Keywords: A long trail of empirical evidence shows that the increased productivity brought about by automation and invention leads to more wealth, cheaper goods, increased consumer spending power and ultimately, more jobs, writes Christopher Mims.
…The authors found big increases in both low-paying and high-paying jobs. There are more barbers and barkeepers. But there also are more accountants and nurses, reflecting the rising complexity of the modern economy.
Paradoxically, says Mr. Stewart, many of the fields most transformed by technology have produced the biggest increases in employment, from medicine to management consulting. “What we saw was that machines and people were highly complementary,” he says.