Arbeitspapier

Innovations, Wages and Demand for Heterogeneous Labour: New Evidence from a Matched Employer-Employee Data-Set

This paper examines the impact of innovations and wages on the demand for heterogeneous labour. Based on matched data from the IAB-establishment panel survey and the files of the employment statistics register for the year 1995, input shares derived from a generalised Leontief cost function are estimated for six qualification groups (blue and white collar workers stratified into unskilled, skilled and highly-skilled employees) in the West German production industries. With the exception of highly skilled blue collar workers, innovations have a positive and significant effect on labour demand for all groups, with an estimated relative change of the conditional labour demand ranging between 3.2% and 6.3%. Between white collar workers as well as between unskilled and skilled blue collar workers, we find an increasing positive impact of innovations on labour demand with qualification level. Skilled and highly skilled employees are found to be substitutes for the unskilled. This result implies that more flexible wages of the unskilled would reduce the unemployment of this group. Finally, our data is not consistent with separability of blue-collar employees from white collar employees, there is weak evidence that skilled and highly skilled blue collar employees can be aggregated.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 112

Classification
Wirtschaft
Labor Demand
Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
Firm Behavior: Theory
Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
Subject
Demand for labor
labor costs
substitution
firm behavior
innovation
Arbeitsnachfrage
Humankapital
Innovation
Lohn
Arbeitskosten
Technischer Fortschritt
Kostenfunktion
Ungelernte Arbeitskräfte
Faktorsubstitution
Schätzung
Deutschland

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Bellmann, Lutz
Schank, Thorsten
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
(where)
Bonn
(when)
2000

Handle
Last update
20.09.2024, 8:22 AM CEST

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Bellmann, Lutz
  • Schank, Thorsten
  • Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Time of origin

  • 2000

Other Objects (12)