The Future of Labor Lab explores how significant future shocks—especially technological shifts, demographic change, and escalating energy demand—will reshape labor and the economy.

Featured Research

  • Robots and Labor in Nursing Homes

    How do employment, tasks, and productivity change with robot adoption? As a first step towards filling this gap, we study Japanese nursing homes using original facility-level panel data that includes the different robots used and the tasks performed.

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  • Near to Mid-term Risks and Opportunities of Open-Source Generative AI

    The potential for these seismic changes has triggered a lively debate about potential risks and resulted in calls for tighter regulation, in particular from some of the major tech companies who are leading in AI development. This regulation is likely to put at risk the budding field of open-source Generative AI. We argue for the responsible open sourcing of generative AI models in the near and medium term.

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NEWS & EVENTS

NEWS & EVENTS

AI and the Future of Work

May 21-22

AI at Wharton is hosting AI and the Future of Work, a two-day academic conference exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping the workplace. The conference will bring together leading scholars, industry researchers, and practitioners to discuss the evolving relationship between AI and employment. We will examine topics such as AI’s impact on job markets, human-machine collaboration, reskilling and upskilling, AI-driven productivity, and more. Yong Lee will be presenting a working paper, Advancing AI Capabilities and Evolving Labor Outcomes, at the conference.

Jon M. Huntsman Hall

Eleventh Conference of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

July 9-11, 2025

Washington, DC

The ECINEQ Executive Committee is pleased to announce the Eleventh Conference of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ), scheduled to take place in Washington, DC from July 9 to July 11, 2025. This conference is co-hosted by the World Bank Group and George Washington University and will be held at the World Bank headquarters.

The ECINEQ conference provides an important international forum for researchers whose work focuses on economic inequality and related fields, bringing together a comprehensive exchange of perspectives. Yong Lee will be presenting a working paper, Advancing AI Capabilities and Evolving Labor Outcomes, at the conference.

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