Browsing by Subject "Skill premium"

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Robots and the skill premium
an automation-based explanation of wage inequality
(2017) Lankisch, Clemens; Prettner, Klaus; Prskawetz, Alexia
We analyze the effects of automation on the wages of high-skilled and low- skilled workers and thereby on the evolution of wage inequality. Our model explains the simultaneous presence of i) increasing per capita GDP, ii) de-clining real wages of low-skilled workers, and iii) an increasing skill-premium. These developments are consistent with the experience in the United States over the past decades and have the potential to contribute to the explanation of the rise in overall incomeinequality that we have observed since the 1980s.
Technological unemployment revisited
automation in a searchand matching framework
(2018) Prettner, Klaus; Cords, Dario
Will low-skilled workers be replaced by automation? To answer this question, we set up a search and matching model that features two skill types of workers and includes automation capital as an additional production factor. Automation capital is a perfect substitute for low-skilled workers and an imperfect substitute for high-skilled workers. Using this type of model, we show that the accumulation of automation capital decreases the labor market tightness in the low-skilled labor market and increases the labor market tightness in the high-skilled labor market. This leads to a rising unemployment rate of low-skilled workers and a falling un- employment rate of high-skilled workers. In addition, automation leads to falling wages of low-skilled workers and rising wages of high-skilled workers.