 Experience-Biased Technical ChangeFrancesco Caselli No 10752, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research Abstract: The baby-boom cycle has caused very large swings in the relative supply of experienced workers (first a large decline, and then a large increase). Yet, the experience premium has failed to decline markedly in the period where the supply of experience has increased. I develop a methodology to estimate the increase in the relative demand for experience that is required to reconcile the behavor of prices and quantities, and show this to have been large - a phenomenon I dub experience-biased technical change. I conjecture that one of the drivers of experience-biased technical change is a decline in the relative demand for physical strength. In support this conjecture, I show that occupations requiring high or moderate physical strength have accounted for a declining share of weeks worked in the economy, with sedentary occupations experiencing a corresponding increase. I also confirm that older workers have a comparative disadvantage in occupations requiring physical strength. Keywords: Baby boom; Experience premium; Technical change (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10752 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK. |
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