Evolution of technology causes human capital to become obsolete. We study this phenomenon in an overlapping generations setting, assuming it is hard to predict how technology will evolve, and that older workers find updating uneconomic. Among our results is the proposition that (under certain conditions) a more rapid pace of technological advance is especially unfavorable to the old in the sense that the implied within-industry division of output or income between young and old becomes much more skewed, i.e., a smaller number of young earn comparatively more. We apply our results to architecture, an occupation in which the has-beens phenomenon has had a particularly acute impact.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
8464.
Length: Date of creation: Sep 2001 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8464
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
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