Automation and Rent Dissipation: Implications for Wages, Inequality, and Productivity
研究自动化如何通过消除高租金岗位的租金，加剧工资损失并降低组内工资离散度，同时抵消生产力提升。基于美国1980-2016年数据，发现自动化解释了52%的组间不平等增长，租金消散抵消了60-90%的生产力收益。
Abstract This paper studies the effects of automation in a task-based economy in which some jobs pay workers rents—wages above their outside option. We show that automation targets high-rent tasks, dissipating rents, amplifying wage losses, and reducing within-group wage dispersion in exposed groups. This form of rent dissipation is inefficient and offsets the productivity gains from automation. Using US data from 1980 to 2016, we find evidence of sizable rent dissipation and reduced within-group wage dispersion due to automation. Automation accounts for 52% of the increase in between-group inequality since 1980, with rent dissipation explaining one-fifth of this total. Our estimates imply that inefficient rent dissipation has offset 60–90% of the productivity gains from automation over this period.