Working paper
How computer automation affects occupations: technology, jobs, and skills
Publisher
Employment
Innovation
Disruptive technologies
Automation
Job automation
Wage inequality
Future of work
Digital economy
Work insecurity
Job creation
United States of America
Description
This paper investigates basic relationships between technology and occupations. Building a general occupational model, I look at detailed occupations since 1980 to explore whether computers are related to job losses or other sources of wage inequality. Occupations that use computers grow faster, not slower. This is true even for highly routine and mid-wage occupations. Estimates reject computers as a source of significant net technological unemployment or job polarization. But computerized occupations substitute for other occupations, shifting employment and requiring new skills. Because new skills are costly to learn, computer use is associated with substantially greater within-occupation wage inequality.
Publication Details
Copyright:
Boston University School of Law 2016
License type:
All Rights Reserved
Issue:
Working Paper No.15-49
Post date:
6 Dec 2018