Occupational Structures and Skill Differentials in American Metropolitan Areas

作为一个整体，美国经济似乎正在朝着越来越重视认知文化形式的生产和工作的方向发展，这些生产和工作需要高水平的技术和科学知识、人际关系诀窍和特定类型的文化敏感性。创造经济增长的力量的这种明显转变带来了一系列政策建议，特别是对经济增长缓慢或停滞的城市和地区。然而，这些建议中的许多都是基于仍未经过检验的假设。推动该项目的假设是，这些认知-文化活动主要集中在主要的大都市地区。一个补充假设是，随着这种情况的发生，更程序化、机械化的生产和工作形式将集中在城市等级制度的低端中心。对这些问题的研究将通过调查美国大都市地区职业结构和人力资本天赋的时间和空间变化来进行。这项研究将首先在职业区位商数的跨期比较的基础上进行。为了用更具分析性的术语确定调查结果，职业还将根据美国劳工部职业词典中的大约40或50个职业描述符来编码。这样，就有可能在整个大都市等级中追踪到人力资本禀赋的一些关键变化。此外，还将对2000年进行极为详细的横截面分析。这项分析不仅将利用人口普查提供的微观数据，还将利用劳工部名为O*Net的新数据库提供的大量职业信息。O*Net数据包括总共483个职业特征，包括知识、技能、能力、工作活动、兴趣和工作价值观等描述符。在这方面将开展的主要研究活动将是为大都市地区构建复杂的人力资本指数，并通过对这些指数进行多变量分析来进一步检验中心假设。这项工作的一个补充方面将需要尝试分析大都市地区所谓低技能工作的人力资本含量和地理位置，以便评估他们的劳动力需求，而不仅仅是简单的体力劳动。该项目的优点主要在于城市人力资本的新方法。这项研究远远超出了目前的研究方法(主要关注教育成就)，并将丰富我们对大都市社会经济的理解。这项研究将对关注城市当地劳动力市场发展的政策制定者有所帮助，特别是在创造就业、技能和培训领域。它还将为当前流行的关于美国城市创造力的观点--尤其是在城市政策制定者中--提供一个独特的视角，并将有助于查明城市创造力以特定形式的人力资本存在的一些方式。

The American economy as a whole appears to be evolving toward ever-increasing emphasis on cognitive-cultural forms of production and work calling for high levels of technical and scientific knowledge, interpersonal know-how, and specific kinds of cultural sensibilities. This apparent shift in the forces creating economic growth has brought about a range of policy recommendations, especially for cities and regions experiencing slow growing or stagnant economies. Yet, many of these recommendations are based on assumptions that remain unexamined. The hypothesis driving the proposed project is that these cognitive-cultural activities are concentrating primarily in major metropolitan areas. A subsidiary hypothesis is that as this happens, more routinized, mechanical forms of production and work concentrate in centers at the lower end of the urban hierarchy. Research into these issues will proceed by means of an investigation of temporal and spatial variations in occupational structures and the human capital endowments of US metropolitan areas. The research will proceed initially on the basis of intertemporal comparisons of occupational location quotients. In order to pin the investigation down in more analytical terms, occupations will also be coded according to some 40 or 50 occupational descriptors as derived from the US Labor Department's Dictionary of Occupations. In this manner, it will be possible to trace out a number of critical changes in human capital endowments across the entire metropolitan hierarchy. Additionally, an extremely detailed cross-section analysis will be undertaken for the year 2000. This analysis will make use not only of micro-data provided by the census, but also the enormous amount of information on occupations now available through the Labor Department's new data base known as O*Net. The O*Net data comprise a total of 483 occupational features in terms of descriptors such as knowledge, skills, abilities, work activities, interests, and work values. The main research activity to be undertaken in this regard will be to construct complex human capital indexes for metropolitan areas and to test further the central hypothesis by subjecting these indices to multivariate analysis. A supplementary facet of this effort will entail an attempt to analyze the human capital content and geography of so-called low-skill jobs in metropolitan areas in order to assess their labor requirements above and beyond simple physical work.The merit of the project resides principally in the novel approach to human capital in cities. The research goes well beyond current approaches (focusing mainly on educational attainments) and will enrich our understanding of the social economy of the metropolis. The research relates will be useful to policy makers concerned with local labor market development in cities, especially in the areas of job creation, skills, and training. It will also provide a unique perspective on currently fashionable ideas -- especially among urban policy makers -- about creativity in American cities, and it will help to pinpoint some the ways in which urban creativity resides in specific forms of human capital.