Prof. David Autor discusses his research showing that while automation is impacting middle-skill jobs, there has been an increase in high and low-skill jobs. While machines are entering the workplace, Autor believes that often they are serving “as tools to make humans more productive, not replace them,” explains Wall Street Journal reporter Timothy Aeppel.
Wall Street Journal reporter Timothy Aeppel spoke with faculty members across the Institute about how advances in automation could impact the labor market. Aeppel notes that MIT economists and roboticists meet regularly to gain a better interdisciplinary view of the current state of automation.
Research by Professor Zeynep Ton might explain why it is in the interest of businesses such as Wal-Mart to boost employee wages, writes Chris Matthews for Fortune. Higher pay “encourages workers to give better customer service and makes them less likely to leave,” writes Matthews.
MIT researchers have found that few health care studies use the random assignment method, considered to be the gold standard in scientific research, reports U.S. News & World Report. The researchers “analyzed hundreds of studies about improving health care and found that only 18 percent of those conducted in the United States used the random assignment method.”
A new study by Prof. Amy Finkelstein found that few health care system studies used the random assignment method, considered the gold standard for scientific research, reports Sabrina Tavernise for The New York Times. “The beauty of randomization is that it allows you to be sure of the cause,” says Finkelstein of the importance of using the method.
A paper co-authored by Professor Daron Acemoglu has raised questions about a new theory that inequality increases when the return on capital exceeds the rate of growth, reports Angela Chen for The Wall Street Journal. Acemoglu contends that the new model fails to account for political institutions and technology.
In an article for MedPage Today, Shara Yurkiewicz writes about a new MIT study showing that high demand for desirable medical residencies keeps salaries low. Prof. Nikhil Agarwal explains that, “even if salary negotiation was allowed, the salaries of medical residents would be quite low compared with physician assistants or nurse practitioners.”
BBC News reporter Peter Day writes about Prof. Lily Fang’s research examining why stocks and shares traditionally do not perform well in September. Day explains that Fang and her colleagues found that “financial markets - so praised for their efficiency - get less efficient in the summer because people are not paying sufficient attention to what is going on.”
A study by co-authored by a team of MIT economists found that financial aid boosts enrollment and persistence, reports Inside Higher Ed. The researchers found that “the effects of the aid in encouraging enrollment and boosting persistence were especially pronounced among nonwhite students and students with lower grade point averages and standardized test scores.”
Shana Lebowitz writes for Forbes about a study co-authored by Dr. Sara Ellison that determined that gender-diverse teams are more productive than their single-gender counterparts: “[R]esearchers estimated that transitioning from a single-gender office to an office evenly split between men and women would translate to a whopping 41% revenue gain.”
Financial Times reporter John Authers highlights Prof. Andrew Lo’s work examining how human aversion to risk impacts financial decisions. Lo’s research provides evidence that “investors in markets will take risk-averse actions rather than the purely rational decisions that economists have classically assumed."
David Slocum of Forbes lists “The Second Machine Age” by Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and Dr. Andrew McAfee as one of the best creative leadership books of the year. Brynjolfsson and McAfee, “explore the forces reinventing fields as diverse as medicine, retail, and transportation and having far-ranging implications for creative collaboration, business leadership and policy-making alike.”
Susan Adams writes for Forbes about research coauthored by Dr. Sara Ellison that indicates that single-sex teams are less productive than their co-ed counterparts. “The authors say their research shows that switching from a single-sex group to a co-ed team could increase revenues by a whopping 41%,” Adams writes.
Richard Eisenberg of Forbes speaks with Professor Ofer Sharone about his research and tips for white-collar job seekers. “Meeting with people face to face who you worked with in the past and can vouch for your abilities can help you overcome some of the barriers built into the hiring process,” says Sharone.
Washington Post reporter Jeff Guo examines new findings from MIT graduate student Manasi Deshpande concerning how the Supplemental Security Income influences a person’s decision to work. Deshpande found that people who were on disability as children “do not have great work prospects as adults,” but parents of disabled children” do have excess capacity to work.”