Automation and New Tasks Acemoglu, Daron; Restrepo, Pascual
The Journal of economic perspectives,
04/2019, Volume:
33, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
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 allocation of tasks to capital and labor—the task content of production. Automation, which enables capital to replace labor in tasks it was previously engaged in, shifts the task content of production against labor because of a displacement effect. As a result, automation always reduces the labor share in value added and may reduce labor demand even as it raises productivity. The effects of automation are counterbalanced by the creation of new tasks in which labor has a comparative advantage. The introduction of new tasks changes the task content of production in favor of labor because of a reinstatement effect, and always raises the labor share and labor demand. We show how the role of changes in the task content of production—due to automation and new tasks—can be inferred from industry-level data. Our empirical decomposition suggests that the slower growth of employment over the last three decades is accounted for by an acceleration in the displacement effect, especially in manufacturing, a weaker reinstatement effect, and slower growth of productivity than in previous decades.
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The cult Hindi film of 1983 Jaane Bhi do Yaaro (Take it Easy, Friends) made by Kundan Shah introduced a generation growing up in the 80s to the instability of the image. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro rode the ...twists and turns of a plot-line centered around an absurd life of the image; it featured hijinks and capers involving mix-ups, misadventures, red-herrings and co-incidences to do with an eccentric constellation of elements, all connecting to an image. These elements encompassed a missing, and then photographed, then purloined and dressed-up cadaver of a municipal commissioner, a murderous building contractor mafia don on the prowl with a revolver, a blackmailing editor, and two photographers who have somehow managed to take the photograph of a murder—an event that no one should have witnessed—while taking pictures for a photography competition. While doing all this, we propose that the film introduces a very specific idea: that a photograph is always available and remains as a spectral haunting attached to events, even without ever being seen. The status of the event is irrelevant—it could be a deal, a crime, or a catastrophe. The photograph stays as a clue to the “event-shaped hole” that marks the patchwork of daily life, of both power and counter-power, as well as the inertial.
Abstract
The debt-to-GDP ratio negatively predicts cumulative nominal consumption growth up to a 10-year horizon, resulting from the ratio’s ability to forecast lower inflation and real growth. ...Moreover, the debt-to-GDP ratio is positively associated with yield spreads. I rationalize these facts in a model in which positive shocks to government debt cause lower inflation and growth, making bonds attractive assets. Furthermore, because longer-term bonds are less exposed to current debt shock than are shorter-term bonds, they are better hedges, resulting in high yield spreads in high-debt states. The model highlights the importance of fiscal risk in understanding the Treasury bond market.
Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.
The Oligopoly Lucas Tree Dou, Winston Wei; Ji, Yan; Wu, Wei
The Review of financial studies,
08/2022, Volume:
35, Issue:
8
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Abstract
This paper proposes a novel quantitative framework with endogenous strategic competition in heterogeneous concentrated industries. Oligopolies compete strategically for profit margins in ...repeated games, trading off the benefits of future cooperation against those of reaping higher short-run profits by undercutting their rivals. Cross-industry dispersions in market leadership persistence and cash flow loadings on expected growth, as primitive characteristics, simultaneously determine the relationships among profitability, book-to-market ratios, and systematic risk exposures, thereby quantitatively rationalizing the gross profitability and value premium across industries and, importantly, their interactions. Controlling for the book-to-market ratio (gross profitability) makes the gross profitability (value) premium more pronounced.
Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.
The basic New Keynesian model predicts that positive supply shocks are less expansionary at the zero lower bound (ZLB) compared to periods of active monetary policy. We test this prediction ...empirically using Fernald's (2014) utilization-adjusted total factor productivity series, which we take as a measure of exogenous productivity. In contrast to the predictions of the model, positive productivity shocks are estimated to be more expansionary at the ZLB compared to normal times. We find that there is no significant difference in the response of expected inflation to a productivity shock at the ZLB compared to normal times.
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Romano Del Nord has been a point of reference for Architectural Technology and a protagonist in academic research and the realization of building programs. Meditating on his work brings out the ...relationship between research, cultural and social commitment and realization skills that distinguished his mindset and his way of acting. The book offers a reasoned rereading of his writings, drawn from books, articles and conferences, chronologically ordered and grouped around some areas most performed by Del Nord: the building process, the places for education, the spaces for health care. A rereading tracing the years when the discipline of architectural design for the community established itself, scientifically founded and attentive to resources and contexts. His words testify to the vision which accompanied his commitment, in the years between the 20th and 21st centuries, on the relationship between research and design, training and society, innovation and building processes, strategies and policies.
India's Search for Prosperity Joshi, Vijay
Australian economic review,
June 2018, Volume:
51, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
What should India do to become a prosperous, high‐income country within the next 25 years? In this Corden Lecture, I argue that India needs ‘more of the market’ as well as ‘more of the state’, each ...in its proper domain. This theme is elaborated by identifying and examining the following problem areas in India's economic landscape: dysfunctional subsidies and inefficient redistribution; labour market distortions and the employment problem; inefficient public‐sector enterprises; poor quality of primary education; and weakness of state capacity. The lecture ends with some reflections on India's democratic system, which provides the setting in which economic reform has to be implemented.
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People in the United States are relocating nearly half as much they did in the early 1980s. Lower population turnover--the propensity of people to move into or out of a given location--may mean a ...decline in labor market adjustment across industries and occupations; when people move across regions for job-related reasons, they may help smooth out changes that hit certain labor markets harder than others. Population turnover may also lead to better matches between employer and employee, an important factor in the growth of urban areas.
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Although Joseph Conrad wrote sixteen works set in the Malay Archipelago, there are very few discussions of his reception in Malaysia or Indonesia. To address this critical issue, I examine ...Malaysian-Taiwanese novelist Yong-Ping Li's two-volume novel, The End of the River. I argue that Li repurposes Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim to critique British, European, and Australian men's abuse and desertion of Indigenous women in the years leading up to 1962. Though there is no neat correspondence between Conrad's and Li's plots, Li frames his examination of the "heart of darkness," namely, moral corruption, as an expedition upriver in the rainforest, where white men "go native" and rape Indigenous women. Li additionally repurposes several related phrases, most notably the imperial rhetoric of light penetrating darkness. Li subverts such a rhetoric by detailing how the would-be light—such as Catholic priests and white government officials—sexually exploits the Indigenous women. Moreover, Li's characters share the same impulses to relate personal stories and rumors as do Conrad's. Several characters, like Conrad's Jim, are surrounded by imperial myths. More significantly, by constructing various avid storytellers, Li recuperates the conventionally suppressed voice of Indigenous women. Conrad's tropes, milieu, and characterizations are all instrumental in shedding light on the issue of sexual exploitation in Indonesia in the mid-twentieth century.
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Based on 20 years of research, including an examination of the papers of eight of the nine Justices who voted in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, Abuse of Discretion is a critical review of the ...behind-the-scenes deliberations that went into the Supreme Court's abortion decisions and how the mistakes made by the Justices in 1971-1973 have led to the turmoil we see today in legislation, politics, and public health. The first half of the book looks at the mistakes made by the Justices, based on the case files, the oral arguments, and the Justices' papers. The second half of the book critically examines the unintended consequences of the abortion decisions in law, politics, and women's health. Why do the abortion decisions remain so controversial after almost 40 years, despite more than 50,000,000 abortions, numerous presidential elections, and a complete turnover in the Justices? Why did such a sweeping decisionwith such important consequences for public health, producing such prolonged political turmoilcome from the Supreme Court in 1973? Answering those questions is the aim of this book. The controversy over the abortion decisions has hardly subsided, and the reasons why are to be found in the Justices' deliberations in 1971-1972 that resulted in the unprecedented decision they issued. Discuss Abuse of Discretion on Twitter using hashtag #AbuseOfDiscretion.
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