Special Section: Reevaluating Markets for Information

Abstract

Interpretation of the history of technology and a different way of thinking about the future of work—as a race between automation and new, labor-intensive tasks. Labor demand has not increased steadily over the last two centuries because of technologies that have made labor more productive in everything. Rather, many new technologies have sought to eliminate labor from tasks in which it previously specialized. All the same, labour has benefited from advances in technology because other technologies have simultaneously enabled the introduction of new labor-intensive tasks. These new tasks have done more than just reinstate labor as a central input into the production process; they have also played a vital role in productivity growth . Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center and NERA Economic Consulting has found that global piracy of movies and TV shows is threatening the industry’s growth and costing the U.S. economy at least $29.2 bn in lost revenue every year. That is a conservative estimate and the research states that actual losses could be as high as $71 bn annually