2020/03/19 by Matthew B. Ross · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Health Professions · #Economic Growth and Productivity #Employment and Welfare Studies #Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
paper · doi:10.1177/0019793920910747
openalex publication_date 2020/03/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Previous empirical studies investigating the employment impact of technological change have relied on cross-sectional measures of occupational tasks. Here, the author links microdata on individual workers to panel data on occupational tasks while controlling for individual unobservables. In examining the association between routine and abstract tasks and employment transitions, he finds new and economically important evidence that changes to tasks within occupations are strongly related to variation in the transition rates to non-employment and to different occupations. Consistent with recent work focused on technological change during the Great Recession, within-occupation increases in routine tasks are found to increase outgoing transition rates but these effects are concentrated during periods of economic turmoil. The results also show that increases in abstract tasks are associated with decreases in the outgoing transition rates, but this relationship is relatively invariant to business cycle conditions.