After a number of AI-winters, AI is back with a boom. There are concerns that it will disrupt society. The immediate concern is whether labor can win a 'race against the robots' and the longer-term concern is whether an artificial general intelligence (super-intelligence) can be controlled. This...

Rapid technological progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has been predicted to lead to mass unemployment, rising inequality, and higher productivity growth through automation. In this paper we critically re-assess these predictions by (i) surveying the recent literature and (ii)...

This paper identifies the determinants of industrialization in 18 African countries, 1965 to 2018, using various estimators and applying a battery of robustness checks. Industrialization in Africa is driven by historical legacies such as colonialism; geographical factors such as rainfall and...

The economic impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is studied using a (semi) endogenous growth model with two novel features. First, the task approach from labor economics is reformulated and integrated into a growth model. Second, the standard represen- tative household assumption is rejected,...

In "The Race between Man and Machine: Implications of Technology for Growth, Factor Shares, and Employment," Acemoglu and Restrepo (2018b) combine the task-based model of the labor market with an endogenous growth model to model the economic consequences of artificial intelligence (AI). This...

Economists' two main theoretical approaches to understanding Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacts have been the task-approach to labor markets and endogenous growth theory. Therefore, the recent integration of the task-approach into an endogenous growth model by Acemoglu and Restrepo (AR) is a...

We provide a partial equilibrium model wherein AI provides abilities combined with human skills to provide an aggregate intermediate service good. We use the model to find that the extent of automation through AI will be greater if (a) the economy is relatively abundant in sophisticated programs...

Adoption and adaptation of foreign technology is an important catch-up mechanism for developing countries and can contribute towards the achievement of the millennium development goals. Despite this until now very little foreign aid has been specifically targeting innovation in developing...

Unlike in the past where industrial policy was either focused on creation and growth of state-owned firms or alternatively consisted merely of broadly functional policies without consideration for firm or entrepreneurial specifics, the requirement now is that future industrial policy ought to be...

Unlike in the past where industrial policy was either focused on creation and growth of state-owned firms or alternatively consisted merely of broadly functional policies without consideration for firm or entrepreneurial specifics, the requirement now is that future industrial policy ought to be...