What Does Human Capital Do? A Review of Goldin and Katz's The Race between Education and Technology

被引:187
作者
Acemoglu, Daron [1 ]
Autor, David [1 ]
机构
[1] MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
关键词
WAGE INEQUALITY; POLARIZATION; TRENDS; SKILLS;
D O I
10.1257/jel.50.2.426
中图分类号
F [经济];
学科分类号
02 ;
摘要
Goldin and Katz's The Race between Education and Technology is a monumental achievement that supplies a unified framework for interpreting how the demand and supply of human capital have shaped the distribution of earnings in the U.S. labor market over the twentieth century. This essay reviews the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of this work and documents the success of Goldin and Katz's framework in accounting for numerous broad labor market trends. The essay also considers areas where the framework falls short in explaining several key labor market puzzles of recent decades and argues that these shortcomings can potentially be overcome by relaxing the implicit equivalence drawn between workers' skills and their job tasks in the conceptual framework on which Goldin and Katz build. The essay argues that allowing for a richer set of interactions between skills and technologies in accomplishing job tasks both augments and refines the predictions of Goldin and Katz's approach and suggests an even more important role for human capital in economic growth than indicated by their analysis.
引用
收藏
页码:426 / 463
页数:38
相关论文
共 38 条
[1]  
Abdulkadiroglu Atila, 2011, 17264 NAT BUR EC RES
[2]  
Acemog lu D., 2010, HDB LABOR EC B, V4, P1043
[3]   Women, war, and wages: The effect of female labor supply on the wage structure at midcentury [J].
Acemoglu, D ;
Autor, DH ;
Lyle, D .
JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 2004, 112 (03) :497-551
[4]   Why do new technologies complement skills? Directed technical change and wage inequality [J].
Acemoglu, D .
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, 1998, 113 (04) :1055-1089
[5]   Productivity differences [J].
Acemoglu, D ;
Zilibotti, F .
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, 2001, 116 (02) :563-606
[6]  
Acemoglu D., 2009, Introduction to Modern Economic Growth
[7]   Equilibrium bias of technology [J].
Acemoglu, Daron .
ECONOMETRICA, 2007, 75 (05) :1371-1409
[8]  
Acemoglu Daron, WHY NATIONS IN PRESS
[9]   Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects [J].
Anderson, Michael L. .
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION, 2008, 103 (484) :1481-1495
[10]  
[Anonymous], 2010, INTEGRATED PUBLIC US