This article reports direct evidence on how technological change is related to changes in wage gaps by schooling, experience, and gender. Wage gaps by schooling increased the most in industries with rising R&D intensity and accelerating growth in the capital‐labor ratio. Estimates of their relationship to high‐tech capital are inconclusive. Contrary to popular notions that technological change harms older workers, wage growth of experienced workers is much greater in R&D‐intensive industries than in industries with little R&D activity. The gender gap narrowed more in industries that most intensively used high‐tech capital in 1979.

This paper estimates the effect of union work rules in the building trades on employment and costs by comparing factor demand elasticities for union and nonunion contractors and subcontractors over micro data from two different types of construction. The results show that the elasticities of substitution between labor and nonlabor inputs and own-price elasticities for nonlabor inputs are about the same for union and nonunion contractors. In contrast, the elasticities of substitution among different skill categories of labor and the own-price elasticities for each category are much lower under unionism.