What happens when a skill you have becomes obsolete? No, this isn't a R vs. Stata thread---it's a thread about a working paper w/ @sonnytambe!
https://t.co/w6nLf1tnST

The skill we look at is Adobe Flash, which @apple decided to no longer support back in 2010, which in turn caused demand/interest to plummet, as measured on @StackOverflow and in online labor markets, one of which is our empirical context
Despite the big fall-off in Flash jobs posted, very little else appeared to change in the market for Flash skills: wages for Flash jobs didn't fall, jobs didn't become easier to fill & openings weren't inundated with out-of-work Flash programmers
What happened was that (a) new entrants stopped specializing in Flash and (b) at least some existing Flash specialists started moving to other skills. In short, the demand shock quickly became a supply shock
At the level of the individual Flash worker, using a matched sample, we find (a) no fall-off in their wages, (b) some decline on-platform hours-worked. The most-focused on Flash workers had substantial increases in application intensity and a movement towards new skills
In short, despite Flash skills being expensive to acquire, workers abandoning a skill with no perceived future create a de factor highly elastic supply curve, keeping wages "flat." We show how this is possible with a little toy model, of course.
We also conduct a survey of Flash workers affected by the decline. They confirm many of our stylized facts & give color to the adjustment process. For one, they report being highly-forward looking and market-oriented & deciding what skills to pick up
They also emphasize how critical on-the-job learning is to acquiring new skills. Sadly for us teachers, formal classroom learning gets almost no love
Anyway, lots more in the paper & thanks for reading this far- check it out! https://t.co/w6nLf1tnST Comments, feedback, suggested citations (even to/esp to your own papers) most welcome!

More from Tech

I could create an entire twitter feed of things Facebook has tried to cover up since 2015. Where do you want to start, Mark and Sheryl? https://t.co/1trgupQEH9


Ok, here. Just one of the 236 mentions of Facebook in the under read but incredibly important interim report from Parliament. ht @CommonsCMS
https://t.co/gfhHCrOLeU


Let’s do another, this one to Senate Intel. Question: “Were you or CEO Mark Zuckerberg aware of the hiring of Joseph Chancellor?"
Answer "Facebook has over 30,000 employees. Senior management does not participate in day-today hiring decisions."


Or to @CommonsCMS: Question: "When did Mark Zuckerberg know about Cambridge Analytica?"
Answer: "He did not become aware of allegations CA may not have deleted data about FB users obtained through Dr. Kogan's app until March of 2018, when
these issues were raised in the media."


If you prefer visuals, watch this short clip after @IanCLucas rightly expresses concern about a Facebook exec failing to disclose info.
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The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.


This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/


A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
https://t.co/TumQiX2tlj 3/

https://t.co/uAORIJ5BYX 4/

https://t.co/yOGZ0pLfHG 5/