We present a task-based model in which high- and low-skill workers compete against machines in the production of tasks. Low-skill (high-skill) automation corresponds to tasks performed by low-skill (high-skill) labor being taken over by capital. Automation displaces the type of labor it directly...

Using data from 10 Western European countries, I provide evidence that the fall of prices of information technologies (IT) is associated with a lower share of employment in middle wage occupations and a higher share of employment in high wage occupations. The decline of IT prices has no robust...

This paper examines the effects of transitory skill mismatch in a matching model with heterogeneous jobs and workers. In our model, some high-educated workers may accept unskilled jobs for which they are over-qualified but are allowed to engage in on-the-job search in pursuit of a better job. We...

We employ employer-employee matched data from Denmark and utilize plausibly exogenous variation in the rise of import competition due to the dismantling of import quotas as China entered the World Trade Organization to show, first, that rising import competition has led to reduced employment in...

Software engineering is prototypical of knowledge work in the digital economy and exhibits strong geographic concentration, with Silicon Valley as the epitome of a tech cluster. We investigate productivity effects of knowledge worker agglomeration. To overcome existing measurement challenges, we...

In this paper, I analyze the time paths of the efficiencies of skilled and unskilled labor in aproduction framework where skilled and unskilled labor are imperfect substitutes. Theirimplications for economic growth and wage inequality in the US between 1950 and 2005present two main findings....

Industrial Revolution (marked by turning invention to innovation leading to mass production through division of labour with labour mix in the proportion - one engineer - five technicians - 50 craftsmen - and laying emphasis on non-high-academically qualified manpower like technicians and...

We examine the effects of endogenous offshoring on cost-efficiency, wages and unemployment in a task-assignment model with skill heterogeneity. Exact conditions for the following insights are derived. The distributional effect of offshoring (high-) low-skill-intensive tasks is similar to...

This paper provides first evidence on the social returns to education from both firm-level and regional human capital. Using panel data from German social security, both at an individual and aggregated at the plant and regional level, I estimate earnings functions incorporating measures of...

The US labour market is characterized by a high skill wage mark-up and low unemployment, while the German labour market has a low skill wage mark-up and a high, mainly unskilled unemployment rate. This paper adds an innovative labour supply explanation to the discussion how these distinct labour...