Not a typical firm — 2025
Uneven adoption of automation technologies results in a declining aggregate labor share, a rising labor share for the median firm, and rising sales concentration.
Joint with Joachim Hubmer
Forthcoming, AEJ Macro
Tasks at Work — 2024
Handbook chapter reviewing task-based models of labor demand, automation, and new work creation.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu and Fredric Kong
Handbook of Labor Economics
Automation: Theory, Evidence, and Outlook — 2024
Reviews literature on automation and its impact on labor markets, wages, factor shares, and productivity. Introduces task model and discusses empirical evidence.
Annual Review of Economics — wp version
Policy for a Changing Landscape — 2024
Automation technology has reshaped the work landscape. How should policy respond?
In the IMFs’ Rethinking Economic Policy: Steering Structural Change
Uneven Growth — 2022
When technological change involves automation, most productivity gains accrue to capital owners instead of workers, generating uneven growth.
Joint with Ben Moll and Lukasz Rachel
Econometrica — wp version
Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in US Wage Inequality — 2022
Technologies that displace workers from tasks explain 50-70% of the rise in US wage inequality
Joint with Daron Acemoglu
Econometrica — wp version
AI and Jobs: Evidence from Online Vacancies — 2022
Firms whose tasks align with applications of AI drive its adoption. This has not translated into an increase in hiring outside AI-related fields.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, and Joe Hazell
Journal of Labor Economics — wp version
Automation and the Workforce: A Firm-Level View from the 2019 ABS — 2022
Describes the new technology module in the ABS, designed to measure the adoption of computer technologies among US firms in all economic sectors.
Joint work with the US Census Bureau
NBER/CRIW Conference on Technology, Productivity, and Economic Growth
Demographics and Automation — 2021
Rapidly aging countries developed industrial automation and robotics as a response, and exported the technology to the rest of the world.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu
Review of Economic Studies— wp version
Does the US Tax Code Favor Automation? — 2020
Heavy taxation of labor and light taxation of capital might lead to excessive automation.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu and Andrea Manera
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity— wp version
Unpacking Skill Bias: Automation and New Tasks — 2020
Technologies that change the allocation of tasks between skilled and unskilled workers have large effects on wage inequality and can bring modest productivity gains and declining real wages for unskilled workers.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu
AEA Papers and Proceedings— wp version
Competing with Robots: Firm-Level Evidence from France — 2020
Firms that adopt robots become more productive, less labor intensive, and expand at the expense of competitors.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu and Claire Lelarge
AEA Papers and Proceedings— wp version
Robots and Jobs — 2020
Employment and wages have declined in US regions that house industries adopting industrial robots.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu
Journal of Political Economy— wp version
Scarcity without Leviathan — 2020
Cocaine seizures in Colombia created scarcity in downstream markets. Mexico suffered outbursts of violence as a consequence.
Joint with Daniel Mejia and Juan Camilo Castillo
Review of Economics and Statistics— wp version
The Task Content of Production — 2019
Technologies that reallocate tasks across factors play a crucial role in explaining labor demand
Joint with Daron Acemoglu
Journal of Economic Perspectives— wp version
Democracy Does Cause Growth — 2019
Democracy brings a growth dividend, increasing GDP per capita by up to 20% after a democratization
Joint with Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson and Suresh Naidu
Journal of Political Economy— wp version
Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Work — 2019
Historical examples of automation, discussions about automation in the future, and a framework for thinking about technology.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu
Chapter of NBER Book on “The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda”
The Race Between Man and Machine — 2018
Automation reduces the labor share, but in the long run new work emerges, maintaining balance.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu
American Economic Review— wp version
Enforcement on Illegal Markets — 2017
Aerial spraying of coca crops with glyphosate reduces cultivation slightly, as shown by a natural experiment in Colombia.
Joint with Daniel Mejia and Sandra Rozo
World Bank Economic Review— wp version
Hockey Visors and Risky Behavior — 2017
Protective gear: does the extra-safety make us reckless? Turns out in the case of Ice Hockey Peltzman was right.
Joint with Alberto Chong
Journal of Public Economics— wp version
Crime and Conspicuous Consumption — 2016
Before the great crime decline of the 90s, being victimized was one of the hazards of keeping up with the Joneses.
Joint with Daniel Mejia
Journal of Public Economics— wp version
The Economics of the War on Drugs — 2016
The War on Drugs in source countries is doomed to fail. Some broad economic forces explain why.
Joint with Daniel Mejia
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations— wp version
Democracy & Redistribution — 2015
Democracies have larger governments, but their impact on inequality may be complex.
Joint with Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson and Suresh Naidu
Handbook of Income Distribution
