Meet the Team

David Autor

Faculty Co-Director

Changing Rent-Sharing in the Economy · Growing Regional Disparities · Automation, Inequality, and Productivity · Determinants of Job Quality

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes.

Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship—the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions in the field of Labor Economics, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship—and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship.

In 2017, Autor was recognized by Bloomberg as one of the 50 people who defined global business. In March of 2019, he was christened “Twerpy MIT Economist, David Autor” by John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight, during a segment on automation and employment. Autor is currently determining how to merchandise this title.

Research

Changing Rent-Sharing in the Economy

An Evaluation of the Paycheck Protection Program Using Administrative Payroll Microdata

July 2022

David Autor, David Cho, Leland Crane, Mita Goldar, Byron Lutz, Joshua Montes, William Peterman, David Ratner, Daniel Villar Vallenas, Ahu Yildirmaz

An Evaluation of the Paycheck Protection Program Using Administrative Payroll Microdata

Changing Rent-Sharing in the Economy

The $800 billion paycheck protection program: where did the money go and why did it go there?

Journal of Economic Perspectives

May 2022

David Autor, David Cho, Leland Crane, Mita Goldar, Byron Lutz, Joshua Montes, William Peterman, David Ratner, Daniel Villar, Ahu Yildirmaz

The $800 billion paycheck protection program: where did the money go and why did it go there?

Changing Rent-Sharing in the Economy

The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms

Quarterly Journal of Economics

February 2020

David Autor, David Dorn, Lawrence Katz, Christina Patterson, John Van Reenen

The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms

Automation, Inequality, and Productivity

Trade Adjustment: Worker-Level Evidence

Quarterly Journal of Economics

September 2014

David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon Hanson, Jae Song

Trade Adjustment: Worker-Level Evidence

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