Abstract

This article reports direct evidence on how technological change is related to changes in wage gaps by schooling, experience, and gender. Wage gaps by schooling increased the most in industries with rising R&D intensity and accelerating growth in the capital-labor ratio. Estimates of their relationship to high-tech capital are inconclusive. Contrary to popular notions that technological change harms older workers, wage growth of experienced workers is much greater in R&D-intensive industries than in industries with little R&D activity. The gender gap narrowed more in industries that most intensively used high-tech capital in 1979. Copyright 2001 by University of Chicago Press.

Keywords

Labour economicsWageEconomicsTechnological changeWage growthCapital intensityCapital (architecture)Human capitalDemographic economicsMarket economyMacroeconomics

Affiliated Institutions

Related Publications

R & D-Based Models of Economic Growth

This paper argues that the 'scale effects' prediction of many recent R&D-based models of growth is inconsistent with the time-series evidence from industrialized economies. ...

1995 Journal of Political Economy 2987 citations

Publication Info

Year
2001
Type
article
Volume
19
Issue
2
Pages
440-483
Citations
137
Access
Closed

External Links

Social Impact

Altmetric

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

137
OpenAlex

Cite This

Steven G. Allen (2001). Technology and the Wage Structure. Journal of Labor Economics , 19 (2) , 440-483. https://doi.org/10.1086/319567

Identifiers

DOI
10.1086/319567