HCEO WORKING PAPER SERIES Working Paper The University of Chicago 1126 E. 59th Street Box 107 Chicago IL 60637 www.hceconomics.org Technological Change and Obsolete Skills: Evidence from Men’s Professional Tennis* Ian Fillmore† Jonathan D. Hall‡ June 11, 2021 Abstract Technological innovation can raise the returns to some skills while making others less valuable or even obsolete. We study the effects of such skill- altering technological change in the context of men’s professional tennis, which was unexpectedly transformed by the invention of composite racquets during the late 1970s. We explore the consequences of this innovation on player productivity, entry, and exit. We find that young players benefited at the expense of older players and that the disruptive effects of the new racquets persisted over two to four generations. JEL: J24, O33, Z22 Keywords: Technological Change, Human Capital, Tennis *We thank Nathaniel Baum-Snow, George-Levi Gayle, Todd Jones, Glenn MacDonald, Hani Mansour, Robert McMillan, Peter Morrow, Michael Smart, and participants at the Midwest Economics Association meetings for excellent feedback. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. We thank Jeff Reel and Bram Tukker at the ATP for sharing the data. The statistical information contained herein has been provided by, and is being reproduced with permission of, ATP Tour, Inc., which is the sole copyright owner of the information. Declarations of interest: none †Washington University in St. Louis, ianfi
[email protected]. ‡University of Toronto,
[email protected]. 1 1 Introduction The last two centuries have witnessed an enormous amount of technological in- novation, and this is widely viewed as the primary source of long-run economic growth and improvements in well-being.