How General Is Human Capital? A Task-Based Approach

Christina Gathmann and Uta Schönberg
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Uta Schoenberg

Journal of Labor Economics, 2010, vol. 28, issue 1, 1-49

Abstract: This article studies how portable skills accumulated in the labor market are. Using rich data on tasks performed in occupations, we propose the concept of task-specific human capital to measure empirically the transferability of skills across occupations. Our results on occupational mobility and wages show that labor market skills are more portable than previously considered. We find that individuals move to occupations with similar task requirements and that the distance of moves declines with experience. We also show that task-specific human capital is an important source of individual wage growth, accounting for up to 52% of overall wage growth. (c) 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (448)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/649786 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: How General Is Human Capital? A Task-Based Approach (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:28:y:2010:i:1:p:1-49

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().