We argue theoretically and document empirically that aging leads to greater (industrial) automation, and in particular, to more intensive use and development of robots. Using US data, we document that robots substitute for middle-aged workers (those between the ages of (36 and 55). We then show...

This paper introduces endogenous and directed technical change in a growth model with environmental constraints. A unique final good is produced by combining inputs from two sectors. One of these sectors uses "dirty" machines and thus creates environmental degradation. Research can be directed...

Goldin and Katz's The Race between Education and Technology is a monumental achievement that supplies a unified framework for interpreting how the demand and supply of human capital have shaped the distribution of earnings in the U.S. labor market over the 20th century. This essay reviews the...

This paper discusses the growth model with environmental constraints recently presented in (Acemoglu et al., 2011) which focuses on the redirection of technical change by climate policies with research subsidies and a carbon tax. First, Acemoglu et al.'s model and chosen parameters yield...

Technological progress builds upon itself, with the expansion of invention in one domain propelling future work in linked fields. Our analysis uses 1.8 million U.S. patents and their citation properties to map the innovation network and its strength. Past innovation network structures are...

We examine the concerns that new technologies will render labor redundant in a framework in which tasks previously performed by labor can be automated and new versions of existing tasks, in which labor has a comparative advantage, can be created. In a static version where capital is fixed and...

We show that, in a model without commitment to future policies, geoengineering breakthroughs can have adverse environmental and welfare effects because they change the (equilibrium) carbon taxes. In our model, energy producers emit carbon, which creates a negative environmental externality, and...

Does capital accumulation increase labor demand and wages? Neoclassical production functions, where capital and labor are q-complements, ensure that the answer is yes, so long as labor markets are competitive. This result critically depends on the assumption that capital accumulation does not...

This paper evaluates claims about large macroeconomic implications of new advances in AI. It starts from a task-based model of AI's effects, working through automation and task complementarities. So long as AI's microeconomic effects are driven by cost savings/productivity improvements at the...

This paper studies the effects of automation in economies with labor market distortions that generate worker rents--wages above opportunity cost--in some jobs. We show that automation targets high-rent tasks, dissipating rents and amplifying wage losses from automation. It also reduces...