When does labor scarcity encourage innovation?

Abstract

This paper studies whether labor scarcity encourages technological advances, i.e., technology adoption or innovation, for example, as claimed by Habakkuk in the context of 19th-century United States. I define technology as strongly labor saving if technological advances reduce the marginal product of labor and as strongly labor complementary if they increase it. I show that labor scarcity encourages technological advances if technology is strongly labor saving and will discourage them if technology is strongly labor complementary. I also show that technology can be strongly labor saving in plausible environments but not in many canonical macroeconomic models.