Technological Bias and Unemployment: A Macroeconomic Perspective

Henri Sneessens

No 1999024, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: This paper focuses on the macroeconomic impact of introducing new technologies (among which information technologies) when the latter stimulate the relative demand for high-skilled labour. The fact that there is biased technical progress (or at least, that growth has asymmetric effects) is little disputed. Evaluating its effect on unemployment still remains a difficult task. This paper stresses the need to rely on a genuine structural analysis. To clarify some of these issues, we develop a simple analytical framework with two types of labour (high- and low-skilled). This framework is used to distinguish macroeconomic vs structural shocks, and to illustrate the interactions between macroeconomic and structural phenomena as well as their implications for the interpretation of simple mismatch indicators. The framework is next used as a reference setup wherein to evaluate and compare the empirical modelling approaches used by different authors and the results they obtain.

Keywords: Mismatch; equilibrium unemployment; NAIRU; skill bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27
Date: 1998-06-01, Revised 1999-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:1999024

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