45 Quotes by David Autor

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

More than any other issue, economists have kind of been boosters for trade.

Work is really wrapped up with identity. Work is not just money for most people.

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.

Tax reform done right will improve incentives to invest in U.S. production and to repatriate profits.

Manufacturing value chains are global. Many U.S.-made goods have foreign components. Slapping on tariffs will raise prices and slow imports, but it will make us poorer and impede growth.

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

If you think about it, many of the great inventions of the last 200 years were designed to replace human labor. Tractors were developed to substitute mechanical power for human physical toil.

Computers were programmed to swap out error-prone, inconsistent human calculation with digital perfection.