@imarinescu.bsky.social
Economist @PennSP2, former principal economist DOJ #Antitrust. #AI, labor, IO, public, macro. Member, Anthropic Economic Advisory Council. Better the world through knowledge. www.marinescu.eu
For the longer version: my Digitalist Papers essay proposes two complementary policies:
1️⃣ AI Adjustment Insurance
2️⃣ Digital Dividend; a scalable cash benefit starting small but ready to grow if needed.
Flexible tools for an uncertain transition.
🔗 digitalistpapers.com/vol2/marinescu
UK minister floats UBI to cushion AI job losses. I weighed in Fortune. My take: we need safety nets that scale with uncertainty. But will AI's winners support redistribution once they've won?
🔗 fortune.com/2026/02/01/elon-musk-optional-work-fantasy-universal-basic-income-uk-minister-jason-stockwood
“In my mind, I see like little marbles or something,” Marinescu said. “It's like, plop, plop, plop, plop. Widget, widget, widget, widget.”
That's my very smart quote in this @marketplace.org episode about productivity measurement #EconSky
www.marketplace.org/story/2025/1...
The impact of AI on the labor market seen through the computational neuroscience lens 👇. Our Brookings paper is now posted on SSRN.
14.01.2026 14:56 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Welcome to #ASSA2026 in my home town! Please say hi if you see me in the corridors 😊! I look forward to seeing some of you tonight at the LERA research panel & reception w. Jared Bernstein @ericagroshen.bsky.social @darrickhamilton.bsky.social #EconSky
03.01.2026 14:56 — 👍 11 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 1
I am honored to be part of The Digitalist Papers, Volume 2 (www.digitalistpapers.com), 21 essays exploring the implications of the transformative economic power of artificial intelligence, setting the stage for change comparable to the Industrial Revolution but with far greater speed and scope.
12.12.2025 16:14 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
How can we respond to the impact of transformative #AI on the labor market? In this Digitalist Paper, I propose: AI “adjustment insurance” (AI-AI) to help workers with transitory job losses, and a “digital dividend” to support those permanently without work. www.digitalistpapers.com/vol2/marinescu
12.12.2025 16:12 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Got my @econ5k.bsky.social T-shirt, #EconSky, and you should too if you're an econ runner! I hope to see you in Philly in January #ASSA2026 sites.google.com/view/econ5k/...
25.11.2025 21:20 — 👍 9 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Your truly on Musk’s post-work society prediction. fortune.com/2025/11/20/e...
21.11.2025 14:02 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Good morning, chilly Amherst! Looking forward to my talk today on #AI saturation & the future of work, and to seeing dear colleagues & meeting new ones! #AcademicLife
19.11.2025 13:29 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
It's a wrap on the AGI Journalism Workshop in D.C., co-hosted with the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism.
▸ AGI timelines, jobs, misalignment, U.S.–China policy & regulation
▸ @hlntnr.bsky.social, @akorinek.bsky.social, @imarinescu.bsky.social, @gleave.me, @alexbores.nyc, @deanwb.bsky.social + more
Takeaways:
👉#AI returns saturate if physical lags
👉Wages often rise & fall as intelligence automates
👉Wage declines require shrinking intelligence-job share
👉Policy: pace deployment + invest in physical capacity; don’t bet on a “singularity”
Result 4 (simulation). Here we simulate adding more AI, during and after automation. (1) Wage effects of adding more AI saturate. (2) Higher substitutability between physical and intelligence can lead to wage declines during automation but allows for unbounded wage growth post-automation.
14.11.2025 17:38 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Result 3 (simulation):when intelligence and physical are more substitutable, automation of intelligence has a larger positive effect on output.
➡️What’s better for workers’ wages is worse for output, trade-offs.
Result 2 (simulation): when intelligence and physical are more substitutable, automation of intelligence has a more positive wage effect early on but a more negative effect later.
➡️Cautionary tale, early wage gains may not persist!
Result 1: as automation of intelligence by #AI progresses, output increases and there’s an increase in the share of workers in the physical sector \beta (i.e., in person work, including e.g. cooking, teaching and surgery).
14.11.2025 17:35 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Model: Output is produced with intelligence and physical sectors (CES), each powered by humans and capital (AI is the capital in the intelligence sector). Labor optimally reallocates between physical and intelligence to maximize wages.
14.11.2025 17:34 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Is intelligence saturation plausible?
(1) More intelligent people are not proportionately more successful.
(2) Adding more scientific researchers yields lower and lower additional output
(3) Prior tech (ICT) revolution had limited growth impacts.
Why distinguish physical and intelligence? Intelligence saturation: intelligence can make physical inputs maximally efficient, but the impact saturates.
➡️Physical and intelligence sectors are complements, you need more of both to increase output.
We've made an interactive tool you can play with to see how wages would evolve with automation & with adding exponentially more #AI, depending on parameters of your choice. Have fun (but maybe read the paper first 😈)! intelligencesaturation.org
14.11.2025 17:30 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
New @brookings.edu paper w. @kordinglab.bsky.social : Artificial Intelligence Saturation & the Future of Work. Wages can ↗️&↘️with #AI automation, as humans are pushed into physical jobs. In the longer run, intelligence saturation limits benefits from #AI. www.brookings.edu/articles/art... #EconSky
14.11.2025 17:28 — 👍 23 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 2Application link here: www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/43...
30.10.2025 00:00 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
#AI research fellow job at Schmidt Sciences. You can take it as a year of leave from your university too. One of the areas of focus is AI’s impact on the labor market #EconSky 👇
29.10.2025 23:59 — 👍 13 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
The conversation is based on my paper here: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
15.10.2025 19:58 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Listen to our conversation on competition and #monopsony in the labor market, and the #antitrust policy implications. I had a lot of fun talking to David Fisher from AAI, like we had to cut out some of the laughing 🤭. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
www.antitrustinstitute.org/work-product...
Nice to see our work covered here 👇
14.10.2025 13:46 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Congratulations to my mentor and co-author Philippe Aghion!!!! His broad contributions to economics and boundless creative energy are truly inspiring.
13.10.2025 12:08 — 👍 22 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles and Economic Spillovers Webinar - 8 October @ 17:00 CEST
🗣️Jonathan Kanter @lugaricano.bsky.social @imarinescu.bsky.social @igorletina.bsky.social Hans Zenger
Moderator: @florianederer.bsky.social
Register: cepr.org/events/ai-ac...
#EconSky
Some context: I used to ask “what are you working on?” but I learned some people would rather not talk about it for various reasons. So the more general “what are you excited about in your field?” lets them EITHER talk about what they’re working on or some other interest.
21.09.2025 21:23 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Fellow economists, what kind of question would you most like to be asked when meeting someone at a conference? #EconSky
1. What are your working on?
2. What is your field?
3. What is exciting in your field?
4. Other: spill the beans!