Vintage human capital and learning curves

I study a vintage-human-capital model in which long-lived workers accumulate human capital following an exogenous learning curve. Different skill levels inside a vintage are complementary in production; this makes the ex ante homogeneous workers enter different vintages. The continuous-time framework allows me to study the timing decision for the technology phase-out differentially and to derive sharp characterization for wages and the distribution of workers in the dying technology. I show how to posit and solve a planner0s problem and construct equilibrium in this way. Consistent with empirical evidence, I show that the experience premium is always positive but diminishes as a technology ages. The connection between workers0 learning curves and the technology0s progress curve is characterized. & 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.