• Graduate Programs
    • Tinbergen Institute Research Master in Economics
      • Why Tinbergen Institute?
      • Research Master
      • Admissions
      • All Placement Records
      • PhD Vacancies
    • Facilities
    • Research Master Business Data Science
    • Education for external participants
    • Summer School
    • Tinbergen Institute Lectures
    • PhD Vacancies
  • Research
  • Browse our Courses
  • Events
    • Summer School
      • Applied Public Policy Evaluation
      • Deep Learning
      • Development Economics
      • Economics of Blockchain and Digital Currencies
      • Economics of Climate Change
      • The Economics of Crime
      • Foundations of Machine Learning with Applications in Python
      • From Preference to Choice: The Economic Theory of Decision-Making
      • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
      • Marketing Research with Purpose
      • Markets with Frictions
      • Modern Toolbox for Spatial and Functional Data
      • Sustainable Finance
      • Tuition Fees and Payment
      • Business Data Science Summer School Program
    • Events Calendar
    • Events Archive
    • Tinbergen Institute Lectures
    • 2026 Tinbergen Institute Opening Conference
    • Annual Tinbergen Institute Conference
  • News
  • Summer School
    • Applied Public Policy Evaluation
    • Deep Learning
    • Development Economics
    • Economics of Blockchain and Digital Currencies
    • Economics of Climate Change
    • The Economics of Crime
    • Foundations of Machine Learning with Applications in Python
    • From Preference to Choice: The Economic Theory of Decision-Making
    • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
    • Marketing Research with Purpose
    • Markets with Frictions
    • Modern Toolbox for Spatial and Functional Data
    • Sustainable Finance
    • Tuition Fees and Payment
  • Alumni
    • PhD Theses
    • Master Theses
    • Selected PhD Placements
    • Key alumni publications
    • Alumni Community

Jacobs, B. and Nahuis, R. (2002). A general purpose technology explains the Solow paradox and wage inequality Economics Letters, 74(2):243--250.


  • Affiliated author
  • Publication year
    2002
  • Journal
    Economics Letters

We analyze the consequences of a general purpose technology (GPT) on output, productivity, and wages of skilled and unskilled workers. Our endogenous growth model matches three key empirical facts during the 1980s and 1990s: an increasing skill premium, a fall in the real wages of unskilled workers and a slowing down of economic growth after the introduction of a GPT. {\textcopyright} 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.