Investment-specific technical progress, capital obsolescence and job creation

This paper shows that faster disembodied technological progress - if it is investment-specific - might reduce job creation because the obsolescence cost of capital increases, which reduces the net return of a job. This effect could be called the obsolescence effect. It is also shown that the increase in the rate of decline of the U.S. relative price of investment - which can be used as a proxy for the rate of investment-specific technical progress - may have increased the obsolescence costs of capital, which might account for the observed fall in U.S. vacancy-unemployment ratios and job finding rates after the mid-seventies.