AI economics
AI impact framework
The aim of this paper is to give researchers and policymakers a common map for connecting partial measures of AI’s economic effects without treating technical capability, adoption, and public benefit as if they were the same thing.
We are happy to announce that a new AI economic assessment working paper - Measuring AI before its effects arrive: adaptation demand and the economic impact chain - is now available at SSRN!
Summary
AI is changing economic life faster than the measures used to understand it. Existing research can show which jobs or tasks AI may reach, how people use particular systems, or whether productivity has changed in a defined setting. Those measures do not by themselves explain why a worker, firm, or public agency feels pressure to change, whether it has the resources and authority to respond, or whether a visible response has actually improved the outcome.
This new working paper develops a framework for tracing that missing middle. Drawing on lessons from climate change research, it separates AI exposure from the actor-specific consequences that may follow, the perceived demand to adapt, the capacity and institutional rules that shape available responses, and the outcomes that result. The aim is to give researchers and policymakers a common map for connecting partial measures of AI’s economic effects without treating technical capability, adoption, and public benefit as if they were the same thing.
Abstract
