This paper analyzes the role of specialized high-skilled labor in the growth of the service sector as a share of the total economy. Empirically, we emphasize that the growth has been driven by the consumption of services. Rather than being driven by low-skill jobs, the importance of skill-intensive services has risen, and this has coincided with a period of rising relative wages and quantities of high-skilled labor. We develop a theory where demand shifts toward ever more skill-intensive output as income rises, and because skills are highly specialized this lowers the importance of home production relative to market services. The theory is also consistent with a rising level of skill and skill premium, a rising relative price of services that is linked to this skill premium, and rich product cycles between home and market, all of which are observed in the data.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
14822.
Length: Date of creation: Mar 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14822
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity O14 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
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Andrea Ferrero & Mark Gertler & Lars E. O. Svensson, 2007.
"Current Account Dynamics and Monetary Policy,"
NBER Chapters,
in: International Dimensions of Monetary Policy
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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