Labour Market Matters - January 2013

As developed countries shift more toward knowledge-based economic activities, information, technology, and learning play an increasingly important role. The use and adoption of new technologies by firms and workers constitutes a critical component of the process of technological diffusion and advancement. A paper by CLSRN affiliates Craig Riddell (University of British Columbia) and Xueda Song (York University) entitled “The Role of Education in Technology Use and Adoption: Evidence from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey†(CLSRN Working Paper no. 83) investigates the causal effects of workers’ educational attainment on their use and adoption of new technologies. The study shows that education exerts causal impacts on certain measures of technology use and adoption, although not all. Since its launch in 1995, Craigslist, has served as a platform for users to post ads that centre primarily on jobs, housing, services, personals, or for sale items, and has grown to receive more than 20 billion page views per month – making it one of the most visited websites in the world. The advent of the internet age has revolutionized the way people search for goods, services, housing and even friends. The job-search market and apartment and housing rental market have been virtually transformed since the emergence of Craigslist and the wide abundance of easily accessible information has affected the way these markets function. A study by CLSRN affiliates Kory Kroft (University of Toronto) and Devin Pope (University of Chicago) entitled: “Does Online Search Crowd out Traditional Search and Improve Matching Efficiency? Evidence from Craigslist†(CLSRN Working Paper no. 108), finds that Craigslist significantly lowered classified job advertisements in newspapers, caused a significant reduction in apartment and housing rental vacancies, but had no effect on unemployment.