Technological change transforms economies and labor markets, reshaping the types of jobs that are available, the wages they pay, and the skills they require. Much recent empirical work has documented the displacement of labor from existing job tasks by automation technology, including robots and software. However, this literature has primarily treated the set of human job tasks as finite and static, implying that as automation proceeds, labor is confined to an ever-narrowing scope of activities. Casual observation and historical evidence suggest this is at odds with reality: as employment in (previously) labor-intensive sectors such as agriculture, textiles, mining, and […]
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