The Comparative Advantage of Educated Workers in Implementing New Technology
Abstract
We estimate labor demand equations derived from a (restricted variable) cost function in which "experience" on a technology (proxied by the mean age of the capital stock) enters "non-neutrally." Our specification of the underlying cost function is based on the hypothesis that highly educated workers have a comparative advantage with respect to the adjustment to and implementation of new technologies. Our empirical results are consistent with the implication of this hypothesis, that the relative demand for educated workers declines as the ages of plant and (particularly) of equipment increase, especially in R & D-intensive industries
Download PDF
Citation
Bartel, Ann, and Frank Lichtenberg. "The Comparative Advantage of Educated Workers in Implementing New Technology." Review of Economics and Statistics 69, no. 1 (February 1987): 1-11.
Each author name for a Columbia Business School faculty member is linked to a faculty research page, which lists additional publications by that faculty member.
Each topic is linked to an index of publications on that topic.