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" Trade may raise GDP. But it does make some people worse off. "
David Autor
Worse
Off
People
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" Computers were programmed to swap out error-prone, inconsistent human calculation with digital perfection. "
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Computers
" Workers are basically supervisors of machines. "
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Workers
" In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded and crashed down to Earth less than two minutes after takeoff. The cause of that crash, it turned out, was an inexpensive rubber O-ring in the booster rocket that had frozen on the launchpad the night before and failed catastrophically moments after takeoff. "
David Autor
Moments
Night
Earth
" The U.S. tends to export high-tech goods because we have strong comparative advantage there, and we tend to import labor-intensive and less skill-intensive goods that other countries can do more cheaply. "
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Other
Because
Less
" There's a reason I write articles and go out for good dinners: because I'm better at research than cooking. And there are people who are much better at cooking than research, so it's mutually beneficial for us to specialize. "
David Autor
People
Research
Good
" There's always new work to do. Adjusting to the rapid pace of technological change creates real challenges, seen most clearly in our polarized labor market and the threat that it poses to economic mobility. Rising to this challenge is not automatic. It's not costless. It's not easy. But it is feasible. "
David Autor
Challenge
Change
Work
" Work is what structures adults' lives: it gives us purpose, focus, a set of responsibilities, and an identity. So when people are not participating in the labour market, all sorts of other things often start to go wrong. "
David Autor
Identity
Work
Purpose
" 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. "
David Autor
Power
Labor
Think
" Markets are, in many settings, self-organizing and 'efficient' in terms of maximizing the welfare of both buyers and sellers. "
David Autor
Settings
Efficient
Markets
" Tax reform done right will improve incentives to invest in U.S. production and to repatriate profits. "
David Autor
Done
Invest
Right
" Our machines increasingly do our work for us. Why doesn't this make our labor redundant and our skills obsolete? Why are there still so many jobs? "
David Autor
Us
Work
Why
" There was a great sag in employment beginning in 2000. "
David Autor
Employment
Great
Beginning
" I did a lot of blue collar work. I also worked as a temp. I did, you know, light construction and cleaning. I did clerical temping. I also fix cars and motorcycles and electronics. "
David Autor
Construction
Blue
Work
" People tend to think about trade as if it's competition between companies - if Apple wins, Google loses. But that's false. Trade makes nations better off in general. Now, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that everything about trade is good and beneficial. Trade also has costs. "
David Autor
Competition
Good
People
" The end of the 'tech bubble' in the year 2000 is, of course, widely recognized, as the NASDAQ stock index erased three-quarters of its value between 2000 and 2003. "
David Autor
Year
Recognized
End
" More than any other issue, economists have kind of been boosters for trade. "
David Autor
Any
Kind
Economists
" 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. "
David Autor
Value
Will
Growth
" Jobs can change a lot without there being huge changes in employment rates. "
David Autor
Changes
Without
Employment
" Economists have understood since the Victorian era that the main benefits of trade come from comparative advantage: the idea that people can specialize in what they're good at and then benefit from exchange. The principle is no more mysterious than specialization in the labor market. "
David Autor
Mysterious
People
Trade
" I had never taken any economics. I literally didn't know what it was. I thought it was just about the study of money. "
David Autor
Study
Money
Thought
" The Internet promises to open new channels for worker-firm communications. What are the consequences of this opening? "
David Autor
Internet
Consequences
Promises
" History has suggested that the pessimists have been wrong time and time again. "
David Autor
Time
Wrong
Again
" The long-term policies that will be most effective all have to do with investment: investing in ourselves, investing in opportunities, creating good schools, and creating situations where people can acquire skills that enable them to be successful. "
David Autor
Opportunities
Successful
People
" I work a lot on skill demands and changes in labor markets having to do with technology and with trade as well. "
David Autor
Technology
Work
Skill
" There is no question we are in an era of people asking, 'Is the Robocalypse upon us? "
David Autor
Era
Asking
People
" I did software development for a while, and I also spent several years directing a nonprofit in San Francisco that did computer education for the poor. I also did a lot of work in fast food. "
David Autor
Food
Education
Work
" Workers and jobs are naturally heterogeneous, and the quality of their interaction when paired is difficult to forecast. "
David Autor
Workers
Difficult
Quality
" China's rise is really a kind of a world historical event. This is the largest country in the world. It has caused a wholesale substantial contraction of U.S. manufacturing employment. "
David Autor
Rise
Country
World
" Here's a startling fact: in the 45 years since the introduction of the automated teller machine, those vending machines that dispense cash, the number of human bank tellers employed in the United States has roughly doubled, from about a quarter of a million to a half a million. "
David Autor
Cash
Introduction
Here
" The average worker in 2015 wanting to attain the average living standard in 1915 could do so by working just 17 weeks a year, one third of the time. But most people don't choose to do that. They are willing to work hard to harvest the technological bounty that is available to them. Material abundance has never eliminated perceived scarcity. "
David Autor
Work
Harvest
People