IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v22y2011i1p30-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic complementarities between innovative firms and skilled workers: The poverty trap and the policymaker's intervention

Author

Listed:
  • Accinelli, Elvio
  • Sanchez Carrera, Edgar J.

Abstract

The economy under study is populated by two types of firms (innovative and not) and two types of workers (skilled and unskilled). The aim is to develop a model that confirms the existence of complementarities between innovative firms (R&D activities) and skilled workers (human capital) and traces corresponding optimal dynamics. Workers follow an imitative behavior to choose their action type (skilled or unskilled). As the share of innovative firms is large enough, then the share of skilled workers in equilibrium depends on the reviewing rate (of imitation) for those unskilled workers. The policy maker intervention is justified only for a certain time by reducing the threshold to reach the high-level equilibrium, but once the economy is in a path for a high-level equilibrium such an intervention may stop.

Suggested Citation

  • Accinelli, Elvio & Sanchez Carrera, Edgar J., 2011. "Strategic complementarities between innovative firms and skilled workers: The poverty trap and the policymaker's intervention," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 30-40, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:22:y:2011:i:1:p:30-40
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954-349X(10)00080-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ulrich Kaiser, 2000. "New Technologies And The Demand For Heterogeneous Labor: Firm-Level Evidence For The German Business-Related Service Sector," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(5), pages 465-486.
    2. Schlag, Karl H., 1999. "Which one should I imitate?," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 493-522, May.
    3. Hornstein, Andreas & Krusell, Per & Violante, Giovanni L., 2005. "The Effects of Technical Change on Labor Market Inequalities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 20, pages 1275-1370, Elsevier.
    4. Caroli, Eve & Greenan, Nathalie & Guellec, Dominique, 2001. "Organizational Change and Skill Accumulation," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 481-506, June.
    5. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2000. "Ability-Biased Technological Transition, Wage Inequality, and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 115(2), pages 469-497.
    6. Kiley, Michael T, 1999. "The Supply of Skilled Labour and Skill-Biased Technological Progress," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(458), pages 708-724, October.
    7. Hornstein, Andreas & Krusell, Per & Violante, Giovanni L., 2005. "The Effects of Technical Change on Labor Market Inequalities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 20, pages 1275-1370, Elsevier.
    8. Redding, Stephen, 1996. "The Low-Skill, Low-Quality Trap: Strategic Complementarities between Human Capital and R&D," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(435), pages 458-470, March.
    9. Elvio Accinelli & Silvia London & Lionello F. Punzo & Edgar J. Sanchez Carrera, 2010. "Dynamic Complementarities, Efficiency and Nash Equilibria for Populations of Firms and Workers," Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Economics and Econometrics Society, vol. 53(1), pages 90-110.
    10. Benhabib, Jess & Spiegel, Mark M., 1994. "The role of human capital in economic development evidence from aggregate cross-country data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 143-173, October.
    11. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10093 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Feenstra, Robert C. & Hanson, Gordon H., 1997. "Foreign direct investment and relative wages: Evidence from Mexico's maquiladoras," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-4), pages 371-393, May.
    13. Eli Berman & John Bound & Zvi Griliches, 1993. "Changes in the Demand for Skilled Labor within U.S. Manufacturing Industries: Evidence from the Annual Survey of Manufacturing," NBER Working Papers 4255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10092 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Daron Acemoglu, 1998. "Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 1055-1089.
    16. Eli Berman & John Bound & Zvi Griliches, 1994. "Changes in the Demand for Skilled Labor within U. S. Manufacturing: Evidence from the Annual Survey of Manufactures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(2), pages 367-397.
    17. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 7-72, March.
    18. Eve Caroli & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Skill-Biased Organizational Change? Evidence from A Panel of British and French Establishments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(4), pages 1449-1492.
    19. repec:pri:cepsud:113krusell is not listed on IDEAS
    20. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    21. Julian R. Betts, 1997. "The Skill Bias Of Technological Change In Canadian Manufacturing Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(1), pages 146-150, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joao Paulo A. de Souza & Leopoldo Gómez‐Ramírez, 2021. "Industrialization and skill acquisition in an evolutionary model of coordination failures," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 849-867, November.
    2. Sanchez-Carrera Edgar J. & Travaglini Giuseppe & Ille Sebastian, 2021. "Macrodynamic Modeling of Innovation Equilibria and Traps," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 659-694, June.
    3. Accinelli Gamba, Elvio & Sánchez Carrera, Edgar J., 2014. "Imitative Behavior and Evolutionary Dynamics for the Comparative Advantage of International Trade Theory," MPRA Paper 55209, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Edgar Carrera, 2012. "Imitation and evolutionary stability of poverty traps," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-20, April.
    5. Edgar J. Sánchez Carrera & Elena Gubar & Andrey F. Oleynik, 2019. "Network Structures and Poverty Traps," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 236-253, March.
    6. Edgar J. Sanchez Carrera, 2019. "Evolutionary dynamics of poverty traps," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 611-630, April.
    7. Elvio Accinelli & Laura Policardo & Edgar J. Sánchez Carrera, 2012. "On the Dynamics and Effects of Corruption on Environmental Protection," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 1312, Department of Economics - dECON.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Piva, Mariacristina & Santarelli, Enrico & Vivarelli, Marco, 2005. "The skill bias effect of technological and organisational change: Evidence and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 141-157, March.
    2. Edgar J. Sanchez Carrera, 2019. "Evolutionary dynamics of poverty traps," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 611-630, April.
    3. Pi, Jiancai & Zhang, Pengqing, 2018. "Skill-biased technological change and wage inequality in developing countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 347-362.
    4. Guido Cozzi & Silvia Galli, 2009. "Upstream Innovation Protection: Common Law Evolution and the Dynamics of Wage Inequality," Working Papers 2009_20, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    5. Guido Cozzi & Giammario Impullitti, 2010. "Government Spending Composition, Technical Change, and Wage Inequality," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(6), pages 1325-1358, December.
    6. David B. Audretsch & Mark Sanders, 2007. "Globalization and the Rise of the Entrepreneurial Economy," Jena Economics Research Papers 2007-003, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    7. Cozzi, Guido & Impullitti, Giammario, 2006. "Technological policy and wage inequality," MPRA Paper 10140, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. David Hémous & Morten Olsen, 2022. "The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 179-223, January.
    9. Vivarelli, Marco, 2012. "Innovation, Employment and Skills in Advanced and Developing Countries: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 6291, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Ariell Reshef, 2013. "Is Technological Change Biased Towards the Unskilled in Services? An Empirical Investigation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(2), pages 312-331, April.
    11. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Cross-Country Inequality Trends," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 121-149, February.
    12. Aimee Chin & Chinhui Juhn & Peter Thompson, 2004. "Technical Change and the Wage Structure During the Second Industrial Revolution: Evidence from the Merchant Marine, 1865-1912," NBER Working Papers 10728, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Fatih Guvenen & Burhanettin Kuruscu, 2012. "Understanding The Evolution Of The Us Wage Distribution: A Theoretical Analysis," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 482-517, May.
    14. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    15. Ariell Reshef, 2013. "Is Technological Change Biased Towards the Unskilled in Services? An Empirical Investigation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(2), pages 312-331, April.
    16. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 7-72, March.
    17. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Campbell leith & Chol-Won Li, 2001. "Wage Inequality and the Effort Incentive Effects of Technical Progress," Working Papers 2001_14, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    18. Yasar, Mahmut & Rejesus, Roderick M., 2020. "International linkages, technology transfer, and the skilled labor wage share: Evidence from plant-level data in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    19. Fatih Guvenen & Burhanettin Kuruscu, 2006. "Ben-Porath meets skill-biased technical change: a theoretical analysis of rising inequality," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 144, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    20. Grant Gannaway & Craig Palsson & Joseph Price & David Sims, 2014. "Technological Change, Relative Worker Productivity, and Firm-Level Substitution," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(5), pages 478-496, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:22:y:2011:i:1:p:30-40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/525148 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.