by the relative wage declines of worker groups specialized in routine tasks in industries experiencing rapid automation … capital. Automation technologies expand the set of tasks performed by capital, displacing certain worker groups from … between 1980 and 2016. Our task displacement variable captures the effects of automation technologies (and to a lesser degree …

. As a consequence, it has promoted inefficiently high levels of automation. Moving from the US tax system in the 2010s to … restore the optimal level of automation. If moving to optimal taxes is infeasible, more modest reforms can still increase … employment by 1.14-1.96%, but in this case efficiency can be increased by imposing an additional automation tax to reduce 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 within-group wage dispersion for exposed groups. Automation-driven rent dissipation …