and learn to operate new office technologies.” The authors find that this task-shifting within occupations, away from routine tasks and towards nonroutine tasks, is pervasive Source: David H Autor, Frank Levy, and Richard J Murname, “The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118: (November 2003): 1279–1333 ANSWERS TO TRY IT! PROBLEMS A reduction in market price would decrease the marginal revenue product of labor Since the demand for labor is the downward-sloping portion of the marginal revenue product curve, the demand for labor by TeleTax would shift to the left An increase in the market fee that TeleTax pays the accountants it hires corresponds to an increase in marginal factor cost TeleTax’s demand curve would not shift; rather TeleTax would move up along its same demand curve for accountants As a result, TeleTax would hire fewer accountants An increase in the marginal product of each accountant corresponds to a rightward shift in the marginal revenue product curve and hence a rightward shift in TeleTax’s demand curve for accountants [1] Strictly speaking, it is only that part of the downward-sloping portion over which variable costs are at least covered This is the flip-side of what you learned about a firm’s supply curve in the chapter on competitive output markets: Only the portion of the rising marginal cost curve that lies above the minimum point of the average variable cost curve constitutes the supply curve of a perfectly competitive firm Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books/ Saylor.org 640