We evaluate the effect of technology, demographics and policy on the differential evolution of the skill premium and on the rise in education investment in France and the USA. We use a computable general equilibrium model with overlapping generations of individuals, and endogenous education...

This article applies recent advances in productivity and efficiency measurement to the evaluation of skillbiased technical change. Using the general index approach we are able to establish an explicit and unconstrained time path for nonneutral technical change between production and...

Vintage human capital models imply that young workers will be the primary adopters and beneficiaries of new technologies. Because technological progress in general, and computers in particular, may be skill-biased and because human capital increases over the lifecycle, technological change may...

Despite indications that interpersonal interactions are important for understanding individual labor-market outcomes and have become more important over the last decades, there is little analysis by economists. This paper shows that interpersonal interactions are important determinants of...

In this paper I discuss a structural problem facing the United States with respect to our policy responses in the context of trade and technological change and their impact on workers. Both trade and technological change have put enormous pressure on the U.S. economy to raise the skill level of...

This paper examines the impact of innovations and wages on the demand for heterogeneous labour. Based on matched data from the IAB-establishment panel survey and the files of the employment statistics register for the year 1995, input shares derived from a generalised Leontief cost function are...

The paper analyzes the contemporary organizational restructuring of production and work within firms. We emphasize the shift from a "Tayloristic" organization of work (characterized by significant specialization by tasks) to a "holistic" organization (featuring job rotation, integration of tasks...

This paper argues that changes in the returns to occupational tasks have contributed to changes in the wage distribution over the last three decades. Using Current Population Survey (CPS) data, we first show that the 1990s polarization of wages is explained by changes in wage setting between and...