The Economics of Work with Ben Zweig

Ben Zweig

Work is changing, and the forces shaping it are endlessly fascinating. In The Economics of Work, Ben Zweig sits down with leading economists, researchers, and thinkers to explore the ideas that define how we work, why we work, and what the future of work could look like. Each conversation dives deep into the literature, economic theory, and the philosophical questions that underlie the world of labor.

  1. 1d ago

    Deena Mousa - What AI Means for the Developing World

    The standard debate about AI and jobs is a rich-country debate. But for billions of people in low- and middle-income countries, the stakes and the story look completely different. In this episode, Ben sits down with Deena Mousa, program officer at Coefficient Giving and writer on AI and global development, to explore what gets missed when we only think about AI's impact through a Western lens. Topics covered: Why there are still so many radiologists, and what the gap between benchmark performance and real-world clinical performance tells us about AI adoption more broadlyHow automation demand works in reverse: why making scans faster and cheaper expands the complexity of what radiologists are asked to do, not just the volumeWhy low-income countries are in a fundamentally different situation with both their access to AI and how it can address their needs.The service export threat: why the BPO and outsourcing sectors in countries like the Philippines and India may face a more immediate AI disruption than any manufacturing sectorWhy "supply creates its own demand" doesn't automatically work for development, and the Malawi example of why breakout growth is the exception, not the ruleThe difference between low-income and middle-income countries, and why bundling them into "LMICs" obscures the very different things they need to doWhy some Western social progress movements can inadvertently harm the workers they're meant to protectAbout Deena Mousa: Deena Mousa is a program officer at Coefficient Giving, formerly Open Philanthropy, where she focuses on the intersection of AI and global development. She writes on Substack about how transformative technology reshapes economic opportunity across the world. Check out Deena’s substack Check out Deena on X Follow Ben on LinkedIn Follow us on LinkedIn Sign up for our Newsletter Visit our website for more information Get in touch with us at info@reveliolabs.com

    Deena Mousa - What AI Means for the Developing World

  2. Aug 12

    Luis Garicano - Why the Most Valuable Work Is the Hardest to Automate

    The jobs most protected from AI aren't necessarily the most credentialed ones. They're the ones where tasks are so tightly bundled together that pulling one thread unravels the whole thing. In this episode, Ben sits down with Luis Garicano, LSE professor and author of Messy Jobs, to dig into what makes some work durable, how organizations need to reconfigure around AI, and why Europe may be in serious trouble. Topics covered: Clean vs. messy jobs: why single-task, easily reinforced work is what AI takes firstThe unbundling productivity trade-off: why breaking jobs apart unlocks more growth but also drives wages down as labor supply floods a narrower set of tasksWhy technology without business process reconfiguration produces almost no productivity gainsThe junior professional problem in the current landscapeWhy reduced job mobility might inadvertently push firms back toward German-style on-the-job trainingEurope's stagnation trapAbout Luis Garicano: Luis Garicano is a professor of economics and strategy at the London School of Economics and a former member of the European Parliament. His research focuses on the economics of organizations, technology, and productivity. Check out Luis’s book Messy Jobs here: https://a.co/d/0hvVSmnS Check out Luis’s substack: https://substack.com/@luisgaricano Follow Ben on LinkedIn Follow us on LinkedIn Sign up for our Newsletter Visit our website for more information Get in touch with us at info@reveliolabs.com

    Luis Garicano - Why the Most Valuable Work Is the Hardest to Automate

  3. Aug 5

    Ronnie Chatterji - How The Labor Market Looks From Inside Open AI

    What does it look like to do economics from inside the AI revolution with access to data nobody else has, and questions nobody has figured out how to answer yet? In this episode, Ben sits down with Ronnie Chatterji, chief economist at OpenAI, to pull back the curtain on how economic research gets done at a frontier AI lab. Topics covered: Why the right time horizon for AI economics is a mix of real-time, medium-term, and scenario planningWhy you can't afford to be late to recursive self-improvement even when it feels far awayWhat OpenAI's own labor data is showingThe four-category job framework: which roles are at risk, which will be reorganized, which will expand as prices fall, and which are largely insulatedThe Codex paper: what OpenAI's internal data on agentic coding tool adoption reveals about how long it takes different functions to catch up with one anotherExtensive vs. intensive margin: why 2025 was about getting firms to adopt AI at all, and why 2026 is about measuring how deeply they're using itAI and entrepreneurship: whether the falling cost of starting a business is producing more solo firms, thicker startup markets, or just more noiseWhether AI favors small firms that can now punch above their weight, or large firms with the data, governance, and training capacity to go deeperB2B Signals: what OpenAI's enterprise data set reveals about the gap between power users and median usersThe globalization of AI: which countries are growing fastest in AI usageAbout Ronnie Chatterji: Ronnie Chatterji is the chief economist at OpenAI, where he leads research on AI's impact on jobs, growth, and enterprise. He previously served as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Commerce and as a professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. His research spans entrepreneurship, innovation, and the economics of technology adoption. Check out Ronnie's research at openai.com/signals Follow Ben on LinkedIn Follow us on LinkedIn Sign up for our Newsletter Visit our website for more information Get in touch with us at info@reveliolabs.com

    Ronnie Chatterji - How The Labor Market Looks From Inside Open AI

  4. Jul 30

    Bill Easterly - What We Get Wrong About Foreign Aid

    The story of foreign aid is usually told as a story of insufficient resources. Bill Easterly thinks that misses the point. In this episode, Ben sits down with Bill Easterly, NYU economist and author of four books on development, to dig into why aid so often fails, and why the problem runs deeper than most people are willing to admit. Topics covered: From disappointment to concern: how Easterly's view of foreign aid evolved from "zero effect" to actively harmful, particularly through its support of autocratsThe accountability problem: why aid agencies are accountable to US foreign policy goals rather than to the people they're meant to help, and how that shapes everythingWhy even well-intentioned private philanthropy ends up in the same trapsThe "benevolent autocrat" fallacy: why GDP growth under coercive regimes doesn't constitute developmentWhy development as freedom, not just material income is the right framework, and what historical cases reveal about the limits of GDP-first thinkingThe problem with "we": who gets to be included in that word, what it conceals about power and paternalismCoercion vs. exploitationAbout Bill Easterly: Bill Easterly is a former World Bank economist, professor of economics at NYU and co-director of the Development Research Institute. Check out Bill’s books: The Elusive Quest for Growth The White Man’s Burden The Tyranny of Experts Violent Saviors Follow Ben on LinkedIn Follow us on LinkedIn Sign up for our Newsletter Visit our website for more information Get in touch with us at info@reveliolabs.com

    Bill Easterly - What We Get Wrong About Foreign Aid

  5. Jul 23

    Isabella Loaiza - Beyond Exposure

    The dominant framework for measuring AI's impact on jobs may be asking the wrong question entirely. In this episode, Ben sits down with Isabella Loaiza, economist and researcher at MIT, to challenge some of the most widely accepted assumptions in the AI and work debate. From the concept of "exposure" to the narrative of an incoming white-collar bloodbath, Isabella makes the case we're missing a big part of the picture around AI. At the center of the conversation is EPOCH, a framework Isabella developed with her coauthor Roberto to capture the human capabilities that AI is least equipped to replace: Empathy, Presence, Opinion, Creativity, and Hope. Topics covered: Why the "white collar bloodbath" narrative gets AI wrongThe difference between automation and augmentationWhy "exposure" should probably be called "automation potential"The EPOCH framework around AI and its relation to humanityThe burnout problem: why offloading routine tasks to AI may eliminate the cognitive rest that knowledge workers rely on to sustain performanceWhether AI empathy is real empathyDream jobs vs. meaningful jobs: why they're not always the same thingWhy measuring task content across countries matters and what a global labor market taxonomy might actually need to captureFind the paper by Isabella Loaiza and Roberto Rigobon about the EPOCH framework here Follow Isabella on LinkedIn Follow us on LinkedIn Follow Ben on LinkedIn Sign up for our Newsletter Visit our website for more information Get in touch with us at info@reveliolabs.com

    Isabella Loaiza - Beyond Exposure

  6. Jul 16

    Jasmine Sun - The Youth's Love/Hate Relationship with AI

    The backlash against AI among young people appears codependent as they rely on it for more and more, while also being some of its most vocal opponents. In this episode, Ben sits down with Jasmine Sun, writer and journalist covering the AI economy, to explore what youth sentiment toward AI reveals about jobs, inequality, and the world being built around us. Topics covered: Why young people's hostility to AI is rational and what it has to do with affordability, distrust of institutions, and declining faith in upward mobilityHow AI sentiment differs across countriesThe Silicon Valley worldview: why the push for AGI and generality reflects specific beliefs about human limitations and who gets to build the futureThe "permanent underclass" concept: what has to be true for it to happen, why some in AI actually believe it, and why even the moderate version is alarmingToday's teenagers as the first true "AI Generation"About Jasmine Sun: Jasmine Sun is a writer and journalist focused on the economics of AI, work, and inequality. She writes on Substack and has reported extensively on how AI is reshaping early career labor markets, Silicon Valley culture, and the future of economic mobility. Check out Jasmine on Substack and X Follow Ben on LinkedIn Follow us on LinkedIn Sign up for our Newsletter Visit our website for more information Get in touch with us at info@reveliolabs.com

    Jasmine Sun - The Youth's Love/Hate Relationship with AI

  7. Jul 9

    Leah Boustan - What Immigration Tells Us About Economic Opportunity

    The debate about immigration is usually framed around politics and labor markets. But the deeper story includes mobility. Who gets ahead, how, and why where they start determines so much about where you end up. In this episode, Ben sits down with Leah Boustan, professor at Yale and co-author of Streets of Gold, to dig into what the data on immigration reveals about economic opportunity across generations. Topics covered: Why immigration is an underappreciated driver of global mobilityThe Norway brothers study: why migrants earned double what their brothers who stayed earned, and why it had little to do with changing occupationsWhat immigrants bring back when they return home and how that shapes sending countriesHow firms fit into immigrant assimilationLocation and mobility: why immigrants have historically moved to high-productivity cities, whether that's changing, and what remote work means for this patternThe gap between public sentiment toward immigration and what economists know about its effectsAbout Leah Boustan: Leah Boustan is a professor of economics at Yale University and a research associate at the NBER. She is the co-author, with Ran Abramitzky, of Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success, which uses newly digitized historical records to trace the economic trajectories of immigrants and their descendants across generations. Check out Leah's book Streets of Gold Follow Ben on LinkedIn Follow us on LinkedIn Sign up for our Newsletter Visit our website for more information Get in touch with us at info@reveliolabs.com

    Leah Boustan - What Immigration Tells Us About Economic Opportunity

  8. Jul 2

    John Boudreau - Are Business Leaders Listening to HR Theory?

    Finance has net present value. Operations has bottleneck theory. What does HR have? In this episode, Ben sits down with John Boudreau, professor emeritus at USC and one of the most influential thinkers in the history of human resource management, to explore a question he has spent 40 years trying to answer: why do leaders who make rigorous, model-driven decisions about financial and operational assets continue to rely on gut instinct when it comes to people? Topics covered: Why leaders who would never make a capital investment without a discounted cash flow model routinely make multi-million dollar talent decisions on instinctThe bottleneck problem: why investing equally in every role is as irrational as improving every stage of a production line simultaneouslyWhy economists were studying tasks long before HR wasWhy AI pilots aren't experiments: the difference between watching what happens and actually measuring itWhat it would take to create generally accepted principles for people decisions, and why codified principles matter more than codified measuresWhy the word "job" may be the single biggest obstacle to clear thinking about the future of workAbout John Boudreau: John Boudreau is Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. He is the author of more than 200 articles and ten books, including Beyond HR, Retooling HR, and Reinventing Jobs, and is widely regarded as one of the founding thinkers of the people analytics movement. Follow John on LinkedIn Follow us on LinkedIn Follow Ben on LinkedIn Sign up for our Newsletter Visit our website for more information Get in touch with us at info@reveliolabs.com

    John Boudreau - Are Business Leaders Listening to HR Theory?
See All (16)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Work is changing, and the forces shaping it are endlessly fascinating. In The Economics of Work, Ben Zweig sits down with leading economists, researchers, and thinkers to explore the ideas that define how we work, why we work, and what the future of work could look like. Each conversation dives deep into the literature, economic theory, and the philosophical questions that underlie the world of labor.

Information

You Might Also Like