In this chapter we inspect economic mechanisms through which technological progress shapes the degree of inequality among workers in the labour market. A key focus is on the rise of US wage inequality over the past 30 years. However, we also pay attention to how Europe did not experience changes...

Identification of the strength of human capital externalities at the aggregate level is still not fully understood. The existing method may yield positive or negative externalities even if wages reflect marginal social products. We propose an approach that yields positive average human capital...

We argue that inequality and rapid deunionization are related, and that skill-biased technical change has been an important factor in deunionization as well as in the rise in inequality. Skill-biased technical change causes deunionization because it increases the outside option of skilled...

This paper develops a theoretical model to analyse how a General Purpose Technology (GPT) shapes within-group wage inequality when workers are ex-ante equal, but their adaptability to new technologies is subject to stochastic factors that are history dependent. It is argued that the diffusion of...

We combine growth theory with US Census data on individual schooling and wages to estimate the aggregate return to human capital and human capital externalities in cities. Our estimates imply that a one year increase in average schooling in cities increases their aggregate labour productivity by...