The second presentation of our paper on task content and wage dispersion within occupations was the World Congress of the International Economic Association, held in Mexico City. The meeting gathered several renowned economists, including two Noble Prize winners (Stiglitz and Ackerlof) though neither of them participated in our session.

The research discussed the relation between the task content of jobs and wage dispersion within occupations. This relation is often assumed in the theory of routinization, which is the backbone of our understanding of changes in the labor market at the turn of the century. Yet, the assumption was never tested (to the best of our knowledge). Data from all EU countries are used to corroborate the hypothesis. By and large, the results confirm the assumption used in the theory. Wage dispersion was larger in non-routine tasks, particularly in those tasks related to creativity and social interaction. The results were robust to the control for a number of potential confounders, including changes in the occupational share in employment (which could lead to greater potential mismatches) and the existence of winner-takes-all markets.

Slides from the presentation can be found below and the working paper will soon be made available at our website.