Capital-Skill Complementarity: Does Capital Composition Matter?

We estimate the effect of capital composition on the size of capital-skill complementarity and the skill wage premium. Disaggregating the capital stock into different types according to technological content, we find that: capital is more of a q-complement to skilled labor than to unskilled labor; the higher the technological component of capital, the larger the size of the relative q-complementarity between capital and skilled labor; and replacing non-technological with technological capital might increase the skill wage premium by about 9 percent. Our results highlight that changes in capital composition matter for understanding changes in the skill wage premium.