IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwwuw/wuwp369.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unslicing the pie: AI innovation and the labor share in European regions

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Minniti

    (Department of Economics, University of Bologna)

  • Klaus Prettner

    (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business)

  • Francesco Venturini

    (Department of Economics, University of Urbino)

Abstract

We study how the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) influences the distribution of income between capital and labor and how this, in turn, exacerbates geographic income inequality. To investigate this issue, we first build a theoretical framework and then analyze data from European regions dating back to 2000. We find that for every doubling of regional AI innovation, there is a 0.7% to 1.6% decline in the labor share, which may have decreased by between 0.20 and 0.46 percentage points from a mean of 52% due solely to AI. This new technology is particularly detrimental to high-skill and medium-skill labor. The impact on income distribution is driven by worsening wage and employment conditions for high-skill labor, and by wage compression for medium- and low-skill labor. The effect of AI is not driven by other factors affecting regional development in Europe, nor by the concentration process in the AI market.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Minniti & Klaus Prettner & Francesco Venturini, 2024. "Unslicing the pie: AI innovation and the labor share in European regions," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp369, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp369
    Note: PDF Document
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.wu.ac.at/ws/portalfiles/portal/68239477/WP369.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Artificial Intelligence; patenting; labor share; European regions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp369. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Department of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.wu.ac.at/economics/en .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.