中文摘要
劳动力市场日益回报社交技能。1980年至2012年间，要求高水平社交互动的工作占美国劳动力的份额增长了近12个百分点。同期，数学密集但社交要求较低的工作——包括许多STEM职业——的份额缩减了3.3个百分点。同时要求高数学技能和高社交技能的工作，其就业和工资增长尤为强劲。为理解这些模式，我构建了一个团队生产模型，其中工人通过“交换任务”来利用各自的比较优势。在该模型中，社交技能降低了协调成本，使工人能够专业化并更高效地合作。该模型对跨职业的分类匹配和技能的相对回报产生了预测，我利用NLSY79和NLSY97的数据对此进行了检验。使用跨调查波次可比的一组技能测度指标和协变量，我发现2000年代劳动力市场对社交技能的回报远高于1980年代中期和1990年代。
Abstract
Abstract The labor market increasingly rewards social skills. Between 1980 and 2012, jobs requiring high levels of social interaction grew by nearly 12 percentage points as a share of the U.S. labor force. Math-intensive but less social jobs—including many STEM occupations—shrank by 3.3 percentage points over the same period. Employment and wage growth were particularly strong for jobs requiring high levels of both math skill and social skills. To understand these patterns, I develop a model of team production where workers “trade tasks” to exploit their comparative advantage. In the model, social skills reduce coordination costs, allowing workers to specialize and work together more efficiently. The model generates predictions about sorting and the relative returns to skill across occupations, which I investigate using data from the NLSY79 and the NLSY97. Using a comparable set of skill measures and covariates across survey waves, I find that the labor market return to social skills was much greater in the 2000s than in the mid-1980s and 1990s.