David Autor

Labor is getting a shrinking slice of a pie that's not growing very much. ”

I'm not yet convinced that we will face an unemployment problem created by AI. There will certainly be some occupations eliminated - drivers of vehicles, many production jobs, etc. Whether this creates mass unemployment depends on how quickly this happens. If it happens overnight, it will be a huge disruption. ”

If I lose my job at a furniture factory where I've worked for decades, no amount of cheaper toys and raincoats at Wal-Mart is going to make me whole again. ”

Markets are, in many settings, self-organizing and 'efficient' in terms of maximizing the welfare of both buyers and sellers. ”

People tend to think about trade as if it's competition between companies - if Apple wins, Google loses. But that's false. Trade makes nations better off in general. Now, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that everything about trade is good and beneficial. Trade also has costs. ”

In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded and crashed down to Earth less than two minutes after takeoff. The cause of that crash, it turned out, was an inexpensive rubber O-ring in the booster rocket that had frozen on the launchpad the night before and failed catastrophically moments after takeoff. ”

There's always new work to do. Adjusting to the rapid pace of technological change creates real challenges, seen most clearly in our polarized labor market and the threat that it poses to economic mobility. Rising to this challenge is not automatic. It's not costless. It's not easy. But it is feasible. ”

The long-term policies that will be most effective all have to do with investment: investing in ourselves, investing in opportunities, creating good schools, and creating situations where people can acquire skills that enable them to be successful. ”

I had never taken any economics. I literally didn't know what it was. I thought it was just about the study of money. ”

I think we labor economists like to think of ourselves as being closer to the people. ”