The Economics of Work with Ben Zweig

Ben Zweig
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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. 9h ago

    Natalia Emanuel - What We Lose When We Stop Working in the Same Room

    When two people have a conversation in person, their brains synchronize. Over Zoom, they lose 90% of that neural synchrony. That's the starting point for understanding what remote work has actually cost us. Topics covered: Why in-person work drives creativityHow remote work reduced written code feedback by 20% even between people on the same campusWhy remote work hurts junior workers twice: separated from mentors and now from the entry-level tasks AI is takingWhy managers are 40% off in estimating how much workers value remote workThe difference between a return-to-office mandate and a return to meaningful in-person interactionCheck out Natalia's book here: https://a.co/d/0fe5GEHr About Natalia Emanuel: Natalia Emanuel is a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Her research focuses on the economics of remote work, mentorship, and workplace productivity. She is the author of In Person: How Working Together Fuels Creativity, Productivity, and Growth. 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

    Natalia Emanuel - What We Lose When We Stop Working in the Same Room

  2. Oct 7

    Ernie Tedeschi - What the Productivity Numbers Say About AI

    Productivity growth in the US has jumped by about a percentage point since 2023. That's a big deal. Whether AI is the cause, or just the context, is a much harder question to answer than most commentary assumes. Topics covered: Why labor productivity and total factor productivity are telling completely different stories right nowWhy quality-adjusting a data center over months is nearly as hard as comparing a 1790 warship to an Aegis cruiserHow AI displacement tends to happen: not gradually, but in sudden drops during recessions when firms rebuild with newer technologyThe travel agent case: why the survivors of automation end up paid more, and why that doesn't make the disruption less realWhy controlling for population aging, the US employment rate is near a non-WWII high — and what that implies about long-run fearsNew business formation as a productivity engine, and whether AI-era solopreneurs will hire up the way small businesses historically haveResearch mentioned: San Francisco Fed Total Factor Productivity measure — SF FedCheck out Stripe Economics here: https://stripe.com/research Follow Ernie on Substack here: https://ernietedeschi.substack.com/ About Ernie Tedeschi: Ernie Tedeschi is chief economist at Stripe and former chief economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. He previously led economics at the Yale Budget Lab. His research spans labor markets, fiscal policy, and the macroeconomics of technological change. 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

    Ernie Tedeschi - What the Productivity Numbers Say About AI

  3. Sep 30

    Mike Spence - What a Nobel Laureate Thinks AI Does to Education

    The theory of labor market signaling changed how economists think about education, hiring, and information. Fifty years later, AI is rewriting the conditions that made the theory work. In this episode, Ben sits down with Mike Spence, Nobel laureate and former dean at both Harvard and Stanford, to explore what AI means for signaling, growth, education, and the structure of markets. Topics covered: The CV screening war: how AI-generated applications met AI-powered filters, and why the net result may be less signal rather than moreWhy AI is better understood as a continuation of the internet than a ruptureWhat AI does to the signaling value of elite degreesAI as tutor: the most powerful educational tool ever built, and why using it as a substitute for your own thinking is problematicSupply chains as an early proof of concept: why volatile, complex environments are where AI shows its clearest valueWhy the models economists built for a stable world need to be rebuiltAbout Mike Spence: Mike Spence is a Nobel laureate in economics, awarded the 2001 prize for his work on information asymmetry and labor market signaling. He served as dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and later as dean of Stanford's Graduate School of Business. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and has written extensively on economic growth, development, and the implications of AI for advanced and emerging economies. 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

    Mike Spence - What a Nobel Laureate Thinks AI Does to Education

  4. Sep 23

    Anna Stansbury - Worker Power, Wages, and What's Gone Wrong in the American Labor Market

    The labor share of income has dropped from roughly two thirds to below sixty percent since the early 1980s. The US looks like an outlier even among rich countries. In this episode, Ben sits down with Anna Stansbury, MIT economist and co-author with Larry Summers of influential work on worker power, to dig into what's driving wage stagnation and which institutions might fix it. Topics covered: The three theories of the declining labor share: globalization, technology, and the fall of worker power, and why the US looks different from almost everywhere elseWhy monopsony's wage effect is probably 5 to 10 percent below competitive wages, not the 30 to 50 percent implied by some elasticity estimatesWhy the more important story may be rent attribution: who captures firm profits when competition declines, and why that share has shifted toward capitalWhat unions are for, which of their functions are worth preserving, and why the answer depends heavily on what you think the underlying structure of the economy actually isSectoral bargaining in Germany and Scandinavia, why those systems are more resilient than US-style firm-level organizing, and the Swedish mine case that shows what happens when AI reclassifies a job mid-negotiationWhy what workers get from work can't be reduced to wages, and why the human dimensions of jobs remain the most underestimated piece of the puzzleAbout Anna Stansbury: Anna Stansbury is an assistant professor at MIT Sloan School of Management and a faculty research fellow at the NBER. Her research focuses on labor markets, worker power, and the macroeconomics of wages and inequality. She is co-author, with Lawrence Summers, of influential work on the role of worker power in explaining the declining labor share of income. Follow Anna on Twitter/X: https://x.com/annastansbury 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

    Anna Stansbury - Worker Power, Wages, and What's Gone Wrong in the American Labor Market

  5. Sep 16

    Paul Osterman - The Disposable Worker: How Firms Learned to Stop Investing in People

    The unspoken employment contract, characterized by stable jobs, career ladders, wages that rose with productivity, didn't dissolve overnight. Firms chipped away at it deliberately, and the result is a labor market organized around workers who were never meant to stay. Topics covered: Contractors, freelancers, and marginal workers: the three categories of disposable workWhy using staffing firms drives wages downThe McKinsey statistic that says the quiet part out loud: 95% of a firm's value comes from 5% of its employeesWhy "at will" employment is a spectrum, not a switch, and why disposable workers sit at a different end of it entirelyThe hidden cost firms pay: contractors and marginal workers report substantially less organizational commitment and willingness to put in extra effortWhat Walmart, Google, and Activision show about the levers that have moved firm behavior when political pressure became realCheck out Paul's new book, Disposable Workers: https://a.co/d/05hPXELl About Paul Osterman: Paul Osterman is professor emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management and one of the leading figures in labor economics and workforce policy. His research spans internal labor markets, job quality, low-wage work, and workforce development. He is the author of Disposable Workers and several other foundational books on work and employment in America. Research mentioned: Susan Houseman's work on flexible staffing arrangements: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=jSDQZyMAAAAJ&citation_for_view=jSDQZyMAAAAJ:u5HHmVD_uO8C 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

    Paul Osterman - The Disposable Worker: How Firms Learned to Stop Investing in People

  6. Sep 9

    David Deming - What's Happening to Young Workers, and What College Should Do About It

    For the first time in recent history, new college graduates have a higher unemployment rate than the general population. The causes are tangled, the implications are serious, and universities are caught in the middle. In this episode, Ben sits down with David Deming, Harvard economist and Dean of Harvard College, to work through what's driving the shift and what it means for how we think about education, expertise, and careers. Topics covered: Why the graduate unemployment rate is elevated and why remote work, AI, and post-pandemic labor hoarding are all suspects that probably worked togetherHow remote work accelerated AI automation by first digitizing and codifying knowledge workWhy you can beat AI on depth but not breadth, and how deep expertise still produces something AI doesn't have: taste and judgmentWhat taste actually is, why doing the work yourself is the only way to develop it, and why taking the summary first destroys itWhy college needs to move toward applied learning, and why that's not the same thing as vocational trainingHow academia is secretly closer to entrepreneurship than most people expectAbout David Deming: David Deming is a professor of economics at Harvard University and Dean of Harvard College. His research focuses on education, skills, and the labor market. He writes the Substack Fork Lightning and hosts the podcast The Context Window. Check out David’s substack: https://forklightning.substack.com/ Check out The Context Window Podcast: https://thecontextwindowpodcast.substack.com/ 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

    David Deming - What's Happening to Young Workers, and What College Should Do About It

  7. Sep 2

    Ioana Marinescu - Why Workers Are Underpaid, and What We Could Do About It

    Most people earn less than they're worth. Not because they're not productive, but because the labor market isn't nearly as competitive as it could be. In this episode, Ben sits down with Ioana Marinescu, professor at Penn and one of the leading researchers on labor market power, to dig into what monopsony actually means, why it matters, and what it would take to fix it. Topics covered: What a perfectly competitive labor market would look like and how far we are from itWhy the problem isn't just low wages but also hours, conditions, scheduling, and the terms of work that workers can't individually negotiateWhy unions and competition aren't simply substitutesHow to define a labor marketThe sleepy monopolist hypothesis: whether product market concentration reduces firms' incentive to hire the best peopleNon-compete agreementsJob search and online platforms: how the structure of matching markets shapes who finds work, at what wage, and how quicklyWhy AI in public policy may be one of the most important and underrated frontiersAbout Ioana Marinescu: Ioana Marinescu is a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania and a research associate at the NBER. Her research spans labor market competition and monopsony, online job search, non-compete agreements, and the labor market effects of basic income programs. She is one of the leading voices applying antitrust frameworks to labor markets. Check out Ioana's website 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

    Ioana Marinescu - Why Workers Are Underpaid, and What We Could Do About It

  8. Aug 26

    Roberto Rigobon - Why We're Getting Worse at Measuring

    The economy is changing faster than our ability to track it. And the data sources we rely on most, like surveys, official statistics, and government indices, were designed for a world that no longer exists. In this episode, Ben sits down with Roberto Rigobon, MIT economist and founder of the Billion Prices Project, to explore what gets lost when measurement fails. Topics covered: Why survey response rates have collapsedDesigned data vs. organic dataWhy statistical agencies aren't slow out of ignorance but because the cost of a measurement error is catastrophicWhy CO2 emissions are almost certainly being underestimated by a huge marginWhy globalization turned workers into widgetsThe monopoly problem: why the US has quietly stopped having real markets in sector after sector, and what that has to do with political polarizationWhy authentic human collective action is what Roberto believes AI will never fully replicateAbout Roberto Rigobon: Roberto Rigobon is a professor of applied economics at MIT's Sloan School of Management and co-founder of the Billion Prices Project, which pioneered the use of online prices to construct real-time inflation indices. His research spans international finance, economic measurement, labor market ethics, and the economics of human trafficking, CO2 emissions, and workplace behavior. Check out the Billion Prices Project 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

    Roberto Rigobon - Why We're Getting Worse at Measuring
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5
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9 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.

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