AI-driven capital-skill complementarity: Implications for skill premiums and labor mobility

To explain the newly discovered coevolution of capital and labor structures, this study presents a modified capital-skill complementarity hypothesis within the framework of structural transformation. We propose that artificial intelligence (AI) and skilled labor exhibit relative complementarity. Specifically, advancements in AI services or AI-enhanced technologies incentivize the mobilization of skilled labor across different industry sectors. The direction of this labor movement is contingent upon variations across industry sectors, including AI output elasticity and the substitutability between AI and conventional production methods. This structural transformation process also induces fluctuations in skill premiums.