century or more; only later did productivity gains bring declining employment. What changed? The elasticity of demand. Using … data over two centuries for US textile, steel, and auto industries, this paper shows that automation initially spurred job … growth because demand was highly elastic. But demand later became satiated, leading to job losses. A simple model explains …

a result, automation always reduces the labor share in value added and may reduce labor demand even as it raises …We present a framework for understanding the effects of automation and other types of technological changes on labor … demand, and use it to interpret changes in US employment over the recent past. At the center of our framework is the …