James Bessen on Learning by Doing

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2016

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

Are workers being left behind when the economy grows? Is technology making the human workforce obsolete? James Bessen, author of Learning by Doing, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the role of learning on the job in the past and in the present. Bessen argues that during times of technological innovation, it often takes years before workers see higher wages from productivity increases. Bessen stresses the importance of the standardization of education on the job as workers adapt to new technology.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:09.2	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.7	Our website is econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:18.7	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.7	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done
0:25.8	going back to 2006.
0:28.2	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:30.7	We'd love to hear from you.
0:32.5	Today is May 16, 2016, and my guest is James Besin, lecturer in law at the Boston University
0:41.4	School of Law, an author of Learning by Doing the Real Connection between Innovation,
0:48.2	Wages, and Wealth.
0:49.7	Jim, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:51.5	Thanks for having me.
0:53.6	One of the central ideas of your book is what happens to the average worker as technology
1:00.6	and innovation grows in the economy, do they share in the gains?
1:05.2	A lot of people worry the average worker isn't sharing in the growth of the economy over
1:09.4	the last decade, decades.
1:13.3	What can history teach us?
1:15.9	Well, history lessons are always tricky to apply to the present.
1:20.6	What history can do is make sure we're at least asking the right questions.
1:27.6	In fact, the industrial revolution saw problems and patterns that are not really seem very
1:35.4	similar to what's happened today.
	...

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