Publication:
Experience vs. obsolescence: a vintage-human-capital model

Thumbnail Image
Identifiers
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10016/35316
ISSN: 0022-0531
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jet.2013.08.003
UXXI: AR/0000014851
Files
experience_JET_2014_ps.pdf (609.3 KB)
Publication date
2014-03-01
Defense date
Authors
Advisors
Tutors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Impact
Google Scholar
Export
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Abstract
I introduce endogenous human-capital accumulation into an infinite-horizon version of Chari and Hopenhaynʼs (1991) vintage-human-capital model. Returns to skill and tenure premia are highest in young vintages, where skill is scarcest and agents accumulate human capital fastest. As the vintage ages, the skill premium decreases and vanishes entirely upon vintage death. Workers run through cycles of human-capital accumulation: their wages rise as they accumulate skill, undergo downward pressure as the technology ages, and finally drop sharply when the worker switches to a new technology. The results are in line with German linked employer-employee data: tenure premia are highest in young establishments, as well as in fast-growing industries, occupations and establishments. A calibration exercise suggests that human-capital accumulation is the most important determinant of workers' wage profiles, whereas changes to the price of skill and vintage productivity gains play a smaller quantitative role.
Description
Keywords
Vintage human capital, Tenure-wage profiles, Economic growth, Technology, Investment, Diffusion, J01, E24
Bibliographic citation
Kredler, M. (2014). Experience vs. obsolescence: A vintage-human-capital model. Journal of Economic Theory, 150, pp. 709–739
Collections
DE - Artículos de Revistas