Occupational Exposure to Capital-Embodied Technical Change

We construct measures of occupational exposure to capital-embodied technical change measuring the cross-price elasticity of labor demand to the decline in the cost of capital.

Our dataset covers 24 major equipment categories as available in the Fixed Assets tables (BEA) and more than 300 3-digit occupations across all sectors of the economy.

data appendix

Data basics:
The capital stocks are constructed using information on tool usage for each 3 digit occupations as defined by Deming (2017). Tool information in recent years comes from the Tools & Technology supplement in O*NET, whereas tool information in earlier years (1980) are constructed using m​achine learning algorithms (NLP) over the text that defines each occupation in the 1977 Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Occupations are cross-walked following standard crosswalks in the literature, Deming (2017).

The mapping between 3-digit (occ1990dd)* and 1-digit occupations is as follows:.

1. managers, occ1990dd >= 4 & occ1990dd <= 37
2. professionals, occ1990dd >= 43 & occ1990dd <= 199
3. technicians, occ1990dd >= 203 & occ1990dd <= 235
4. sales, occ1990dd >= 243 & occ1990dd <= 285
5. admin services, occ1990dd >= 303 & occ1990dd <= 389
6.  low-skill services, occ1990dd >= 405 & occ1990dd <= 471
7. agriculture, occ1990dd>= 472 & occ1990dd<= 498
8. mechanics and transport,  (occ1990dd >= 503 & occ1990dd <= 599) | (occ1990dd >= 803 & occ1990dd <= 889)
9. mining, occ1990dd>= 614 & occ1990dd<= 617
10. precision workers,  occ1990dd >= 628 & occ1990dd <= 696
11. machine operators, occ1990dd >= 699 & occ1990dd <= 799​

The mapping between 3-digit (occ1990dd)* and 2-digit occupations is as follows:.

1. housekeeping, cleaning, laundry;  occ1990dd>=405 & occ1990dd<=408
2. all protective service; occ1990dd>=415 & occ1990dd<=427,  occ1990dd==415, occ1990dd>=425 & occ1990dd<=427, occ1990dd>=417 & occ1990dd<=423
3. food preparation; occ1990dd>=433 & occ1990dd<=444
4. health service occs; occ1990dd>=445 & occ1990dd<=447
5. building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occs; occ1990dd>=448 & occ1990dd<=455
6. personal;  recreation and hospitality occs;  occ1990dd>=457 & occ1990dd<=458;occ1990dd>=459 & occ1990dd<=467; occ1990dd>=469 & occ1990dd<=472
7. child care workers; occ1990dd==468
8. executive, administrative and managerial occs; occ1990dd>=3 & occ1990dd<=22
9. management related occs; occ1990dd>=23 & occ1990dd<=37
10. professional specialty occs; occ1990dd>=43 & occ1990dd<=200
11. technicians and related support occs; occ1990dd>=203 & occ1990dd<=235
12. financial sales and related occs; occ1990dd>=243 & occ1990dd<=258
13. retail sales occs; occ1990dd>=274 & occ1990dd<=283
14. administrative support occs; occ1990dd>=303 & occ1990dd<=389
15. mechanics and repairers; & transportation and material moving occs; occ1990dd>=503 & occ1990dd<=549; occ1990dd>=803 & occ1990dd<=889
16. construction trades; occ1990dd>=558 & occ1990dd<=599
17. precision production occs; occ1990dd>=628 & occ1990dd<=699
18. machine operators, assemblers, and inspectors; occ1990dd>=703 & occ1990dd<=799

​* The following occupations have been merged to assure consistent employment data availability in time.
489 Inspectors of agricultural products merged into  36 Inspectors and compliance officers, outside 
462 Ushers merged into 459 Recreation facility attendants 
583 Paperhangers merged into  599 Misc. construction and related occupations
The paper presents results abstracting from agriculture and mining.