In “The productivity paradox”, I summarised one of the key arguments in The Wealth of Humans: that labour abundance is preventing us from taking full advantage of the digital revolution. Let’s talk a little more about what that means, drawing on the experience of the industrial revolution. Economic historians have…

Paul very kindly tweeted about my recent post on the productivity paradox. He went on to ask a question: The link goes to a post from 2012, in which he works through a simple example to show that technological progress which raises the efficiency of capital-intensive production techniques can…

People are worried about robots taking jobs. Driverless cars are around the corner. Restaurants and shops increasingly carry the option to order by touchscreen. Google’s clever algorithms provide instant translations that are remarkably good. But the economy does not feel like one undergoing a technology-driven productivity boom. In the late…

Back in January, I published a post here asking for gamers to get in touch, to talk about how video games have affected their working lives: whether they have detracted in some cases, or helped. The response was fantastic. I wrote up what I learned, and the result has now been published. Thanks to everyone who made the piece possible.

I write a lot about new technologies and how they affect people’s lives, and their working lives in particular. Recently I’ve been mulling over a question some economists have raised: do better video games explain why men (and young men especially) are not working as much as they used to…