David Autor

David Autor
David Autor
Born	1967
Nationality	American
Occupation	Economist, professor, public policy scholar
Employer	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Known for	Research on labor economics, the "China Shock," automation and employment, task framework of labor markets
Education	PhD, Harvard University
Spouse(s)	Marika Tatsutani
Awards	John Bates Clark Medal (2024)
Website	[[economics.mit.edu/faculty/dautor economics.mit.edu/faculty/dautor] Official site]

David H. Autor (born 1967) is an American economist and professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he also serves as co-director of the School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative. Over a career spanning more than two decades, Autor has established himself as one of the most influential labor economists of his generation, producing a body of work that has reshaped academic and public understanding of how trade, technology, and automation affect workers and labor markets. His research on the impact of Chinese import competition on American manufacturing communities — popularly known as the "China Shock" — has become one of the most widely cited and debated contributions in modern economics, influencing policy discussions on trade, industrial strategy, and worker displacement. In recent years, Autor has turned his attention to the effects of artificial intelligence on the labor market, examining how AI and large language models are reshaping the nature of work and the demand for human skills. A prolific scholar, Autor is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research and has published extensively in leading economics journals.

Early Life

David H. Autor was born in 1967 in the United States. Before entering academia, Autor followed an unconventional path for an economist. Prior to pursuing graduate study, he worked in a variety of non-academic roles, an experience that informed his later interest in the lived realities of workers and the structure of labor markets. His early experiences outside the academic world contributed to a research perspective that consistently emphasizes the human consequences of economic change, particularly for workers in communities affected by trade and technological disruption.

Education

Autor received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts University. He subsequently enrolled at Harvard University, where he earned both a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in economics. His doctoral work at Harvard helped lay the groundwork for his later research agenda in labor economics, focusing on the institutional and technological forces shaping labor market outcomes. Autor's dissertation was recognized with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research Dissertation Award, an honor given to outstanding doctoral research on employment-related topics.

Career

Academic Appointment at MIT

Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Autor joined the faculty of the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has remained throughout his career. At MIT, he holds the position of Ford Professor of Economics and serves as co-director of the School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative, a research center focused on the study of education and economic inequality. He is also an associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a leading organization for economic research in the United States, and has contributed to numerous NBER working papers.

Autor's academic output has been substantial. According to his RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) profile, he ranks among the most cited economists in the world, with research that spans labor economics, applied microeconomics, and public policy. His papers have been published in the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and other leading journals.

The Task Framework and Labor Market Polarization

One of Autor's foundational contributions to labor economics is the development of the "task framework" for analyzing labor markets. Rather than viewing jobs as monolithic categories, this approach decomposes occupations into the specific tasks that workers perform and examines how technological change, trade, and institutional factors differentially affect the demand for various types of tasks. In collaboration with colleagues, Autor has used this framework to document and explain the phenomenon of labor market polarization — the simultaneous growth in employment in high-skill, high-wage occupations and low-skill, low-wage occupations, accompanied by a decline in middle-skill, middle-wage jobs, particularly those involving routine cognitive and manual tasks that are susceptible to automation.

This task-based approach has become a standard analytical tool in labor economics and has informed research on topics ranging from the effects of computerization on the wage structure to the distributional consequences of automation and artificial intelligence.

The "China Shock"

Perhaps Autor's most prominent and publicly influential body of work concerns the labor market effects of the rapid expansion of Chinese exports to the United States. In a series of papers co-authored with David Dorn and Gordon Hanson, Autor documented what became known as the "China Shock" — the finding that the surge in Chinese imports following China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 had substantial and persistent negative effects on U.S. manufacturing employment, wages, and community well-being, particularly in regions that were heavily exposed to import competition.

The research demonstrated that the costs of trade liberalization were more concentrated and longer-lasting than many economists had previously assumed. Affected communities experienced not only job losses in manufacturing but also increased rates of disability claims, reduced labor force participation, and social disruption. These findings challenged the prevailing consensus among economists that the gains from trade were broadly shared and that displaced workers would readily find new employment in other sectors.

The "China Shock" research has had a substantial impact on both academic discourse and public policy debate. It has been cited in discussions of trade policy, industrial strategy, and the political consequences of economic dislocation. In a 2025 opinion piece for The New York Times, Autor and his co-authors warned about the potential for a "second China Shock," arguing that while the U.S. government was focused on the trade conflicts of the previous era, China was positioning itself to dominate the industries of the future, including electric vehicles, batteries, and advanced manufacturing.

A summary of the research's implications was also published through the IZA World of Labor, providing an accessible overview of the lessons from China's rise for trade and labor markets.

Research on Automation and Artificial Intelligence

In more recent years, Autor has increasingly focused on the relationship between automation, artificial intelligence, and the labor market. His work in this area builds on the task framework, examining how automation technologies — from industrial robots to software algorithms to large language models — affect the types of tasks that workers perform, the skills that are in demand, and the distribution of wages and employment opportunities.

In a 2025 analysis discussed by Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Autor argued that focusing solely on "exposure" to AI — that is, whether a worker's tasks can potentially be automated — misses important nuances in how technology actually changes work. He emphasized the distinction between how experts and nonexperts experience task shifts as automation advances, suggesting that the effects of AI on employment are more complex and heterogeneous than aggregate measures of exposure might imply.

Similarly, research discussed by MIT Sloan in 2025 explored how automation changes the value of labor. As large language models and other AI systems continued to improve, Autor's work challenged the prevailing narrative of straightforward displacement, instead examining how automation can simultaneously displace certain tasks while augmenting and even creating new ones.

In December 2025, Autor joined the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's Teach Economics podcast to discuss what he termed "the human side of AI," exploring how AI is reshaping the labor market and the ways in which technology functions as a collaborator rather than simply a replacement for human workers.

Pro-Worker AI and Policy Engagement

Autor has been an active participant in public policy debates related to labor markets, trade, and technology. In February 2026, he co-authored a piece with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson for the Brookings Institution titled "Building pro-worker AI," in which the authors asked what a pro-worker approach to artificial intelligence would look like and how it could be achieved. The article reflected a growing concern among labor economists that the development and deployment of AI systems could either exacerbate or ameliorate existing inequalities, depending on the choices made by firms, policymakers, and technology developers.

Also in February 2026, Autor participated in a debate published by The New York Times on the question of what happens if labor becomes unnecessary, joining other economists in discussing the possible futures for work in an age of advancing AI. Reporting on Autor's public engagement noted that while he does not believe AI will eliminate jobs outright, he has warned that mismanagement of AI's deployment could have broader societal consequences, including threats to democratic institutions.

Trade Policy

In addition to his academic research on trade, Autor has contributed to public discussions of U.S. trade policy. In a 2015 opinion piece for The Washington Post, he discussed the potential effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), arguing that the trade agreement could benefit American workers under certain conditions.

Autor has also contributed policy analyses through The Hamilton Project, a Brookings Institution initiative focused on economic policy, co-authoring reports that examine strategies for addressing the challenges faced by displaced workers and promoting inclusive growth.

Remote Work and the Office Economy

Autor has also engaged with questions about the changing geography and structure of work. In a contribution published on Medium's Marker platform, he discussed the implications of remote work for the "hidden trillion-dollar office economy" — the ecosystem of businesses, services, and economic activity that depends on the physical presence of office workers in urban centers.

Personal Life

David Autor is married to Marika Tatsutani. He resides in the Boston metropolitan area, where he is based at MIT. Autor has been profiled by the International Monetary Fund's Finance & Development magazine, which highlighted his unconventional path to academic economics and his sustained focus on the welfare of workers in the face of economic change.

Recognition

Autor's contributions to economics have received significant recognition from academic institutions and professional organizations. His research output, as measured by citations and publications, places him among the most influential economists globally according to the RePEc rankings. He has been cited extensively in both academic literature and policy discussions, and his "China Shock" research in particular has had a notable impact on public discourse about trade and globalization.

His doctoral dissertation was recognized with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research Dissertation Award. Over the course of his career, Autor has received invitations to contribute to major policy platforms, including the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project, and has been a frequent commentator in major media outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Autor's work has been featured and discussed by institutions including the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, the Harvard Kennedy School, and the International Monetary Fund. His Google Scholar profile shows a substantial number of citations across his body of work.

Legacy

David Autor's research has had a measurable impact on the fields of labor economics and trade economics. The "China Shock" papers, co-authored with David Dorn and Gordon Hanson, are among the most cited economics papers of the twenty-first century and have fundamentally altered how economists, policymakers, and the public understand the distributional consequences of international trade. The findings prompted a re-evaluation of longstanding assumptions about the benefits of trade liberalization and contributed to a broader shift in the economics profession toward greater attention to the costs borne by specific communities and workers.

Autor's task framework for analyzing labor markets has become a standard tool in the discipline, providing a conceptual vocabulary that has been adopted by researchers studying the effects of technology, automation, and AI on employment. This framework has influenced not only academic research but also policy discussions about workforce development, education, and the regulation of new technologies.

In the mid-2020s, Autor's engagement with questions about artificial intelligence and the future of work has placed him at the center of one of the defining economic policy debates of the era. His emphasis on the importance of designing and deploying AI in ways that complement rather than simply replace human workers — and his warnings about the potential democratic consequences of getting AI policy wrong — have contributed to a growing policy conversation about the governance of emerging technologies.

Through his research, policy engagement, and public commentary, Autor has influenced a generation of economists and policymakers grappling with the interconnected challenges of trade, technology, and inequality.