This paper presents an overview of some of the recent literature
about the long-run changes in labour market outcomes in advanced
economies. It shows that the First and Second Industrial Revolutions,
with inventions in the second half of the 19th century that had a
lasting impact up to 1980, resulted in skill upgrading and decreasing
overall wage inequality. To the contrary, the Computer Revolution that
started in the 1980s is no longer unambiguously skill-upgrading but
characterized by an underlying process of job polarization and an
increase in upper-tail and overall wage inequality. However, the paper
concludes by providing arguments in favour of optimism about future
computerization as long as our labour markets are able to provide the
necessary worker skills to support such changes.