From Ghana to America : The Skill Content of Jobs and Economic Development
There is a growing body of literature exploring the skill content of jobs. This paper contributes to this research by using data on the task content of occupations in developing countries, instead of U.S. data, as most existing studies do. The pape...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/460301551120159026/From-Ghana-to-America-The-Skill-Content-of-Jobs-and-Economic-Development http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31332 |
| Summary: | There is a growing body of literature
exploring the skill content of jobs. This paper contributes
to this research by using data on the task content of
occupations in developing countries, instead of U.S. data,
as most existing studies do. The paper finds that indexes
based on U.S. data do not provide a fair approximation of
the levels, changes, and drivers of the routine cognitive
and nonroutine manual skill content of jobs in developing
countries. The paper also uncovers three new stylized facts.
First, while developed countries tend to have jobs more
intensive in nonroutine cognitive skills than developing
countries, income (in growth and levels) is not associated
with the skill content of jobs once the analysis accounts
for other factors. Second, although adoption of information
and communications technology is linked to job
de-routinization, international trade is an offsetting
force. Last, adoption of information and communications
technology is correlated with lower employment growth in
countries with a high share of occupations that are
intensive in routine tasks. |
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