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How career changes affect technological breakthrough - Reconsidering the prolonged slump of the Japanese economy -

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  • Azuma, Yoshiaki

Abstract

This paper develops a simple overlapping-generations model that relates career choices of highly educated workers to the rate of technological progress over time. The paper shows that, in the recent period of technological breakthroughs, if workers either acquire a sufficiently large number of firm-specific skills under the long-term employment system, or if they acquire an insufficient number of general skills even though they go through a change of careers, then an economy will be trapped in a low rate of technological progress. This result obtains because, under these conditions, the proportion of multi-career workers in an economy is lower, and thus the knowledge arising from breakthrough technological industries does not spill over into other types of industries. This result is consistent with the considerable differences observed in the rate of technological progress between the United States and Japan since 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Azuma, Yoshiaki, 2010. "How career changes affect technological breakthrough - Reconsidering the prolonged slump of the Japanese economy -," MPRA Paper 62582, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:62582
    as

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    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62582/1/MPRA_paper_62582.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jorgenson, Dale W. & Motohashi, Kazuyuki, 2005. "Information technology and the Japanese economy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 460-481, December.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1975. "Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education, Second Edition," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck75-1, July.
    3. Schultz, Theodore W, 1975. "The Value of the Ability to Deal with Disequilibria," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 827-846, September.
    4. Bartel, Ann P & Lichtenberg, Frank R, 1987. "The Comparative Advantage of Educated Workers in Implementing New Technology," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 1-11, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    career changes; technological breakthrough; the Japanese slump; information technology; shift to services;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

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