IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedbcp/y2007n52x7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Structural demand shifts and potential labor supply responses in the new century

Author

Listed:
  • David H. Autor

Abstract

It is widely recognized that inequality of labor market earnings in the United States grew dramatically in recent decades. Over the course of more than three decades, wage growth was weak to nonexistent at the bottom of the distribution, strong at the top of the distribution, and modest at the middle. While real hourly earnings of workers in the bottom 30 percent of the earnings distribution rose by no more than 10 percentage points, earnings of workers at the 90th percentile rose by more than 40 percentage points. What is much less widely known, however, is that this smooth, monotone growth of wage inequality is a feature of a specific time period--and that this time period has passed.

Suggested Citation

  • David H. Autor, 2007. "Structural demand shifts and potential labor supply responses in the new century," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 52.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbcp:y:2007:n:52:x:7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/conf/conf52/conf52d.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael J. Handel, "undated". "Is There a Skills Crisis? Trends in Job Skill Requirements, Technology, and Wage Inequality in the United States," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_62, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Howell, David R & Wolff, Edward N, 1992. "Technical Change and the Demand for Skills by U.S. Industries," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 16(2), pages 127-146, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2000. "The Resurgence of Growth in the Late 1990s: Is Information Technology the Story?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 3-22, Fall.
    5. David Card & John E. DiNardo, 2002. "Skill-Biased Technological Change and Rising Wage Inequality: Some Problems and Puzzles," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 733-783, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Busso, Matías & Bassi, Marina & Urzúa, Sergio & Vargas, Jaime, 2012. "Disconnected: Skills, Education, and Employment in Latin America," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 427.
    2. Marina Bassi & Matías Busso & Sergio Urzúa & Jaime Vargas, 2012. "Disconnected: Skills, Education, and Employment in Latin America," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 79504, February.
    3. Autor, David & Dorn, David, 2009. "Inequality and Specialization: The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 4290, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Battisti, Michele & Gatto, Massimo Del & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2022. "Skill-biased technical change and labor market inefficiency," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    5. Dirk Antonczyk & Thomas DeLeire & Bernd Fitzenberger, 2018. "Polarization and Rising Wage Inequality: Comparing the U.S. and Germany," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-33, April.
    6. Kerekes, Monika, 2007. "Analyzing patterns of economic growth: a production frontier approach," Discussion Papers 2007/15, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    7. Boucekkine, Raouf & Crifo, Patricia, 2008. "Human Capital Accumulation And The Transition From Specialization To Multitasking," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 320-344, June.
    8. Davide Consoli & Francesco Vona & Francesco Rentocchini, 2016. "That was then, this is now: skills and routinization in the 2000s," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 25(5), pages 847-866.
    9. Jaewon Jung, 2024. "The Labor Market and Growth Implications of Skill Distribution: A Dynamic General Equilibrium Model with Skill Heterogeneity," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-22, October.
    10. Colombo, Emilio & Mercorio, Fabio & Mezzanzanica, Mario, 2019. "AI meets labor market: Exploring the link between automation and skills," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 27-37.
    11. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Firpo, Sergio & Messina, Julián, 2017. "Ageing Poorly? Accounting for the Decline in Earnings Inequality in Brazil, 1995-2012," IZA Discussion Papers 10656, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    12. Piero Esposito & Robert Stehrer, 2009. "The sector bias of skill-biased technical change and the rising skill premium in transition economies," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 351-364, August.
    13. Givord, Pauline & Maurin, Eric, 2004. "Changes in job security and their causes: An empirical analysis for France, 1982-2002," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 595-615, June.
    14. 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.
    15. Spitz, Alexandra & Bertschek, Irene, 2003. "IT, Organizational Change and Wages," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-69, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Monte, Ferdinando, 2011. "Skill bias, trade, and wage dispersion," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 202-218, March.
    17. Consoli, Davide & Elche-Hortelano, Dioni, 2010. "Variety in the knowledge base of Knowledge Intensive Business Services," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 1303-1310, December.
    18. Nico Voigtlaender, 2009. "Many Sectors Meet More Skills: Intersectoral Linkages and the Skill Bias of Technology," 2009 Meeting Papers 1136, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Shintaro Yamaguchi, 2013. "Changes in Returns to Task-Specific Skills and Gender Wage Gap," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd12-275, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    20. Berthold, Norbert & Zenzen, Jupp, 2009. "Stochern im Nebel: der Ungleichheit auf der Spur," Discussion Paper Series 104, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wages; Labor supply;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fip:fedbcp:y:2007:n:52:x:7. 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 Spozio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbbous.html .

    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.