Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/207745 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
NBB Working Paper No. 365
Publisher: 
National Bank of Belgium, Brussels
Abstract: 
This paper is the first to study the distinct effects of Information Technologies (IT) and Communication Technologies (CT) on the skill, age, and age-skill composition of labour demand. The analysis is conducted on a sample comprising 10 developed countries, 30 industries covering the largest part of the economy, and the period 1982-2005. I find that IT intensity increases the relative demands for the high-skilled, low-skilled and oldest workers, while it decreases the relative demands for the medium-skilled and younger workers. Also, IT intensity increases the relative demands for the high-skilled and low-skilled of all age profiles, while it decreases the relative demands for the medium-skilled of all age profiles. CT intensity exerts opposite effects. Consistent with knowledge-based hierarchy theories highlighting the organisational aspect of the adoption of IT and CT by firms, the empowerment of agents at lower and higher levels of the hierarchy induced by IT and CT, respectively, rationalise these findings. I also find that the aforementioned effects operate mostly as of 1990, when the advancement rates of IT and CT were even higher than in the 1980s. Although a clear pattern of disproportionate effects across sectors is not identified, such a pattern across countries does exist: the inequalities generated by the two types of technologies are mitigated by higher union density.
Subjects: 
Information Technologies
Communication Technologies
relative labour demand
age-skill profile
JEL: 
O33
J21
J23
J24
J31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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