In this paper, we survey non-competitive theories of training. With competitive labor markets, firms never pay for investments in general training, whereas when labor markets are imperfect, firm-sponsored training arises as an equilibrium phenomenon. We discuss a variety of evidence which...

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...

This paper examines shifts over time in the relative demand for skilled labor in the United States. Although de-skilling in the conventional sense did occur overall in nineteenth century manufacturing, a more nuanced picture is that occupations "hollowed out": the share of "middle-skill" jobs -...

This paper describes the adoption of automation technologies by US firms across all economic sectors by leveraging a new module introduced in the 2019 Annual Business Survey, conducted by the US Census Bureau in partnership with the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES)....

The long-standing view in US economic history is the shift in manufacturing in the nineteenth century from the artisan shop to the mechanized factory led to "labor deskilling." Craft workers were displaced by mix of semi-skilled operatives, unskilled workers, and a reduced force of mechanics to...

This paper studies the effects of automation in economies with labor market distortions that generate worker rents--wages above opportunity cost--in some jobs. We show that automation targets high-rent tasks, dissipating rents and amplifying wage losses from automation. It also reduces...

As robots and other computer-assisted technologies take over tasks previously performed by labor, there is increasing concern about the future of jobs and wages. We analyze the effect of the increase in industrial robot usage between 1990 and 2007 on US local labor markets. Using a model in...

Changes in the skill differential are often used by economic historians to proxy changes in income inequality. According to Jeffrey Williamson and Peter Lindert, American skill differentials rose sharply between 1820 and 1860, which they interpret as increasing income inequality. Using a large,...