自动化与租金耗散: 对工资、不平等和生产率的含义
Automation and Rent Dissipation: Implications for Wages, Inequality, and Productivity
Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2026 · [{"name": "Daron Acemoglu", "affiliation": ["Massachusetts Institute of Technology"]}, {"name": "Pascual Restrepo", "affiliation": ["Yale University"]}]
中文摘要
摘要 本文研究任务型经济中自动化的影响。在这类经济中, 某些工作向劳动者支付租金——即高于劳动者外部选择的工资。我们表明, 自动化针对高租金任务, 耗散租金, 放大工资损失, 并降低受影响群体的组内工资离散度。这种形式的租金耗散是低效率的, 抵消了自动化带来的生产率收益。利用 1980 至 2016 年的美国数据, 我们发现了自动化导致可观的租金耗散与组内工资离散度下降的证据。自动化解释了 1980 年以来组间不平等上升的 52%, 其中租金耗散贡献了这一总量的五分之一。我们的估计表明, 在此期间, 低效率的租金耗散抵消了自动化生产率收益的 60%–90%。
Abstract
Abstract This article studies the effects of automation in a task-based economy in which some jobs pay workers rents—wages above workers' outside options. We show that automation targets high-rent tasks, dissipating rents, amplifying wage losses, and reducing within-group wage dispersion in exposed groups. This form of rent dissipation is inefficient and offsets the productivity gains from automation. Using U.S. data from 1980 to 2016, we find evidence of sizable rent dissipation and reduced within-group wage dispersion due to automation. Automation accounts for 52% of the increase in between-group inequality since 1980, with rent dissipation explaining one-fifth of this total. Our estimates imply that inefficient rent dissipation has offset 60%–90% of the productivity gains from automation over this period.