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The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration (2000)
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@MISC{Autor00theskill,
author = {David H. Autor and Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane},
title = {The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration},
year = {2000}
}
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Abstract
Recent empirical and case study evidence documents a strong association between the adoption of computers and increased use of college educated or non-production workers. With few exceptions, the conceptual link explaining how computer technology complements skilled labor or substitutes for unskilled labor is less well developed. This paper applies an understanding of what computers do – the execution of procedural or rules-based logic – to develop and test a simple model of how the widespread adoption of computers in the workplace might alter workplace skill demands. Two essential contentions of our framework are that computer capital (1) substitutes for a limited and well-defined set of human activities, those involving routine (repetitive) cognitive and manual tasks; and (2) complements a second set of activities, those involving non-routine problem solving and interactive tasks. Under the assumption that routine and non-routine tasks are imperfect substitutes, the task framework implies measurable changes in the task content of employment. We examine these changes using representative samples of workers from 1960 to 1998 where individual characteristics are augmented with Dictionary of Occupational Title variables describing their occupations ’ requirements for routine and non-routine cognitive and manual skills. We find that computerization is associated with declining relative industry
Keyphrases
skill content recent technological change empirical exploration occupational title variable workplace skill demand human activity computer capital second set imperfect substitute manual skill increased use task framework implies measurable change task content occupation requirement well-defined set manual task individual characteristic widespread adoption computer technology complement simple model interactive task conceptual link non-routine cognitive non-routine problem solving non-routine task non-production worker essential contention rules-based logic strong association case study evidence document relative industry representative sample unskilled labor
