Economists grapple with the future of the labour market

WHY is productivity growth low if information technology is advancing rapidly? Prominent in the 1980s and early 1990s, this question has in recent years again become one of the hottest in economics. Its salience has grown as techies have become convinced that machine learning and artificial intelligence will soon put hordes of workers out of work (among tech-moguls, Bill Gates has called for a robot tax to deter automation, and Elon Musk for a universal basic income). A lot of economists think that a surge in productivity that would leave millions on the scrapheap is unlikely soon, if at all. Yet this year's meeting of the American Economic Association, which wound up in Philadelphia on January 7th, showed they are taking the tech believers seriously.