A Task-Based Theory of Occupations with Multidimensional Heterogeneity

Sergio Ocampo

No 20222, University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP) Working Papers from University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP)

Abstract: I develop an assignment model of occupations with multidimensional heterogeneity in production tasks and worker skills. Tasks are distributed continuously in the skill space, whereas workers have a discrete distribution with a finite number of types. Occupations arise endogenously as bundles of tasks optimally assigned to a type of worker. The model allows us to study how occupations respond to changes in the economic environment, making it useful for analyzing the implications of automation, skill-biased technical change, offshoring, and worker training. Using the model, I characterize how wages, the marginal product of workers, the substitutability between worker types, and the labor share depend on the assignment of tasks to workers. I introduce automation as the choice of the optimal size and location of a mass of identical robots in the task space. Automation displaces workers by replacing them in the performance of tasks, generating a cascading effect on other workers as the boundaries of occupations are redrawn.

Keywords: occupations; tasks; automation; assignment; skill mismatch (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-lma and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: A task-based theory of occupations with multidimensional heterogeneity (2019)
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