Reuters reports on Professor David Autor’s new paper on how automation and computers are impacting the labor market. "I expect that a significant stratum of middle skill, non-college jobs combining specific vocational skills with foundational middle skills - literacy, numeracy, adaptability, problem-solving and common sense - will persist in coming decades," Autor explains.
Bloomberg News reports on Professor David Autor’s presentation on the U.S. labor market at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, where he presented research demonstrating that robots are not replacing as many human workers as some fear. “Challenges to substituting machines for workers in tasks requiring flexibility, judgment, and common sense remain immense,” Autor explains.
“Nancy L. Rose PhD ‘85, a professor of applied economics at MIT, has been named Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economic Analysis by the U.S. Department of Justice,” writes Katherine Nazemi for The Tech. Rose will head the DOJ’s anti-trust division.
In a piece for The Huffington Post about the problems associated with defining a poverty threshold, Murtaza Haider, an associate professor of management at Ryerson University, highlights Prof. Abhijit Banerjee and Prof. Esther Duflo’s book Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty.
“Labor economist Paul Osterman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in a recent study he conducted that manufacturers' spending on training has essentially been flat for the last five years,” writes Lauren Weber for The Wall Street Journal.
Wall Street Journal reporter Jason Douglas writes that Prof. Kristin Forbes, who was recently appointed to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, "highlighted a risk to economic recovery that is preoccupying central bankers on both sides of the Atlantic: Investors appear too sanguine about risk."
Professor Simon Johnson writes for The Financial Times about the potential danger posed to the economy during crises by clearing houses. Johnson argues that clearing houses should be subject to greater regulation and should ensure they have sufficient capital on hand to cover losses.
Timothy Aeppel writes for The Wall Street Journal about Professor Erik Brynjolfsson’s belief that advances in automation have the same transformative impact on the economy as inventions of the past. “For the first time in history, we can talk to machines and they talk back to us,” says Brynjolfsson.
Della Bradshaw of The Financial Times writes about Professor Andrei Kirilenko, who recently spent three-and-a-half weeks in Ukraine advising the country’s government on how to stabilize the economy. Kirilenko is a U.S. citizen who grew up in the Ukraine.
Wall Street Journal reporter Irving Wladawsky-Berger examines Prof. David Autor’s research on income inequality. “Mr. Autor estimates that the difference in the yearly earnings between a college-educated two-income family and a high school-educated two-income family has risen by $28,000 between 1979 and 2012,” he writes.
David Wessel writes for The Wall Street Journal about Professor Athanasios Orphanides’ research into the European Union’s management of the economic crisis. “Rather than work towards containing total losses, politics led governments to focus on shifting losses to others,” says Orphanides.
Douglas Martin writes for The New York Times about the late Professor Morris Adelman who died at his home in Newton on May 8. Adelman spent six decades as a faculty member in the MIT economics department.
The Economist looks at the work of Professor David Autor while investigating how technological advances are influencing future employment. Autor’s research indicates that the fact that a job can be automated does not guarantee it will be and other factors, such as the cost of labor, play a role.
“Where noncompetes are not enforced, there’s a more open labor market — companies compete for talent,” said Professor Matthew Marx in this New York Times article by Steven Greenhouse. Marx sites California’s ban on noncompetes as a major reason for Silicon Valley’s success.
“According to a paper by Mr. Autor published Thursday in the journal Science, the true cost of a college degree is about negative $500,000,” David Leonhardt writes in a New York Times piece about David Autor’s research on inequality.