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The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration (2000)

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by David H. Autor , Frank Levy , Richard J. Murnane
Citations:601 - 26 self
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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   

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