New Technology and the Workforce
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (CST)
- Chair: David Autor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
The Remainder Effect: How Automation Complements Labor Quality
Abstract
This paper presents a novel way automation can raise wages. Extending the Acemoglu-Restrepo model of automation to consider labor quality, we obtain a Remainder Effect: while automation displaces labor on some tasks, it raises the returns to skill on remaining tasks across skill groups. This effect increases between-firm pay inequality while labor displacement affects within-firm inequality. Using job ad data, we find firm adoption of information technologies leads to both greater requests for diverse skills and higher pay across skill groups. This accounts for most of the sorting of skills to high paying firms that is central to rising inequality.Is Distance from Innovation a Barrier to the Adoption of Artificial Intelligence?
Abstract
We investigate whether online vacancies for jobs requiring Artifi cial Intelligence(AI) skills grow more slowly in U.S. locations farther from AI innovation
"hotspots." We de fine hotspots based on locations' cumulative number of AI
publications by 2006. To create a dataset of AI publications, we use Microsoft
Academic Graph (MAG) to count journal articles, conference proceedings and
patents identifi ed in MAG as relevant to \deep learning". The source for job
vacancies is online job advertisements scraped by Burning Glass Technologies
from 2007{2019. We merge the datasets after aggregating to the commuting
zone level. With a hotspot de ned as a commuting zone with at least 1000
AI publications, a 10% greater distance from a hotspot (about a standard
deviation) reduces a commuting zone's growth in AI jobs' share of job advertisements
by 2-3% of median growth. The effect of distance falls to zero as
the hotspot publication threshold falls below 300, a threshold met by 11% of
commuting zones. Analysis by industry shows distance is a barrier for sectors
likely to be adapting and adopting AI, like finance and insurance, and not
merely for sectors likely to be innovating in AI, like Information. Further evidence
for distance from innovation being a barrier to adoption is that distance
reduces growth in job advertisements requiring the use of AI applications.
New Evidence on the Effect of Technology on Employment and Skill Demand
Abstract
We present new evidence on the effects of advanced technologies on employment, skill composition, and firm performance in manufacturing firms. Our primary research design focuses on a technology subsidy program in Finland that induced sharp increases in technology supply to specific firms. Our data track firms and workers over time and directly measure multiple technologies and skills. We demonstrate novel text analysis and machine learning methods to perform matching and to measure specific technological changes. The main finding is that advanced technologies led to increases in employment and no change in skill composition. To explain our finding, we outline a theoretical framework that contrasts two types of technological change: process versus product. We document that firms used new technologies to produce new types of output rather than replace workers with technologies within the same type of production. The results are in contrast with the ideas that technologies necessarily replace workers or are skill biased.Discussant(s)
Sarah Bana
,
Chapman University
Robert Seamans
,
New York University
Sabrina Genz
,
Utrecht University
Peter Blair
,
Harvard University
JEL Classifications
- O3 - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
- J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs