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Title: Learning by Doing: The Real Connection between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth
Citation Type: Book, Whole
Publication Year: 2015
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Abstract: Todays great paradox is that we feel the impact of technology everywhere in our cars, our phones, the supermarket, the doctors office but not in our paychecks. In the past, technological advancements dramatically increased wages, but during the last three decades, the median wage has remained stagnant. Machines have taken over much of the work of humans, destroying old jobs while increasing profits for business owners. The threat of ever-widening economic inequality looms, but in Learning by Doing, James Bessen argues that it is not inevitable. Workers can benefit by acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to implement rapidly evolving technologies, however, this can take years, even decades. Technical knowledge is mostly unstandardized and difficult to acquire, learned through job experience rather than in the classroom. The right policies are necessary to provide strong incentives for learning on the job, but politically influential interests have moved policy in the wrong direction recently. Based on economic history as well as analysis of todays labor markets, the book shows a path toward restoring broadly shared prosperity.
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Authors: Bessen, James
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publisher Location: New Haven
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure
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