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Measuring Skill Intensity of Occupations with Imperfect Substitutability Across Skill Types

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  • Barbara Pertold-Gebicka

Abstract

In absence of a model-based measure of occupational skill-intensity, the litera- ture on wage inequality cannot consistently track technological progress on occu- pational level - a key ingredient of recent theories of labor market polarization. In this paper, I use the March CPS data from 1983 to 2002 to estimate such a measure corresponding to occupation-specific relative productivities of college and high-school educated. With imperfect substitution across skill types, the measure- ment of relative productivities requires estimation of substitution elasticities, and I propose a simple strategy to obtain these. The resulting measure is used to shed light on the modified skill-biased technological change hypothesis proposed by Autor et al. (2006).

Suggested Citation

  • Barbara Pertold-Gebicka, 2010. "Measuring Skill Intensity of Occupations with Imperfect Substitutability Across Skill Types," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp421, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    • Handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp421
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Bhattacharya, Tulika & Bhandari, Bornali & Bairagya, Indrajit, 2020. "Where are the jobs? Estimating skill-based employment linkages across sectors for the Indian economy: An input-output analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 292-308.
    2. Georgeta Ilie, 2023. "Trade In Skill-Intensive Services - Through the Pandemic and Accelerating Digitalization," Global Economic Observer, "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest, Faculty of Economic Sciences;Institute for World Economy of the Romanian Academy, vol. 11(1), pages 73-83, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    occupations; skill-intensity; skill content; elasticity of labor substitu- tion; technological progress; polarization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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