Working Papers
Heterogeneous Effects of Capital-Embodied Innovation on Labor Market [paper] joint with Younghun Shim
*CESifo Working Paper N.11037. *'How Task-Biased is Capital-Embodied Innovation?'
Abstract:
This paper develops an occupation-level measure of Capital-Embodied Innovation (CEI) by matching patents with capital goods based on their text similarity. The impact of CEI on labor demand is heterogeneous, depending on the similarity between capital and occupational tasks. Specifically, CEI associated with task-similar capital reduces the relative labor demand, whereas CEI related to task-dissimilar capital raises it. Between 1980 and 2015, capital used by high-wage occupations experienced more innovations in task-dissimilar capital and fewer in task-similar capital. CEI can explain 51\% of the relative wage growth in high-wage occupations and significantly contributes to routine- and abstract-biased labor market changes.
Worker Turnover, Disruptive Innovation, and Productivity Growth [paper]
Abstract:
This paper shows that faster worker turnover between employers encourages firms to choose disruptive technologies and accelerates long-run growth. In the US, metropolitan areas with more worker transitions across jobs have more disruptive innovation and faster productivity growth. Also, state-level institutional changes that increase employment-to-employment transitions of workers make innovations more disruptive in metropolitan areas. This paper reconciles these empirical facts with an endogenous growth model with a frictional labor market where firms choose the rate of technology upgrades and new technologies make existing worker skills obsolete. The calibrated model replicates the effect of worker turnover on disruptive innovation and suggests a substantial composition change of long-run growth in response to the changes in worker turnover rates.
Does Growth Lead to Labor Reallocation? Role of Own-Product Improvement vs. Product Expansion [paper] [online appendix]
*Supersedes 'Growth and Labor Reallocation: Vertical versus Horizontal Innovation'
Abstract:
I study the relationship between long-run growth and labor reallocation when incumbent producers both innovate over their previous products (own-product improvements) and expand to new product markets (product expansion). I calibrate a quality ladder model of endogenous growth with an establishment panel survey data that distinguish different innovation types. I discover that own-product improvements account for 90% of productivity growth and 81% of the welfare gains from faster growth after R&D incentives. Since own-product improvements have smaller effects to reallocate labor between establishments, despite an increase in growth rates, labor reallocation rates barely change in response to R&D incentives.
Work in Progress
Specificity of Human Capital and Wage Growth joint with Davide Alonzo
Age Sorting in the Labor Market joint with Toshiaki Komatsu
Discussion
Productivity Gains from Labor Outsourcing [slides] by Gorkem Bostanci
Liability Dollarization and Exchange Rate Pass-Through [slides] by Junhyong Kim and Annie Soyean Lee
A Quantitative Exploration of Wealth Inequality: New Insights from Panel Data [slides] by Serdar Ozkan, Joachim Hubmer, Sergio Salgado, and Elin Halvorsen