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​James Bessen's research and writing can be found at his personal website.

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How Computer Automation Affects Occupations: Technology, Jobs, and Skills

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"Occupations that use computers grow faster, not slower. This is true even for highly routine and mid-wage occupations. Estimates reject computers as a source of significant net technological unemployment or job polarization. But computerized occupations substitute for other occupations, shifting employment and requiring new skills. Because new skills are costly to learn, computer use is associated with substantially greater within-occupation wage inequality." 

​Accounting for Rising Corporate Profits: Intangibles or Regulatory Rents?

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Since 1980, US corporate valuations have risen relative to assets and operating margins have grown. The possibility of sustained economic rents has raised concerns about economic dynamism and inequality. But rising profits could come from political rents or, instead, from returns to investments in intangibles. Using new data on Federal regulation and data on lobbying, campaign spending, R&D, and organizational capital, this paper finds that both intangibles and political factors account for a substantial part of the increase in profits, but since 2000 political factors are more important. A difference-in-differences analysis finds that major expansions of regulation increase profits significantly.

Commentary

​Computers Don’t Kill Jobs but Do Increase Inequality

At Harvard Business Review: "Economic inequality has become a prominent issue in this year’s U.S. presidential election...By many measures, the gap between high earners and low earners has widened substantially. But is this all the result of nefarious influence-peddling by the 1%? In fact, new research shows that a substantial part of the growth in this wage gap can be attributed to computer technology.

The Automation Paradox

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At The Atlantic.com: Automation isn’t just for blue-collar workers anymore. Computers are now taking over tasks performed by professional workers, raising fears of massive unemployment...But these fears are misplaced—what’s happening with automation is not so simple or obvious. It turns out that workers will have greater employment opportunities if their occupation undergoes some degree of computer automation. As long as they can learn to use the new tools, automation will be their friend.

The Anti-Innovators: How Special Interests Undermine Entrepreneurship

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James Bessen in Foreign Affairs
Politics is about balancing competing interests. Opposing factions battle one another but ultimately compromise, each getting something it wants. In recent decades, however, start-ups have consistently lost out. Whereas established interests have the money and lobbying power to buy political influence, newer firms offer only the promise of future profits. As Jim Cooper, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee, has framed the problem, “The future has no lobbyists.”

Employers Aren't Just Whining—The “Skills Gap” Is Real 

James Bessen in Harvard Business Review Blog:
“Why are skills sometimes hard to measure and to manage? Because new technologies frequently require specific new skills that schools don’t teach and that labor markets don’t supply. Since information technologies have radically changed much work over the last couple of decades, employers have had persistent difficulty finding workers who can make the most of these new technologies.”

...more commentary





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​News

PictureCNBC on automation
Cited:
NY Times Mag robots

WSJ, The Week, AP automation

Pro-Market Blog, Corp. profits & politics

The Economist, Automation Anxiety & Lifelong Learning

EconTalk on Learning by Doing

NY Times on computer automation and here; also US News
Senator Hatch citing research on patent reform:

...more News
Research on Innovation