Technology and the Labor Market

Economic developments of the past three decades posed new questions to economists: what are the causes of fluctuations in rates of return to human capital? What is the relation between the changing skill–wage structure and changing overall wage inequality? Does the widening of the wage structure produce an equilibrating supply response? What are the causes, dimensions, and implications of the “technological cycle” for wages, unemployment, and its “natural rate”? Why is the long-term trend of human capital formation relentlessly upward?