additionally, even well-meaning efforts to place the SSDI program on a sustainable trajectory run the risk of creating additional hurdles for claimants who are truly unable to work. Nevertheless, the imminent exhaustion of the SSDI Trust Fund provides an impetus and an opportunity to explore innovative solutions to the longstanding policy challenges posed by the SSDI program. Keywords: disability; labor force participation; policy analysi
Skills, education, and the rise of earnings inequality among the "other 99 percent"
Get PDFThe singular focus of public debate on the “top 1 percent” of households overlooks the component of earnings inequality that is arguably most consequential for the “other 99 percent” of citizens: the dramatic growth in the wage premium associated with higher education and cognitive ability. This Review documents the central role of both the supply and demand for skills in shaping inequality, discusses why skill demands have persistently risen in industrialized countries, and considers the economic value of inequality alongside its potential social costs. I conclude by highlighting the constructive role for public policy in fostering skills formation and preserving economic mobility.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant SES-1227334)Russell Sage Foundation (Grant 85-12-07)Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Grant 2011-10-12
The Journal of Economic Perspectives at 100 (Issues)
No full textWhen I was a graduate student, I discovered that the Journal of Economic Perspectives embodied much of what I love about the field of economics: the clarity that pierces rhetoric to seek the core of a question; the rigor to identify the causal relationships, tradeoffs, and indeterminancies inherent in a problem; the self-assurance to apply the disciplinary toolkit to problems both sacred and profane; and the force of logic to reach conclusions that might be unexpected, controversial, or refreshingly bland. It never occurred to me in those years that one day I would edit the journal. While doing so is a privilege and a pleasure, I equally confess that it's no small weight to be the custodial parent of one of our profession's most beloved offspring. No less intimidating is the task of stipulating what this upstart youth has accomplished in its first 25 years and 100 issues in print. Like any empiricist, I recognize that the counterfactual world that would exist without the JEP is unknowable, but my strong hunch is that our profession would be worse off in that counterfactual world. In this essay, I reflect on the journal's accomplishments and articulate some of my own goals for the JEP going forward
Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation
Get PDFIn this essay, I begin by identifying the reasons that automation has not wiped out a majority of jobs over the decades and centuries. Automation does indeed substitute for labor—as it is typically intended to do. However, automation also complements labor, raises output in ways that leads to higher demand for labor, and interacts with adjustments in labor supply. Journalists and even expert commentators tend to overstate the extent of machine substitution for human labor and ignore the strong complementarities between automation and labor that increase productivity, raise earnings, and augment demand for labor. Changes in technology do alter the types of jobs available and what those jobs pay. In the last few decades, one noticeable change has been a "polarization" of the labor market, in which wage gains went disproportionately to those at the top and at the bottom of the income and skill distribution, not to those in the middle; however, I also argue, this polarization is unlikely to continue very far into future. The final section of this paper reflects on how recent and future advances in artificial intelligence and robotics should shape our thinking about the likely trajectory of occupational change and employment growth. I argue that the interplay between machine and human comparative advantage allows computers to substitute for workers in performing routine, codifiable tasks while amplifying the comparative advantage of workers in supplying problem-solving skills, adaptability, and creativity
Journal of Economic Perspectives
Get PDFThis year marked the twenty-seventh volume of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Throughout its history, the Journal has sought to contribute to the economics profession along multiple dimensions: introducing readers
to state-of-the-art thinking on theoretical and empirical research topics; encouraging cross-fertilization of ideas among the fields of economics; providing analyses of public policy issues; providing readings for students; offering illustrations that are useful in lectures; sparking discussion among colleagues; suggesting directions for future research; and analyzing features of the economics profession itsel
What Does Human Capital Do? A Review of Goldin and Katz's The Race between Education and Technology
Get PDFThis revision: February 2, 2012. Original submission: January 11, 2012.Goldin and Katz’s The Race between Education and Technology is a monumental achievement that supplies a unified framework for interpreting how the demand and supply of human capital have shaped the distribution of earnings in the U.S. labor market over the 20th century. This essay reviews the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of this work and documents the success of Goldin and Katz’s framework in accounting for numerous broad labor market trends. The essay also considers areas where the framework falls short in explaining several key labor market puzzles of recent decades and argues that these shortcomings can potentially be overcome by relaxing the implicit equivalence drawn between workers’ skills and their job tasks in the conceptual framework on which Goldin and Katz build. The essay argues that allowing for a richer set of interactions between skills and technologies in accomplishing job tasks both augments and refines the predictions of Goldin and Katz’s approach and suggests an even more important role for human capital in economic growth than indicated by their analysis
Report of the Editor: Journal of Economic Perspectives
No full textThis year marked the 25th volume of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Indeed, since the journal started in mid-2007, the Spring 2012 issue will be the 100th issue. The journal seeks to contribute to the economics profession along multiple dimensions: introducing readers to state-of-the-art thinking on theoretical and empirical research topics; encouraging cross-fertilization of ideas among the fields of economics; providing analyses of public policy issues; providing readings for students; offering illustrations that are useful in lectures; sparking discussion among colleagues; suggesting directions for future research; and analyzing
The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade
Get PDFChina’s emergence as a great economic power has induced an epochal shift in patterns of world trade. Simultaneously, it has toppled much of the received empirical wisdom about how labor markets adjust to trade shocks. Alongside its heralded consumer benefits, trade has both significant distributional costs, which theory has long recognized, and substantial adjustment costs, which the literature has tended to downplay. These adjustment costs mean that trade impacts are most visible not in national-level outcomes for broad skill types, as canonical theory would suggest, but in the local labor markets in which the industries most exposed to foreign competition are concentrated. Adjustment in local labor markets is remarkably slow, with wages and local labor-force participation rates remaining depressed, local unemployment rates remaining elevated, and public transfer benefits take-up rising across a spectrum of programs for at least a full decade after trade shocks commence. Within impacted localities, workers most affected by rising trade exposure are those initially employed in firms that compete most directly with China. Exposed workers experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income, with the largest adverse effects among initially low earners. Recent literature also addresses the aggregation of local-level impacts of trade shocks into national-level outcomes. Employment has fallen in U.S. industries more exposed to import competition, as expected. So too has overall employment in the local labor markets in which these industries were concentrated. Offsetting employment gains in non-tradables, export-oriented tradables, or imported-input-using industries have yet to materialize. Better understanding when and where trade is costly, and how and why it may be beneficial, are key items on the research agenda for trade and labor economists
Untangling Trade and Technology: Evidence from Local Labour Markets
No full textWe juxtapose the effects of trade and technology on employment in US local labour markets between 1980 and 2007. Labour markets whose initial industry composition exposes them to rising Chinese import competition experience significant falls in employment, particularly in manufacturing and among non-college workers. Labour markets susceptible to computerisation due to specialisation in routine task-intensive activities instead experience occupational polarisation within manufacturing and non-manufacturing but do not experience a net employment decline. Trade impacts rise in the 2000s as imports accelerate, while the effect of technology appears to shift from automation of production activities in manufacturing towards computerisation of information-processing tasks in non-manufacturing.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant SES-1227334
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