I am a PhD candidate and Junior researcher at CERGE-EI, Prague. My supervisor at CERGE-EI is Professor Marek Kapicka. I have spent last two academic years at Yale Economics Department as a visiting scholar. My supervisor at Yale is Professsor Aleh Tsyvinski.
My research interests and expertise include macroeconomics of labor markets, life-cycle modelling, human capital, skill-biased technological change, and automation.
Embedded in a rich heritage of four generations of Biologists and Ecologists, I am the first in my family to channel this legacy into the field of Economics. My current research introduces the state-of-the-art adaptation concepts from Biology and Ecology into the models of workers' adaptation to changing labor market environment.
Email: daniil.kashkarov@cerge-ei.cz
CV: Open CV
RESEARCH
Ability to Adapt: From Biology to Labor Markets
Most exciting work in progress!
Description: I am developing a theory on workers' adaptation to changes in the labor market environment, ranging from skill-biased technological change and automation to the introduction of tools like ChatGPT and the impact of global warming. I am making a systematic effort to understand the variations in adaptive strategies among workers across different occupations and skill levels. My approach builds on both theoretical and empirical knowledge derived from biology and ecology—sciences that have been studying the adaptation of the most diverse entities in the universe for at least two centuries. The theory will be used to predict the adaptation of workers to the ongoing and prospective changes in labor market environments, as well as to better understand the responses of workers to such changes in the past.
RBTC and Human Capital: Accounting for Individual-Level Responses
Abstract: What is the contribution of individual human capital responses to earnings inequality arising in the process of the routine-biased technological change (RBTC)? To answer this question, I develop a life-cycle model of human capital and occupational choice, calibrate it to the NLSY79 data, using the price series for human capital in abstract and routine occupations estimated from the cross-sectional CPS data. I find that an increase in the price for human capital in abstract occupations and a fall in its price in routine occupations associated with RBTC has a modest contribution to the evolution of variance of log-earnings - up to 10.8 per cent by the end of the working life cycle. However, the contribution of RBTC to an increase in the abstract wage premium over the lifetime of the NLSY79 cohorts is up to 28.6 per cent. The growth of the abstract wage premium is significantly dampened by the human capital responses of workers switching from routine occupations.
RBTC, Polarization and Career Paths: a "Bottleneck" Effect with Valentin Artemev (CERGE-EI)
Abstract: We argue that a decline in employment in routine (middle-skilled) occupations due to the RBTC can negatively affect the opportunity of young workers to follow the stepping stone career path from routine to non-routine cognitive (high-skilled) occupations. Both lower chances of getting to the non-routine cognitive occupations and lower employment opportunities in routine occupations may contribute to an increase in the share of workers stuck in non-routine manual (low-skilled) occupations - a "bottleneck" effect. We combine the PSID data with the newly available data on the job ads (Atalay et al. 2020) to show (i) the presence of the routine to non-routine cognitive career paths throughout the life cycle of workers, and (ii) its relevance for the reallocation of labor force under the RBTC. Next, we develop a structural model with occupational choice that endogenously generates the stepping stone career path. Using the model, we show that while a substantial number of workers is following the stepping stone career path, the "bottleneck" effect does not seem to affect the chances of young workers to join NRC occupations. Workers are avoiding the bottleneck, reaching NRC occupations through NRM occupations and non-employment. While the workers keep their chances of reaching NRC occupations later in the life cycle, the HC stock with which they arrive to NRC occupations, as well as the resulting productivity, is potentially lower.