Prof. Christopher Knittel speaks with New York Times reporter Emmett Lindner about how the conflict with Iran has influenced gas prices in the United States. “When there’s a supply disruption in the Middle East, that raises prices for every barrel of oil in the world,” explains Knittel. “Those price increases then trickle down to products that use oil, gasoline being the most relevant one.”
A new essay by Profs. Daron Acemoglu, David Autor and Simon Johnson, has offered “a more hopeful vision for the future of human work,” in a world infused with AI, reports Greg Rosalsky for NPR’s Planet Money. The authors “spend much of the essay providing a thought-provoking analysis of how new technologies can affect human jobs in general,” writes Rosalsky. “In short, it's complicated. Yes, often they do kill jobs. Other times they can make jobs less lucrative by, for example, making those jobs easier to do — or ‘de-skilling’ them — which means the supply of workers who can do these jobs goes up and wages for the occupation can go down.”
Prof. Simon Johnson speaks with Associated Press reporter Paul Wiseman about how the conflict with Iran has impacted the global economy. “The Strait of Hormuz has to be reopened,” says Johnson. “It’s 20 million barrels of oil a day going through there. There’s no excess capacity anywhere in the world that can fill that gap.”
Prof. Simon Johnson speaks with CNBC Squawk Box reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin about the state of private credit. “The opacity of this sector has become a problem,” says Johnson. “I think disclosure, at least to the authorities and publicly, would be healthy for everyone.”
Prof. Christopher Knittel speaks with Bloomberg reporter Stacey Vanek Smith about increased gas prices. “Gas is something we tend to buy on a weekly basis,” says Knittel. “But also, we see the price hundreds of times a day. Even if you’re not buying it, you see the price, so the salience of gas prices is like no other.”
Prof. Catherine Wolfram speaks with Politico reporter James Bikales about the price of oil and gasoline in the United States. “Economists talk about what’s called rockets and feathers — that gas prices go up like rockets when oil prices go up, but then if oil prices go back down … they go back down like feathers,” says Wolfram. “Especially if you’re coming into the period when [gas prices] tend to rise because of summer driving, they might just stay high, even if oil prices go back down.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with GBH’s Morning Edition host Mark Herz about the potential impact of rent control in Massachusetts. “Capping the price doesn’t solve the problem,” says Gruber. “It simply allows the existing set of people to have their prices not increase at the expense of other people who might benefit from living in Massachusetts.”
Prof. Alessandro Acquisti speaks with WBUR reporters Woodrow Hartzog and Neil Richards about privacy concerns surrounding consumer data. “The online advertising industry has long extolled the benefits of targeted advertising, presenting it as an economic win-win for publishers, merchants and consumers alike,” says Acquisti. “And yet, in reality, there is little robust empirical evidence that any stakeholder – other than the data intermediaries themselves – actually benefit from this type of advertising.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with WBUR Here & Now host Scott Tong about the impact of AI on the white-collar job market and the economy. “The advances in AI models have been pretty impressive,” says Acemoglu. “But right now, much of this is still in the lab, so to speak, meaning it has not spread to the productive sector of the economy. We are not seeing massive job losses…but of course we should be planning for how these models will be used and what their impact should be.”
Writing for The Washington Post, Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen explores the economic implications of blocking the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which links Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. “The new bridge is essential to modernizing the Michigan-Canada trade corridor,” writes Pozen. “It will create a second freeway-to-freeway link, thereby relieving bottlenecks and congestion on the old bridge.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Fortune reporter Jake Angelo about his work studying the “origins of economic and political decay,” and the need for the U.S. to crack down “on economic inequality and tempering with job destruction.” “If we go down this path of destroying jobs [and] creating more inequality, U.S. democracy is not going to survive,” says Acemoglu.
A working paper by Prof. Jonathan Gruber and his colleagues has found “that admitting more immigrations would help save the lives of Americans, particularly seniors,” reports Stuart Anderson for Forbes.
Prof. David Autor speaks with Bloomberg reporter David Westin about the shift toward automation in the workforce and the impact on workers. “There are many ways for us to use AI,” says Autor. “It’s incredibly flexible, malleable, plastic technology. You could use it to try to automate people out of existence. You could also use it to collaborate with people to make them more effective. But I also think that it depends on how we invest, how we build out those technologies.”
Prof. Lawrence Schmidt speaks with CNBC reporter Tom Huddleston Jr. about the influence of AI on the labor market. “It devalues existing expertise while simultaneously creating many new opportunities,” says Schmidt. “There's a sense in which AI may not be so distinct from past technologies.”
Prof. Karilyn Crockett speaks with Boston Globe reporters Niki Griswold and Janelle Nanos about the city of Boston’s plans for economic development. “This is a moment to continue this focus and commitment and double down on it.”