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Digital Technology, Skills and Labor Policy in Latin America

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Swissotel Chicago, St Gallen 3
Hosted By: Association for Social Economics
  • Chair: Daniel Lederman, World Bank

The Impact of Digital Technologies on Routine Tasks: A Role for Labor Policies

Jennifer Poole
,
American University

Abstract

This paper explores an administrative dataset from Brazil, combined with information on the task content of occupations, the rollout of the internet across the country, and the enforcement of labor regulations. First, we assess the extent to which the adoption of digital technology affects the demand for different types of skills and tasks, by exploiting the fact that firms vary in the degree of exposure to digital technologies. Firms in industries which intensively use technology located in cities with early provision of internet services are most likely to adopt digital technologies. Second, as de facto labor regulations are heterogeneous within a country, we explore the role of social protections in influencing the impact of digital technology on the demand for skills, by discerning the main effect across firms located in distinct regulatory environments. From a policy standpoint, our work contributes to an understanding of job requirements and job security in an increasingly technology-driven world.

ICT, Jobs and Task Content of Occupations in Chilean Firms

Mariana Viollaz
,
CEDLAS-National University of La Plata

Abstract

This paper provides micro evidence for Chile on the impact of the adoption and use of ICT by firms on the task content of occupations, employment and wages. The paper will explore several unique sources of data including panel data between 2007 and 2013 for Chile, Encuesta Longitudinal de Empresas (ELE), and task content of occupations from PIIAC survey for Chile. This paper first provides descriptive facts about the extent of ICT use by firms across industries and regions in Chile, the trends in within-firm and across-firm wage inequality (in particular across occupations with different task intensity), and the correlations between ICT use and firm productivity, employment, and wages. The paper will then estimate the links between ICT adoption and firm-level outcomes using an instrumental variables (IV) strategy.

ICT Adoption and Wage Inequality: Evidence from Mexican Firms

Leonardo Iacovone
,
World Bank

Abstract

This paper uses a panel of firms from the Mexican Economic Censuses and analyzes at the microeconomic level how labor markets adapt to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT henceforth) adoption by studying its effects over the labor structure of the firm and furthermore, over wages. Thus, it assesses whether increasing ICT use leads to an increasing demand of skilled labor relative to low-skilled and thus, it analyzes its effects on the wage gap between the two groups. The results of this analysis indicate that there is indeed an effect of ICT over the labor demand of higher skilled workers but this does not translate into a higher wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers. These results appear to be driven by an increasing sophistication of blue-collar workers due to the organizational adjustments derived from ICT adoption.

Labor Adjustment Costs Across Sectors and Regions

Marcio Cruz
,
World Bank

Abstract

This paper estimates mobility costs of workers across sectors and regions in a very large sample of developing countries. We develop a new methodology that uses cross-sectional data only. This is motivated by the fact that panel data is typically not available for most developing countries. Results suggest that on average sector mobility costs are higher than regional mobility costs. The costs of moving both sector and region are higher than the costs of moving only sector or only region. In poorer countries workers face higher mobility costs. We also provide evidence suggesting that mobility costs are partially driven by information asymmetries and access to Internet can mitigate these costs.
JEL Classifications
  • I0 - General
  • J0 - General