IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mie/wpaper/682.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Geography of Job Tasks

Author

Listed:
  • Enghin Atalay

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia)

  • Sebastian Sotelo

    (University of Michigan)

  • Daniel Tannenbaum

    (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Abstract

We present new facts about the geography of work using online job ads and introduce new measures of job tasks, technology requirements, and the degree of specialization within firms or occupations. We show that the (i) intensity of interactive and analytic tasks, (ii) technological requirements, and (iii) task specialization all increase with city size. The gradient for tasks and technologies is steeper for jobs requiring a college degree. We show that these facts help account for the urban wage premium, both in aggregate and across skill groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Enghin Atalay & Sebastian Sotelo & Daniel Tannenbaum, 2021. "The Geography of Job Tasks," Working Papers 682, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    • Handle: RePEc:mie:wpaper:682
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/rsie/workingpapers/Papers676-700/r682.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donald R. Davis & Jonathan I. Dingel, 2019. "A Spatial Knowledge Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 153-170, January.
    2. Bleakley, Hoyt & Lin, Jeffrey, 2012. "Thick-market effects and churning in the labor market: Evidence from US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 87-103.
    3. Duranton, Gilles & Jayet, Hubert, 2011. "Is the division of labour limited by the extent of the market? Evidence from French cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 56-71, January.
    4. Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2015. "Knowledge-Based Hierarchies: Using Organizations to Understand the Economy," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 1-30, August.
    5. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 1994. "The Division of Labor, Coordination Costs, and Knowledge," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 299-322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Brad Hershbein & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Do Recessions Accelerate Routine-Biased Technological Change? Evidence from Vacancy Postings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(7), pages 1737-1772, July.
    7. Lee, Sanghoon, 2010. "Ability sorting and consumer city," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 20-33, July.
    8. Couture, Victor & Handbury, Jessie, 2020. "Urban revival in America," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    9. Enghin Atalay & Phai Phongthiengtham & Sebastian Sotelo & Daniel Tannenbaum, 2020. "The Evolution of Work in the United States," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 1-34, April.
    10. David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon Hanson, 2019. "When Work Disappears: Manufacturing Decline and the Falling Marriage Market Value of Young Men," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 161-178, September.
    11. Claudia Macaluso, 2017. "Skill Remoteness and Post-layoff Labor Market Outcomes," 2017 Meeting Papers 569, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    13. Dixit,Avinash & Norman,Victor, 1985. "Theory of International Trade," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521299695.
    14. Marigee Bacolod & Bernardo S. Blum & William C. Strange, 2009. "Urban interactions: soft skills versus specialization," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 227-262, March.
    15. Guy Michaels & Ferdinand Rauch & Stephen J Redding, 2019. "Task Specialization in U.S. Cities from 1880 to 2000," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 754-798.
    16. Autor, David H., 2013. "The "task approach" to labor markets : an overview," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 46(3), pages 185-199.
    17. Chaney, Thomas & Ossa, Ralph, 2013. "Market size, division of labor, and firm productivity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 177-180.
    18. Fabian Eckert & Sharat Ganapati & Conor Walsh, 2020. "Urban-Biased Growth: A Macroeconomic Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 8705, CESifo.
    19. David Deming & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Skill Requirements across Firms and Labor Markets: Evidence from Job Postings for Professionals," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 337-369.
    20. Davis, Donald R. & Dingel, Jonathan I., 2020. "The comparative advantage of cities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    21. Davis, James C. & Henderson, J. Vernon, 2008. "The agglomeration of headquarters," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 445-460, September.
    22. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/312fvs95ub8ct80ng4em8fjifb is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Rebecca Diamond, 2016. "The Determinants and Welfare Implications of US Workers' Diverging Location Choices by Skill: 1980-2000," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 479-524, March.
    24. Carlino, Gerald A. & Chatterjee, Satyajit & Hunt, Robert M., 2007. "Urban density and the rate of invention," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 389-419, May.
    25. Jeffrey Lin, 2011. "Technological Adaptation, Cities, and New Work," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 554-574, May.
    26. Atalay, Enghin & Phongthiengtham, Phai & Sotelo, Sebastian & Tannenbaum, Daniel, 2018. "New technologies and the labor market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 48-67.
    27. Michael Storper & Anthony J. Venables, 2004. "Buzz: face-to-face contact and the urban economy," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 351-370, August.
    28. Holmes, Thomas J. & Stevens, John J., 2004. "Spatial distribution of economic activities in North America," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 63, pages 2797-2843, Elsevier.
    29. Lancaster, Kelvin, 1980. "Intra-industry trade under perfect monopolistic competition," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 151-175, May.
    30. George J. Stigler, 1951. "The Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent of the Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59, pages 185-185.
    31. J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), 2004. "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    32. Krugman, Paul, 1980. "Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 950-959, December.
    33. Derek Neal, 1998. "The Link between Ability and Specialization: An Explanation for Observed Correlations between Wages and Mobility Rates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(1), pages 173-200.
    34. Thomas N. Hubbard, 2009. "Specialization, Firms, and Markets: The Division of Labor within and between Law Firms," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 339-371, October.
    35. Baumgardner, James R, 1988. "Physicians' Services and the Division of Labor across Local Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 948-982, October.
    36. Mohammad Arzaghi & J. Vernon Henderson, 2008. "Networking off Madison Avenue," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1011-1038.
    37. Krugman, Paul R., 1979. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 469-479, November.
    38. Francesco Caselli, 1999. "Technological Revolutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 78-102, March.
    39. Alexandra Spitz-Oener, 2006. "Technical Change, Job Tasks, and Rising Educational Demands: Looking outside the Wage Structure," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(2), pages 235-270, April.
    40. Nathaniel Baum-Snow & Matthew Freedman & Ronni Pavan, 2018. "Why Has Urban Inequality Increased?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 1-42, October.
    41. Maxim Poletaev & Chris Robinson, 2008. "Human Capital Specificity: Evidence from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and Displaced Worker Surveys, 1984-2000," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 387-420, July.
    42. David H. Autor, 2019. "Work of the Past, Work of the Future," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 1-32, May.
    43. Alicia Sasser Modestino & Daniel Shoag & Joshua Ballance, 2020. "Upskilling: Do Employers Demand Greater Skill When Workers Are Plentiful?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 793-805, October.
    44. Thomas Chaney & Ralph Ossa, 2013. "Market Size, Division of Labor, and Firm Productivity," Post-Print hal-03579667, HAL.
    45. Kim, Sunwoong, 1989. "Labor Specialization and the Extent of the Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 692-705, June.
    46. Nicholas Bloom & Tarek A. Hassan & Aakash Kalyani & Josh Lerner & Ahmed Tahoun, 2020. "The Geography of New Technologies," Working Papers Series inetwp126, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    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. Behrens, Kristian & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2015. "Agglomeration Theory with Heterogeneous Agents," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 171-245, Elsevier.
    2. Consoli, Davide & Marin, Giovanni & Rentocchini, Francesco & Vona, Francesco, 2023. "Routinization, within-occupation task changes and long-run employment dynamics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/13fti1jo4t8vjpe6ko3qrrv2nv is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Theodore Papageorgiou, 2022. "Occupational Matching and Cities," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 82-132, July.
    5. Koomen, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2022. "Occupational tasks and wage inequality in West Germany: A decomposition analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Gobillon, Laurent, 2015. "The Empirics of Agglomeration Economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 247-348, Elsevier.
    7. Schultheiss, Tobias & Pfister, Curdin & Gnehm, Ann-Sophie & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2023. "Education expansion and high-skill job opportunities for workers: Does a rising tide lift all boats?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Jeffrey Brinkman, 2014. "The supply and demand of skilled workers in cities and the role of industry composition," Working Papers 14-32, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    9. Theodore Papageorgiou, 2020. "Occupational Matching and Cities," Working Papers 2020-049, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1kv8mtgl748r0ahh12air9erdc is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Koomen, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2022. "Occupational Tasks and Wage Inequality in Germany: A Decomposition Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 15702, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Amanda Weinstein & Carlianne Patrick, 2020. "Recession‐proof skills, cities, and resilience in economic downturns," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 348-373, March.
    13. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    14. Enghin Atalay & Phai Phongthiengtham & Sebastian Sotelo & Daniel Tannenbaum, 2020. "The Evolution of Work in the United States," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 1-34, April.
    15. David J Deming & Kadeem Noray, 2020. "Earnings Dynamics, Changing Job Skills, and STEM Careers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(4), pages 1965-2005.
    16. Madanizadeh, Seyed Ali, 2021. "International trade, skill premium and endogenous labor division: The case of Mexico," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    17. Yuming Fu & Yang Hao, 2015. "An Urban Accounting for Geographic Concentration of Skills and Welfare Inequality," ERSA conference papers ersa15p734, European Regional Science Association.
    18. Koji Shintaku, 2014. "The Division of Labor within Firms, Optimal Entry, and Firm Productivity," Discussion papers e-14-012, Graduate School of Economics Project Center, Kyoto University.
    19. Suzanne Kok, 2013. "Town and city jobs: Your job is different in another location," CPB Discussion Paper 246, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    20. Kwok Tong Soo, 2018. "International trade and the division of labor," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 322-338, May.
    21. Jonathan I. Dingel, 2017. "The Determinants of Quality Specialization," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(4), pages 1551-1582.
    22. David Deming & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Skill Requirements across Firms and Labor Markets: Evidence from Job Postings for Professionals," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 337-369.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    geography; job tasks; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    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:mie:wpaper:682. 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: FSPP Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/riumius.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.