Shocks and Technology Adoption: Evidence from Electronic Payment Systems
Nicolas Crouzet, Apoorv Gupta, and Filippo Mezzanotti
A new study suggests that the Indian demonetization in 2016 spurred more rapid adoption of electronic payment systems.
Category: Research – Homepage
Automatic Reaction – What Happens to Workers at Firms that Automate?
James Bessen, Maarten Goos, Anna Salomons, and Wiljan van den Berge
New research on the effects of automation on jobs and wages finds minor impacts compared to mass layoffs, and with greatest impact on higher-paid workers.
Diffusing New Technology Without Dissipating Rents
James Bessen and Alessandro Nuvolari
A paper analyzing the diffusion of three technologies in the 19th century with policy implications for today.
Roadblock to Innovation: The Role of Patent Litigation in Corporate R&D
Filippo Mezzanotti
A new study on the impact of a patent-policy change on corporate R&D spending and innovation.
The Business of Artificial Intelligence Startups
James Bessen, Stephen Michael Impink, Lydia Reichensperger, and Robert Seamans
A new survey of AI startups offers insight into AI’s impact on jobs and the economy, including data suggesting a competitive market for startups and the use of AI to enhance rather than replace human labor.
The Policy Challenge of Artificial Intelligence
James Bessen
Across all major sectors of the economy, proprietary information technology is increasing the market dominance of large firms, which is evidence of a slowdown in the spread of technical knowledge throughout the economy. The result is rising industry concentration, slower productivity growth and growing wage inequality. The key challenge to IP and antitrust policy will be counter this trend yet maintain innovation incentives.
Is Automation Labor-Displacing? Productivity Growth, Employment, and the Labor Share
David Autor and Anna Salomons
While many technological innovations replace workers with machines, what effect does that have on overall employment and productivity? This paper explores automation’s impact on total employment and aggregate demand.
Patent Policy and American Innovation after eBay: An Empirical Examination
Timothy Simcoe and Filippo Mezzanotti
After the Supreme Court ruled that courts should not automatically enter injunctions against patent infringers, some commentators feared that the decision would hinder innovation and growth in the U.S. More than ten years later, this paper examines the data to see whether those fears came true.
AI and the Economy
Robert Seamans and Jason Furman
Is artificial intelligence (AI) having a large effect on the economy? A variety of statistics—including robotics shipments, AI startups, and patent counts—show a large increase in AI-related activity. AI and robotics also have the potential to increase productivity growth but may cause labor market upheaval. This paper explores some strategies and policies for dealing with this upheaval.
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Innovation
Iain Cockburn, Rebecca Henderson, and Scott Stern.
Can artificial intelligence serve as a new general-purpose “method of invention” that can reshape the nature of the innovation process and the organization of R&D? Research suggests that this may lead to a significant substitution away from more routinized labor-intensive research towards research that takes advantage of the interplay between passively generated large datasets and enhanced prediction algorithms. The authors suggest that policies which encourage transparency and sharing of core datasets across both public and private actors may be critical tools for stimulating research productivity and innovation-oriented competition.