How General Is Human Capital? A Task‐Based Approach

Abstract

How General Is Human Capital? A Task-Based Approach * This paper studies how portable skill accumulated in the labor market are. Using rich data on tasks performed in occupations, we propose the concept of task-specific human capital to measure the transferability of skills empirically. Our results on occupational mobility and wages show that labor market skills are more portable than previously considered. We find that individuals move to occupations with similar task requirements and that the distance of moves declines with time in the labor market. We also show that task-specific human capital is an important source of individual wage growth, in particular for university graduates. For them, at least 40 percent of overall wage growth over a ten year period can be attributed to task-specific human capital. For the low-and medium-skilled, task-specific human capital accounts for at least 35 and 25 percent of overall wage growth respectively. JEL Classification:J24, J31

Changes in workplace tasks in Germany—evaluating skill and task measures

“…Following this researcher's approach, 8 many important subsequent contributions to the debate on task-biased technological change in Germany have been published (SpitzOener 2008;Antonczyk et al 2009;Black and SpitzOener 2010;Gathmann and Schoenberg 2010;. Among these studies, Antonczyk et al (2009) make simultaneous use of the 2006 and the 1999 surveys.…”

“…Whereas "measuring" can be considered a manual routine task (and the similar-though more specific-item "measures dimensions of bottle," is classified as such by ALM), "testing" and especially "quality control" might also include nonroutine job activities. As a rule, in these ambiguous cases, i.e., in the case of measuring, writing, calculating, operating, manufacturing, storing, repairing, accommodating, caring, cleaning, and protecting, we follow the classifications in the literature (i.e., Spitz-Oener 2006;Gathmann andSchoenberg 2010, andAntonczyk et al 2009). The resulting classification is shown in Table 4, column 2.…”

“…Spitz-Oener (2006) first used this data to apply the task approach to the German case. Following her approach, many subsequent publications have made important contributions to the debate on task-biased technological change in Germany (Gathmann and Schoenberg 2010;Spitz-Oener 2006Black and Spitz-Oener 2010;Antonczyk et al 2009). …”

Collecting information on job tasks—an instrument to measure tasks required at the workplace in a multi-topic survey

“…This allows for some completely new perspectives on job mobility by assuming that the potential for mobility between jobs will largely depend on how different they are (or more precisely, the extent to which they do not differ) in terms of their task profiles (Yamaguchi 2012;Fedorets and Spitz-Oener 2011;Gathmann and Schönberg 2010;Janßen and Backes-Gellner 2009). Moreover, one might compare the core task requirements of a job-that is, the main activities that workers must accomplish in their work-and then consider the set of formal and informal skills required to carry out these tasks.…”

The estimation methods of occupational skills transferability

“…Given the significance of the conclusion, a growing research agenda has confirmed and expanded upon the predictive power of occupational specificity in the determination of worker earnings (e. g., Ingram and Neumann 2006;Poletaev and Robinson 2008;Gathmann and Schönberg 2010;Geel et al 2011;Ormiston 2014;Nawakitphaitoon 2014;Nawakitphaitoon and Ormiston 2015). However, a lack of consensus over the best approach to estimate occupationspecific human capital represents a potential hindrance to the advancement of research.…”