R&D and Employment Relation: Differences in Low and High-Skilled Employment in Developing Economies

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the effect of technology on employment based on skill groups in developing countries using data from 23 countries between 1990 and 2019. We use the macroeconomic framework to split employment in developing countries into high-skilled and low-skilled and examine how these two groups are affected by progress in technology. Pedroni’s (1999, 2004) and Kao’s (1999) cointegration methods reveal the statistically significant relationship among variables in the long run. Coefficients estimated in cointegration highlight that technology is among the factors that increase unemployment in developing countries. In addition, our baseline models document that inflation and real interest rates have a positive impact on unemployment. Finally, both high-skilled and lowskilled employment in developing countries are negatively affected by technology, and the negative impact is greater on low-skill employment.