Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichFeb 10

AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it
“AI introduced a new rhythm in which workers managed several active threads at once: manually writing code while AI generated an alternative version, running multiple agents in parallel, or reviving long-deferred tasks because AI could “handle them” in the background. They did this, in part, because they felt they had a “partner” that could help them move through their workload.

While this sense of having a “partner” enabled a feeling of momentum, the reality was a continual switching of attention, frequent checking of #AI outputs, and a growing number of open tasks. This created #cognitiveload and a sense of always juggling
… What looks like higher #productivity in the short run can mask silent workload creep and growing cognitive strain as employees juggle multiple AI-enabled workflows
… overwork can impair judgment, increase the likelihood of errors, and make it harder for organizations to distinguish genuine productivity gains from unsustainable intensity
… the cumulative effect is fatigue, #burnout, and a growing sense that work is harder to step away from, especially as organizational expectations for speed and responsiveness rise."
#LaborEcon

La IA no reduce el trabajo, lo intensifica

Una de las promesas de la IA es que puede reducir la carga de trabajo para que los empleados puedan centrarse más en tareas de mayor valor y más interesantes. Pero según una nueva investigación, las herramientas de IA no reducen el trabajo, sino que lo intensifican constantemente: en el estudio, los empleados trabajaban a un ritmo más rápido, asumían un mayor número de tareas y ampliaban su jornada laboral, a menudo sin que se les pidiera. Puede parecer una ventaja, pero no es tan sencillo. Estos cambios pueden ser insostenibles y provocar un aumento de la carga de trabajo, fatiga cognitiva, agotamiento y un debilitamiento de la capacidad de toma de decisiones. El aumento de la productividad que se disfruta al principio puede dar paso a un trabajo de menor calidad, a la rotación de personal y a otros problemas. Para corregir esto, las empresas deben adoptar una «práctica de IA», es decir, un conjunto de normas y estándares en torno al uso de la IA que pueden incluir pausas intencionadas, secuenciar el trabajo y añadir más base humana.

Harvard Business Review
Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichJan 17
Old Workers, New Capital https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:irersi:20&r=&r=age
"… when industries experience workforce #aging, firms with older initial workforces respond by #hiring younger workers and exhibit lower investment, while firms with younger initial workforces hire relatively older workers and exhibit higher investment.
… hiring older workers significantly increases total factor productivity, full-time equivalent productivity, and sales, demonstrating that experienced workers enhance production efficiency and thereby justify higher capital investment.
… firms that hire more experienced workers optimally respond by increasing their capital stock per worker
… strategic hiring of older workers drives capital deepening through #productivity complementarity"
#LaborEcon #wages
Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichJan 16
David Autor on "How Is #AI Shaping the Future of #Work?" https://issues.org/david-autor-economist-ai-future-work/
#LaborEcon #economics
How Is AI Shaping the Future of Work?

MIT labor economist David Autor discusses how AI is shaping the future of work and the labor market on The Ongoing Transformation podcast.

Issues in Science and Technology
Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichJan 5
How Selective Universities Can Increase Socioeconomic Diversity: Admit by SAT Scores https://conversableeconomist.com/2026/01/02/how-selective-universities-can-increase-socioeconomic-diversity-admit-by-sat-scores/
"… counterfactual admissions scenario in which colleges eliminate the three factors that drive the admissions advantage for students from high-income families—legacy preferences, the weight placed on nonacademic ratings, and the differential recruitment of athletes from high-income families—and refill slots with students who have the same distribution of test scores as the current class. Such an admissions policy would increase the share of students attending Ivy-Plus colleges from the bottom 95% of the parental income distribution by 8.8 percentage points"
#LaborEcon #discrimination
How Selective Universities Can Increase Socioeconomic Diversity: Admit by SAT Scores - Conversable Economist

By "selective universities," I mean places like Ivy League schools, along with places like Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the Chicago. Such schools admit only a small fraction of their applicants. However, to reassure both insiders and outsiders that they are open to admitting a broad range of students--whatever their socioeconomic background--these schools also have large

Conversable Economist - In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichNov 18
Remote professionals are quiet quitting Fridays …could open the door to a 4-day work week
https://fortune.com/2025/11/17/remote-hybrid-four-day-work-week-time-use-survey/
"From 2019 to 2024, the average number of minutes worked on Fridays fell by about 90 minutes in jobs that can be done from home.
… informal easing into the weekend, once confined to office norms, can be a morale booster
…In occupations that require continuous hand-offs, staggered schedules can actually improve efficiency by spreading coverage across more hours in the day.
…The benefits, in terms of work-life balance, #autonomy, #recruitment and reducing turnover, can be very real."
#wfh #4dayWeek #laborEcon
Remote professionals are quiet quitting Fridays. Their rebellion could open the door to a 4-day work week

The American Time Use Survey shows that from 2019 to 2024, the average number of minutes worked on Fridays fell by about 90 minutes in remote positions.

Fortune
Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichOct 22
The Labor Market Consequences of Acquisitions https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12162&r=&r=ind
"… the consequences of corporate acquisitions for workers and find that they are far from neutral: earnings decline through both job displacement and wage cuts among stayers from target firms. These wage cuts do not reflect increased monopsony power. Instead, they are concentrated in acquisitions where the acquirer’s CEO sat on the target’s board prior to the transaction, suggesting insider knowledge of pay policies.
… such CEOs disproportionately acquire high-paying firms and subsequently reduce wages. The result is rent redistribution from workers to shareholders and managers, as seen in higher profits and CEO pay. These findings imply that the labor-market risks of acquisitions arise not only from greater market concentration, as documented in previous work, but also from managerial incentives that conventional antitrust policies are ill-equipped to address."
#LaborEcon #wages #IndustrialOrganization
Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichSep 26

Output Fluctuations and Firm #Recruitment Effort https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18068&r=&r=eur
"… correlations between output growth and job advertisement posting are weak, which might seem at odds with theoretical predictions. Further analysis, however, reveals that the relationship between output growth and the advertisement rate masks important di!erences that relate to the persistence of output growth shocks. Decomposing output growth into permanent and transitory components… we find that only permanent shocks exhibit quantitatively significant correlations with the advertisement rate. Specifically, a one standard deviation positive permanent shock is associated with an increase in the advertisement rate equal to 10–16% of the standard deviation of postings, depending on whether output is measured as revenue or value-added. In contrast, transitory shocks are essentially unrelated to the advertisement rate.

This selective adjustment behavior aligns with theoretical models emphasizing costly #vacancy creation and #searchFrictions, and highlights the importance of shock decomposition for understanding firm #hiring dynamics."
#LaborEcon #oja

Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichSep 26
Closing the gap between vocational and general #education? Evidence from University Technical Colleges in England http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/128193/7/jhr.0223-12768R1.full.pdf
"For students who enter at the non-conventional transition age 14, UTCs have a large detrimental effect on the probability of reaching an acceptable level of English and maths two years later in GCSEs national exams
… For students who enter at the more conventional transition age 16, the results reveal a more positive story. Although UTCs lead to some deterioration in academic achievement at upper secondary level (A-levels), this is far out-weighed by an improvement in vocational qualifications at the same level. UTCs do not influence the probability of going on to university, but they strongly influence the probability of undertaking a #STEM degree, an outcome which has been shown to be associated both with higher earnings and with improved productivity and economic growth …corresponding increase in the probability of being in sustained #employment, which increases by 9 percentage points. There is also a high earnings’ return that this stage, for those in employment.
… Findings highlight the risks of early #specialisation and benefits of aligning #education with students' interests at a suitable stage."
#LaborEcon #vocationalTraining #wages
Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichSep 25
The Unequal Diffusion of Honesty and Dishonesty in Workplace Networks https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05214954&r=&r=soc
"… dishonest behavior diffuses while honest behavior does not.
The diffusion of dishonest behavior is best explained by information transmission
… screening for #honesty can be effective in high-turnover environments with sparse networks. While high turnover has been shown to negatively affect firms, this finding contributes to a growing body of evidence suggesting that it may also have positive effects, preventing the #moralDecay that may occur with longer tenure."
#LaborEcon #BehavioralEconomics #SocialTies #ethics
Dennis Alexis Valin DittrichSep 24
The Effect of Teachers’ #CognitiveSkills on Students' Educational Achievements https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boi:wpaper:2025.04&r=&r=neu
"… teachers' cognitive abilities—mainly those measured by #math matriculation scores—have clear and positive effects on both students' short-term matriculation test scores and several long-term measures of academic success, such as the probability of pursuing post-secondary studies at a research university and the probability of choosing a #STEM major subject. Additionally, teachers with higher cognitive abilities are shown to lead to higher gains, particularly among students with stronger aptitude and same-gender student-teacher matching. … These findings suggest that the benefits of having cognitively skilled teachers extend well beyond high school, indicating that teacher influence emerges not only from direct "active" teacher effects but also through implicit behaviors that enhance students' willingness to pursue post-secondary studies in the same fields. "
#LaborEcon