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Working Paper
IT and Urban Polarization
We show that differential IT investment across cities has been a key driver of job and wage polarization since the 1980s. Using a novel data set, we establish two stylized facts: IT investment is highest in firms in large and expensive cities, and the decline in routine cognitive occupations is most prevalent in large and expensive cities. To explain these facts, we propose a model mechanism where the substitution of routine workers by IT leads to higher IT adoption in large cities due to a higher cost of living and higher wages. We estimate the spatial equilibrium model to trace out the ...
Journal Article
Technology Adoption and the Changing Role and Background of Clerical Workers
From 1980 through 2015, the share of clerical jobs in the employed labor force declined more significantly in large and expensive cities than in smaller cities. Moreover, the remaining workers performing these occupations in large and expensive cities had, on average, higher education levels and were more likely to perform tasks usually done by managerial and professional personnel when compared to their small-city counterparts. In this Economic Commentary, we show how these patterns are related to the uneven adoption of information communication technologies (ICT) across geographies and ...