IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/61285.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Capital-Skill Complementarity: Does capital disaggregation matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Correa, Juan
  • Lorca, Miguel
  • Parro, Francisco

Abstract

Using Chilean manufacturing plants data, we�find: (1) the elasticity of substitution between capital and skilled labor is lower than the elasticity of substitution between capital and unskilled labor, and (2) the higher the technological component of the capital stock the larger the size of complementarity between capital and skilled labor. Our�findings show that capital, as an aggregate input, may under(over) state the complementarity between labor and the type of capital these workers actually use.

Suggested Citation

  • Correa, Juan & Lorca, Miguel & Parro, Francisco, 2014. "Capital-Skill Complementarity: Does capital disaggregation matter?," MPRA Paper 61285, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:61285
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/61285/1/MPRA_paper_61285.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levinsohn, James, 1999. "Employment responses to international liberalization in Chile," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 321-344, April.
    2. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226304557 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Linnea Polgreen & Pedro Silos, 2008. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Sensitivity Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(2), pages 302-313, April.
    4. Nina Pavcnik, 2002. "Trade Liberalization, Exit, and Productivity Improvements: Evidence from Chilean Plants," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(1), pages 245-276.
    5. Alan B. Krueger, 1993. "How Computers Have Changed the Wage Structure: Evidence from Microdata, 1984–1989," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 33-60.
    6. Liu, Lili, 1993. "Entry-exit, learning, and productivity change Evidence from Chile," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 217-242, December.
    7. Olivier Bruno & Cuong Van & Benoît Masquin, 2009. "When does a developing country use new technologies?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(2), pages 275-300, August.
    8. John Duffy & Chris Papageorgiou & Fidel Perez-Sebastian, 2004. "Capital-Skill Complementarity? Evidence from a Panel of Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 327-344, February.
    9. Tybout, James & de Melo, Jamie & Corbo, Vittorio, 1991. "The effects of trade reforms on scale and technical efficiency : New evidence from Chile," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3-4), pages 231-250, November.
    10. Nicholas Oulton & Sylaja Srinivasan, 2003. "Capital stocks, capital services, and depreciation: an integrated framework," Bank of England working papers 192, Bank of England.
    11. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2006. "The Polarization of the U.S. Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 189-194, May.
    12. Gallego, Francisco A., 2012. "Skill Premium in Chile: Studying Skill Upgrading in the South," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 594-609.
    13. Griliches, Zvi, 1969. "Capital-Skill Complementarity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 51(4), pages 465-468, November.
    14. Chris Papageorgiou & Viera Chmelarova, 2005. "Nonlinearities in Capital–Skill Complementarity," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 55-86, January.
    15. Akay, Gokhan H. & Yuksel, Mutlu, 2009. "Capital-Skill Complementarity: Evidence from Manufacturing Industries in Ghana," IZA Discussion Papers 4674, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Per Krusell & Lee E. Ohanian & JosÈ-Victor RÌos-Rull & Giovanni L. Violante, 2000. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Macroeconomic Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1029-1054, September.
    17. Berndt, Ernst R & Christensen, Laurits R, 1974. "Testing for the Existence of a Consistent Aggregate Index of Labor Inputs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 391-404, June.
    18. Bergstrom, Villy & Panas, Epaminondas E, 1992. "How Robust Is the Capital-Skill Complementarity Hypothesis?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(3), pages 540-546, August.
    19. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 1998. "The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 693-732.
    20. Robert J. Gordon, 1990. "The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gord90-1, March.
    21. Rodrigo Cerda; Diego Saravia. & Diego Saravia., 2009. "Corporate tax, firm destruction and capital stock accumulation: Evidence from Chilean plants," Documentos de Trabajo 364, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    22. Hirofumi Uzawa, 1962. "Production Functions with Constant Elasticities of Substitution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 29(4), pages 291-299.
    23. Rodrigo A. Cerda & Diego Saravia, 2009. "Corporate Tax, Firm Destruction and Capital Stock Accumulation: Evidence From Chilean Plants, 1979-2004," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 521, Central Bank of Chile.
    24. Ann Bartel & Casey Ichniowski & Kathryn Shaw, 2007. "How Does Information Technology Affect Productivity? Plant-Level Comparisons of Product Innovation, Process Improvement, and Worker Skills," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1721-1758.
    25. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    26. Ernst R. Berndt & Laurits R. Christensen, 1973. "The Internal Structure of Functional Relationships: Separability, Substitution, and Aggregation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(3), pages 403-410.
    27. Yasar, Mahmut & Morrison Paul, Catherine J., 2008. "Capital-skill complementarity, productivity and wages: Evidence from plant-level data for a developing country," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, 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. Parro, Francisco & Reyes, Loreto, 2013. "The Chilean Labor Market: Job Creation, Quality, Inclusiveness, and Future Challenges," MPRA Paper 50755, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Francisco Parro & Loreto Reyes, 2017. "The rise and fall of income inequality in Chile," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 26(1), pages 1-31, December.

    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. Juan A. Correa & Miguel Lorca & Francisco Parro, 2019. "Capital–Skill Complementarity: Does Capital Composition Matter?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(1), pages 89-116, January.
    2. Correa, Juan & Lorca, Miguel & Parro, Francisco, 2015. "Measuring the Impact of Financial Taxation on Capital," MPRA Paper 64378, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Perez-Laborda, Alejandro & Perez-Sebastian, Fidel, 2020. "Capital-skill complementarity and biased technical change across US sectors," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Daniel J. Henderson, 2009. "A Non‐parametric Examination of Capital–Skill Complementarity," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(4), pages 519-538, August.
    5. Raveh, Ohad & Reshef, Ariell, 2016. "Capital imports composition, complementarities, and the skill premium in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 183-206.
    6. Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Lubica Laslopova & Olesia Zeynalova, 2020. "Skilled and Unskilled Labor Are Less Substitutable than Commonly Thought," Working Papers IES 2020/29, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Sep 2020.
    7. Taniguchi, Hiroya & Yamada, Ken, 2022. "ICT capital–skill complementarity and wage inequality: Evidence from OECD countries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Majumdar, Sumit K., 2014. "Technology and wages: Why firms invest and what happens," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 44-54.
    9. Manuel A. Hidalgo Pérez & Jesús Rodríguez López & José Mª O.Kean Alonso, 2008. "Labor demand and information technologies: evidence for Spain, 1980-2005," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2008/13, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    10. Michael Ben-Gad, 2008. "Capital-Skill Complementarity and the Immigration Surplus," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(2), pages 335-365, April.
    11. David Greenstreet, 2007. "Exploiting Sequential Learning to Estimate Establishment-Level Productivity Dynamics and Decision Rules," Economics Series Working Papers 345, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Caselli, Francesco & Ciccone, Antonio, 2013. "The contribution of schooling in development accounting: Results from a nonparametric upper bound," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 199-211.
    13. Chris Papageorgiou & Viera Chmelarova, 2005. "Nonlinearities in Capital–Skill Complementarity," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 55-86, January.
    14. 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.
    15. Christian Jaag, 2005. "The Role of Endogenous Skill Choice in an Aging Economy," Public Economics 0505005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Li, Hongbin & Meng, Lingsheng, 2022. "Skill biased tax policy change: Labor market effects of China’s VAT reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Yoshimichi Murakami, 2021. "Trade liberalization and wage inequality: Evidence from Chile," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 407-438, April.
    18. Hui He & Zheng Liu, 2008. "Investment-Specific Technological Change, Skill Accumulation, and Wage Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(2), pages 314-334, April.
    19. Nico Voigtlaender, 2009. "Many Sectors Meet More Skills: Intersectoral Linkages and the Skill Bias of Technology," 2009 Meeting Papers 1136, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Laslopova, Lubica & Zeynalova, Olesia, 2020. "The Elasticity of Substitution between Skilled and Unskilled Labor: A Meta-Analysis," MPRA Paper 102598, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    capital-skill complementarity; technological capital; translog function;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:61285. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.