Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The automation of abilities, not jobs

Byrne Alvarez, Daniel LU (2017) EKHM52 20171
Department of Economic History
Abstract
Automation is one of the key topics of the 21st century with many workers concerned about their jobs being replaced by machines. This has led to an ongoing debate to determine to what degree automation is occurring, and which occupations are going to be affected by it. This paper attempts to take a different approach which differs from mainstream authors by focusing on the tasks that each occupation is composed of, rather than the whole occupation itself. To do so I estimate the effect ten abilities, skills or work activities have had on employment and wages between 2000 and 2015 in the United States. An example of my findings is that tasks which include processing information are complemented by automation whereas working in a cramped... (More)
Automation is one of the key topics of the 21st century with many workers concerned about their jobs being replaced by machines. This has led to an ongoing debate to determine to what degree automation is occurring, and which occupations are going to be affected by it. This paper attempts to take a different approach which differs from mainstream authors by focusing on the tasks that each occupation is composed of, rather than the whole occupation itself. To do so I estimate the effect ten abilities, skills or work activities have had on employment and wages between 2000 and 2015 in the United States. An example of my findings is that tasks which include processing information are complemented by automation whereas working in a cramped work space is a bottleneck to automation. Using this new approach, this paper provides useful information on how firms, individuals and policy makers should adapt to an ever-increasing automated reality. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Byrne Alvarez, Daniel LU
supervisor
organization
course
EKHM52 20171
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
language
English
id
8917331
date added to LUP
2017-06-29 13:40:50
date last changed
2017-06-29 13:40:50
@misc{8917331,
  abstract     = {{Automation is one of the key topics of the 21st century with many workers concerned about their jobs being replaced by machines. This has led to an ongoing debate to determine to what degree automation is occurring, and which occupations are going to be affected by it. This paper attempts to take a different approach which differs from mainstream authors by focusing on the tasks that each occupation is composed of, rather than the whole occupation itself. To do so I estimate the effect ten abilities, skills or work activities have had on employment and wages between 2000 and 2015 in the United States. An example of my findings is that tasks which include processing information are complemented by automation whereas working in a cramped work space is a bottleneck to automation. Using this new approach, this paper provides useful information on how firms, individuals and policy makers should adapt to an ever-increasing automated reality.}},
  author       = {{Byrne Alvarez, Daniel}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{The automation of abilities, not jobs}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}