Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/105759 
Year of Publication: 
2005
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2005-17
Publisher: 
University of Massachusetts, Department of Economics, Amherst, MA
Abstract: 
New information and communication technologies, we argue, have been 'power-biased': they have allowed firms to monitor low-skill workers more closely, thus reducing the power of these workers. An efficiency wage model shows that 'power-biased technical change' in this sense may generate rising wage inequality accompanied by an increase in both the effort and unemployment of low-skill workers. The skill-biased technological change hypothesis, on the other hand, offers no explanation for the observed increase in effort. JEL Categories: J31, O33
Subjects: 
power-biased technical change
skill bias
efficiency wages
wage inequality
work intensity
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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