Has ICT polarized skill demand? Evidence from eleven countries over 25 years

Guy Michaels, Ashwini Natraj and John van Reenen

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We test the hypothesis that information and communication technologies (ICT) “polarize” labor markets, by increasing demand for the highly educated at the expense of the middle educated, with little effect on low-educated workers. Using data on the US, Japan, and nine European countries from 1980–2004, we find that industries with faster ICT growth shifted demand from middle educated workers to highly educated workers, consistent with ICT-based polarization. Trade openness is also associated with polarization, but this is not robust to controlling for R&D. Technologies account for up to a quarter of the growth in demand for highly educated workers.

Keywords: technology; skill demand; polarization; wage inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (395)

Published in Review of Economics and Statistics, March, 2014, 96(1), pp. 60-77. ISSN: 0034-6535

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/46830/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Has ICT Polarized Skill Demand? Evidence from Eleven Countries over 25 Years (2010)
Working Paper: Has ICT Polarized Skill Demand? Evidence from Eleven Countries over 25 years (2010)
Working Paper: Has ICT polarized skill demand?: evidence from eleven countries over 25 Years (2010)
Working Paper: Has ICT Polarized Skill Demand? Evidence from Eleven Countries over 25 years (2010)
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