Latest news with #DavidAutor
Scotsman
11-06-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
Scotland can be an innovation nation again - here's how
PA This is a chance to write a new chapter—not by erasing the past, but by building on it Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Scotland has led the world before, and it can lead again. Scotland has more world- class universities per head than innovation powerhouses like Switzerland or Singapore. It's the only part of the UK where high-potential firms are more likely than their London peers to secure early-stage investment. And half of the UK's most active angel investor networks are based here. Thanks to decades of effort by businesses, universities, and public agencies, Scotland may be the best place in the UK to start an innovative firm. Mission accomplished, you might think. Wait a while, and the jobs, industries, and incomes will follow. That's how growth has happened before. As the economist David Autor has shown, the jobs most of us do today didn't even exist in 1940. Out with the miners, in with the solar engineers and wedding planners. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But there's nothing automatic about translating headline innovation into broad-based prosperity. Too many Scottish firms, once they reach a certain scale, find they must either sell or relocate elsewhere in the UK or to the US to grow. Dundee University spin-out Exscientia—a global leader in AI drug discovery—moved to Oxford to become Scotland's first biotech 'unicorn'. The bigger problem is structural. Scotland has one of the most lopsided innovation economies in the world. It ranks second globally for university R&D as a share of GDP, yet sits mid-table on private sector R&D. For every pound of public research spending in Scotland, just £1.46 is matched by private investment—half the UK average, and a third of the OECD rate. It doesn't have to be this way. In a new report, Innovation Nation, published last week by Our Scottish Future, I set out a five-point plan to raise private innovation and ensure Scotland's ideas scale at home. I begin with a call for a single plan, shared between the Scottish Government, UK Government and local leadership. There is no 'silver bullet' for policymakers; success will require the careful coordination of reserved and devolved policy levers, as well as local consent and support. That shared set of priorities is far from Scotland's current reality: a spaghetti junction of competing Scottish and UK institutions, impossible for business to navigate and – taken together – less than the sum of its parts. Dan Turner | Dan Turner But a plan for what? Scotland's most pressing problem is not an absence of talent, infrastructure and access to capital. It's that – with a few notable exceptions – it lacks what economists call 'clusters' of similar businesses, all of whom become more productive because they can draw on a shared pool of expertise, workers, supply chains and specialist infrastructure such as lab space or testing facilities. As well as being good for individual firms, these clusters are good for communities: they give firms a strong reason to stay put and invest, rather than relocate elsewhere. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad My second recommendation is for tax and planning reform, capital spending, and political leadership to create five 'Growth Zones'. These would be small campuses, putting major research facilities, indigenous start-ups, and multinational enterprises side-by-side. Scotland already has the first two; the Scottish and UK governments will have to negotiate the third, while local leaders do the hard work of assembling the land, finding the funders, builders and tenants, and creating new economic hubs. To do that, local leaders will need more power, status and – correspondingly – accountability. Following earlier Our Scottish Future work, I call for Scottish Combined Authorities, based on the successful model of Manchester, to cover Scotland's major urban areas. As well as being responsible for the Growth Zones, these Scottish Combined Authorities should play a lead role in connecting the engines of the innovation economy into wider social and economic life on their patch. If we don't make an intentional effort, overreliance on innovation-led growth can make inequalities worse. And that's not just inequitable: it's inefficient. Researchers at Harvard and MIT have shown that we could raise patenting levels fourfold if we could bring talented youths from communities typically left behind by innovation into the labs and research centres. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad And last but not least, any shift in efforts towards building up Scotland's clusters can't come at the cost of stopping – or worse, reversing – support for the universities and early stage investors that currently speaks so much to Scotland's credit. The risk, in Holyrood and Westminster, is that we cut back on innovation funding and cut ourselves off to global talent. Scotland cannot afford to kill its golden goose. The work we do shapes how we see ourselves and the places we live. Scotland's identity is still deeply tied to its industrial heyday—shipbuilding on the Clyde, coal and oil from Fife and Aberdeenshire, medical breakthroughs from Edinburgh. But there is no reason the 21st century can't belong to Scotland too. Indeed, we can see its outline already. Glasgow's former workshops now house Europe's largest satellite cluster and cutting-edge life sciences. Edinburgh's fintech firms are reimagining payment and exchange. Dundee has shifted from jute to gaming and advanced therapeutics. Aberdeen is preparing for its second great energy transition, leading on hydrogen and offshore renewables. This is a chance to write a new chapter—not by erasing the past, but by building on it. Scotland's future industries can honour its industrial legacy: drawing on the same places, the same skills, the same deep pride in work. But to get there, we need to do something new: create jobs in the innovation economy, at every skill level, across the country. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad That is the challenge and the opportunity. To remake Scotland's innovative legacy —not as a monument to past glory, but as a home for modern, inclusive, enduring industry. That's what it means to become an innovation nation.
South China Morning Post
04-06-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Sorry, but the ‘China shock' was actually pretty good for America
The idea that China has stolen millions of American jobs in recent decades, causing a collapse in the manufacturing labour market, has long been a staple anti-Chinese narrative on both sides of US politics. Even economists and media pundits who grudgingly acknowledge that cheap Chinese goods have made life easier and more affordable for the average American would complain about these alleged mass job losses. And the blue-collar voters most severely affected by sectoral lay-offs and the decline in regional manufacturing make up a fair segment of Donald Trump 's Maga – 'Make America Great Again' – movement. But is this so-called China shock actually real? 09:42 Trump promises to bring US manufacturing back from China, but will his tariffs work? Trump promises to bring US manufacturing back from China, but will his tariffs work? Among the most influential research defending the 'China shock' claim is a series of papers by David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Dorn of the University of Zurich, and Gordon Hanson of the Harvard Kennedy School – especially their 2016 paper 'The China Shock: Learning from Labour Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade'.
Wall Street Journal
27-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
The Real Story of the ‘China Shock'
Few academic papers have been as influential—or as misunderstood—as those by David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon Hanson. Politicians and pundits often use these authors' papers to claim that China's rise has cost the U.S. up to 2.4 million jobs due to surging Chinese imports between 1999 and 2011. But these studies focus narrowly on what happened to manufacturing employment in local labor markets, not the U.S. as a whole. It's true that communities exposed to heavy Chinese import competition saw steep drops in manufacturing jobs and a rise in local unemployment. Crucially, the displaced workers mostly stayed put rather than moved for new work. It's no wonder these academic papers resonated because they highlighted real pain in America's industrial heartland. But treating the China shock as a verdict on national employment is a mistake.
NDTV
18-05-2025
- Business
- NDTV
MIT Retracts Popular Study Claiming AI Boosts Scientific Discoveries
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has disavowed the research of a PhD student on the impact of AI on the workforce that had impressed the field experts. On Friday (May 16), MIT released a statement, announcing that it reviewed the paper following concerns and decided that it should be "withdrawn from public discourse. "MIT has contacted arXiv to formally request that the paper be withdrawn and The Quarterly Journal of Economics, where it had been submitted," read the statement by MIT. The university said it had requested the study author to submit the request to withdraw the paper, but they had not done it yet. "Our understanding is that only authors of papers appearing on arXiv can submit withdrawal requests. We have directed the author to submit such a request, but to date, the author has not done so. Therefore, in an effort to clarify the research record, MIT respectfully request that the paper be marked as withdrawn from arXiv as soon as possible." The paper titled "Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation" was published on the preprint site, arXiv, in November 2024. Preprints, by definition, have not yet undergone peer review, but the study received considerable attention, including from the likes of MIT economists Daron Acemoglu (who recently won the Nobel Prize) and David Autor. The latter told the Wall Street Journal that he was "floored" by the findings. The study claimed that AI's introduction to a large but unidentified materials science lab led to the discovery of more materials and more patent filings. However, the increased efficiency came at the cost of reducing researchers' satisfaction with their work. Both Mr Acemoglu and Mr Autor, who were acknowledged in the paper footnote, released a statement alongside the MIT release. saying they found inconsistencies in the study after its release. "Over time, we had concerns about the validity of this research, which we brought to the attention of the appropriate office at MIT. In early February, MIT followed its written policy and conducted an internal, confidential review," read the joint statement. The researcher responsible for the study is no longer affiliated with the university, MIT added.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
MIT disavows doctoral student paper on AI's productivity benefits
MIT says that due to concerns about the 'integrity' of a high-profile paper on the effects of artificial intelligence on the productivity of a materials science lab, the paper should be 'withdrawn from public discourse.' The paper in question, 'Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation,' was written by a doctoral student in the university's economics program. It claimed to show that the introduction of an AI tool into a large-but-unidentified materials science lab led to the discovery of more materials and more patent filings, but at the cost of reducing researchers' satisfaction with their work. MIT economists Daron Acemoglu (who recently won the Nobel Prize) and David Autor both praised the paper last year, with Autor telling the Wall Street Journal he was 'floored.' In a statement included in MIT's announcement on Friday, Acemoglu and Autor described the paper as 'already known and discussed extensively in the literature on AI and science, even though it has not been published in any refereed journal.' However, the two economists said they now have 'no confidence in the provenance, reliability or validity of the data and in the veracity of the research.' According to the WSJ, a computer scientist with experience in materials science approached Acemoglu and Autor with concerns in January. They brought those concerns to MIT, leading to an internal review. MIT says that due to student privacy laws, it cannot disclose the results of that review, but the paper's author is 'no longer at MIT.' And while the university's announcement does not name the student, both a preprint version of the paper and the initial press coverage identify the author as Aidan Toner-Rodgers. (TechCrunch has reached out to Toner-Rodgers for comment.) MIT also says it has requested the paper be withdrawn from The Quarterly Journal of Economics, where it was submitted for publication, and from the preprint website arXiv. Apparently only a paper's authors are able to submit arXiv withdrawal requests, but MIT says 'to date, the author has not done so."
