We exploit cross-cohort variation in the prevalence of teacher strikes within and across provinces in Argentina to examine how teacher strikes affect student long-run outcomes. Being exposed to the average incidence of strikes during primary school reduces labor earnings of males and females by 3.2% and 1.9%, respectively. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that this amounts to an aggregate annual earnings loss of $2.34 billion. We also find an increase in unemployment and a decline in the skill levels of the occupations into which students sort. These effects are driven, at least in part, by a reduction in educational attainment.

We study differences in exposure to factor-biased technical change among occupations by providing the first measures of capital-embodied technical change (CETC) and of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor at the occupational level. We document sizable occupational heterogeneity in both measures, but quantitatively, it is the heterogeneity in factor substitutability that fuels workers’ exposure to CETC. In a general equilibrium model of worker sorting across occupations, CETC accounts for almost all of the observed labor reallocation in the US between 1984 and 2015. Absent occupational heterogeneity in factor substitutability, CETC accounts for only 17 percent of it (JEL I26, J16, J24, J31, O33)