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Title: Computer Adoption and the Changing Labor Market

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2014

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Abstract: The US labor market has changed in recent decades, both in the medium-term and in the short-term. This paper examines computers as a theoretical explanation for these changes. When computers become cheap and competitive compared to workers, they diffuse more rapidly and become more important in the conventional mechanism of capital-labor substitution. The model can account for recent structural changes with this trend of automation: employment has shifted away from routine occupations and the labor share of income has declined. The model also predicts that recessions accelerate the decline in routine occupationsfirms prefer to destroy routine jobs during a downturn, when the opportunity cost of restructuring is low. This acceleration can account for recent cyclical changes of the labor market: routine job losses are concentrated in recessions and the ensuing recoveries are jobless.

Url: http://www.columbia.edu/~mm3509/Miguel_Morin_Jobless_Recoveries.pdf

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Authors: Morin, Miguel

Publisher: Colombia University

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other

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