Hiding in the mean: AI is adding jobs and removing them at the same time
Estimates of AI’s employment effect disagree in size and even in sign. This column argues the disagreement is built into the measurement: AI substitutes for
Measuring what work generative AI does: Survey evidence versus chat logs
The chat logs of AI companies are often used to measure what work AI actually does. This column uses a nationally representative US survey that
New jobs in 140 years of data: Why the AI displacement fear is overstated — and what to worry about instead
Forecasts of AI-driven job destruction rest on counting automatable tasks. But labour markets hire, pay, and fire whole occupations, not tasks – and occupations have
The anatomy of job polarisation: Evidence from four decades of French worker flows
Employment polarisation – the decline of middle-skill routine occupations relative to both ends of the skill distribution – is usually documented from repeated cross-sections. However,
Manufacturing work beyond manufacturing industries: Rethinking structural change in Germany
Manufacturing employment in advanced economies is widely viewed as being in long-term decline. Using German administrative data from 1975 to 2019, this column shows that
