2019/14 LEM Working Paper Series

Embodied and disembodied technological change: the sectoral patterns of job-creation and job-destruction

Giovanni Dosi, Mariacristina Piva, Maria Enrica Virgillito and Marco Vivarelli
  Keywords
 
Innovation; disembodied and capital-embodied technological change; employment; job- creation; job-destruction; sectoral interdependencies.


  JEL Classifications
 
O14, O31, O33
  Abstract
 
This paper addresses, both theoretically and empirically, the sectoral patterns of job creation and job destruction in order to distinguish the alternative effects of embodied vs disembodied technological change operating into a vertically connected economy. Disembodied technological change turns out to positively affect employment dynamics in the “upstream’’ sectors, while expansionary investment does so in the “downstream’’ industries. Conversely, the replacement of obsolete capital vintages tends to exert a negative impact on labour demand, although this effect turns out to be statistically less robust.
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