IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aub/autbar/633.04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labour Market Frictions, Social Policies, and Barriers to Technology Adoption

Author

Listed:
  • Jess Enrique Morales Pi?ro

Abstract

Barriers to technological changes have recently been shown to be a key element in explaining differences in output per worker across countries. This study examines the role that labour market features and institutions have in explaining barriers to technology adoption. I build a model that includes labour market frictions, capital market imperfections and heterogeneity in workers' skills. I found that the unemployment rate together with the welfare losses that workers experiment after displacement are key factors in explaining the existence of barriers to technology adoption. Moreover, I found that none of these factors alone is sufficient to build these barriers. The theory also suggests that welfare policies like the unemployment insurance system may enhance these kinds of barriers while policies like a severance payment system financed by an income tax seem to be more effective in eliminating them.

Suggested Citation

  • Jess Enrique Morales Pi?ro, 2004. "Labour Market Frictions, Social Policies, and Barriers to Technology Adoption," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 633.04, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    • Handle: RePEc:aub:autbar:633.04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://pareto.uab.es/wp/2004/63304.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward C. Prescott & Stephen L. Parente, 1999. "Monopoly Rights: A Barrier to Riches," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1216-1233, December.
    2. Acemoglu, Daron & Shimer, Robert, 2000. "Productivity gains from unemployment insurance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1195-1224, June.
    3. Easterly, William, 1993. "How much do distortions affect growth?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 187-212, November.
    4. Parente, Stephen L & Prescott, Edward C, 1994. "Barriers to Technology Adoption and Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(2), pages 298-321, April.
    5. Jones, Charles I., 1994. "Economic growth and the relative price of capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 359-382, December.
    6. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 1994. "Growth and Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 477-494.
    7. Prescott, Edward C, 1998. "Needed: A Theory of Total Factor Productivity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(3), pages 525-551, August.
    8. Marimon, Ramon & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 1999. "Unemployment vs. Mismatch of Talents: Reconsidering Unemployment Benefits," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 266-291, April.
    9. Rogerson, Richard & Schindler, Martin, 2002. "The welfare costs of worker displacement," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1213-1234, September.
    10. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 1998. "The European Unemployment Dilemma," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 514-550, June.
    11. Marimon, R. & Zilibotti, F., 1998. "Unemployment vs. Mismatch of Talents," Papers 661, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
    12. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    13. Burda, Michael C, 1992. " A Note on Firing Costs and Severance Benefits in Equilibrium Unemployment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(3), pages 479-489.
    14. Pedro Cavalcanti Ferreira & Samuel deAbreu Pessoa & Joao Victor Issler, 2000. "On the Nature of Income Inequality Across Nations," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1487, Econometric Society.
    15. Restuccia, Diego & Urrutia, Carlos, 2001. "Relative prices and investment rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 93-121, February.
    16. Topel, Robert H, 1991. "Specific Capital, Mobility, and Wages: Wages Rise with Job Seniority," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 145-176, February.
    17. Stephen L. Parente & Edward C. Prescott, 2002. "Barriers to Riches," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661306, December.
    18. Edward P. Lazear, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726.
    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. Ricardo Lagos, 2006. "A Model of TFP," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 983-1007.
    2. Diego Restuccia, 2004. "Barriers to Capital Accumulation and Aggregate Total Factor Productivity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(1), pages 225-238, February.
    3. Douglas Gollin & Stephen L. Parente & Richard Rogerson, 2004. "Farm Work, Home Work, and International Productivity Differences," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(4), pages 827-850, October.
    4. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8904 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Herrendorf, Berthold & Teixeira, Arilton, 2003. "Monopoly Rights can Reduce Income Big Time," CEPR Discussion Papers 3854, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Ngai, L. Rachel, 2004. "Barriers and the transition to modern growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1353-1383, October.
    7. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/8904 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Wasmer, Etienne, 2002. "Interpreting Europe and US Labor Markets Differences: The Specificity of Human Capital Investments," IZA Discussion Papers 549, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Maria Rosaria CARILLO & Alberto ZAZZARO, 2002. "The Enigma of Medieval Craft Guilds: A Model of Social Inertia and Technological Change," Working Papers 167, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8904 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. John Landon-Lane & Peter Robertson, 2005. "A Note on Barriers to Capital Accumulation and Income," Departmental Working Papers 200509, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    12. Tom Krebs, 2003. "Human Capital Risk and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 709-744.
    13. Eaton, Jonathan & Kortum, Samuel, 2001. "Trade in capital goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1195-1235.
    14. Philip Jung & Moritz Kuhn, 2019. "Earnings Losses and Labor Mobility Over the Life Cycle," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 678-724.
    15. Restuccia, Diego & Yang, Dennis Tao & Zhu, Xiaodong, 2008. "Agriculture and aggregate productivity: A quantitative cross-country analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 234-250, March.
    16. Georg Duernecker, 2014. "Technology Adoption, Turbulence, And The Dynamics Of Unemployment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 724-754, June.
    17. Etienne Wasmer & Peter Fredriksson & Ana Lamo & Julian Messina & Giovanni Peri, 2005. "The Macroeconomics of Education," Post-Print hal-03458955, HAL.
    18. Etienne Wasmer, 2006. "General versus Specific Skills in Labor Markets with Search Frictions and Firing Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 811-831, June.
    19. Den Haan, Wouter & Haefke, Christian & Ramey, Gary, 2001. "Shocks and Institutions in a Job Matching Model," CEPR Discussion Papers 2970, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Andrés Erosa & Ana Hidalgo Cabrillana, 2008. "On Finance As A Theory Of Tfp, Cross‐Industry Productivity Differences, And Economic Rents," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(2), pages 437-473, May.
    21. Marimon, Ramon & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 1999. "Unemployment vs. Mismatch of Talents: Reconsidering Unemployment Benefits," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 266-291, April.
    22. Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian & Álvaro José Riascos & James A. Schmitz, 2006. "Latin America in the rearview mirror," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 30(Sep).
    23. Cozzi, Marco & Fella, Giulio, 2016. "Job displacement risk and severance pay," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 166-181.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Barriers to technology adoption; Unemployment; Unemployment insurance; Workers displacement; Welfare cost.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
    • D69 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:aub:autbar:633.04. 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: Xavier Vila (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ufuabes.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.