Productivity, Computerization, and Skill Change

Edward N. Wolff

NBER Working Paper No. 8743
Issued in January 2002
NBER Program(s):   PR

Using pooled cross-section, time-series data for 44 industries over the decades of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s in the United States, I find no econometric evidence that computer investment is positively linked to TFP growth (over and above its inclusion in the TFP measure). However, computerization is positively associated with occupational restructuring and changes in the composition of intermediate inputs and capital coefficients. There is modest evidence that the growth of worker skills is positively related to industry productivity growth. The effects are very modest -- adding at most 0.07 percentage points to annual labor productivity growth.

(348 K)

Published: Wolff, Edward N. "Productivity, Computerization, And Skill Change," FFB Atlanta - Economic Review, 2002, v87(3,Third-Qtr), 63-87.

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