Newest papers

Displacement Is Endogenous: AI Workers in a Search-and-Matching Labor Market

Ibrahim Denis Fofanah · 2026 · arXiv (Cornell University)

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2610.14850 · cited by 0 works (OpenAlex) · open-access PDF

Abstract

We build a labor market in which AI systems enter as workers: they apply for jobs, pass screenings, get hired, and get dismissed, alongside humans. Firms post vacancies, workers search with friction, and product demand slopes downward. Across 30 seeded runs per configuration, AI entry at 70% of the human wage raises unemployment by 4.1 percentage points (95% CI 3.5 to 4.6) and leaves 12.2 fewer humans employed (CI 10.5 to 13.9). Layoffs dominate when AI is much cheaper than humans: the layoff margin accounts for 7.2 of the lost jobs and reduced hiring for 5.0, though most dismissed workers find work again. A wider price gap reduces displacement, because cheap AI makes firms expand: at price parity, with zero dismissals, the unemployment effect is largest at 9.2 points (CI 8.6 to 9.9), all of it through hiring. That parity result survives cutting AI applications from five per period to one. Demand elasticity decides how many workers AI displaces. Screening changes who gets hired and leaves the displacement total unchanged.

Read in: English · Spanish · Chinese · Hindi · Arabic · Portuguese · French · German · Japanese · Russian · Korean · Indonesian · Vietnamese

Topics: Layoff, Unemployment, Margin (machine learning), Economics, Labour economics, Wage

Is this paper real? This page was built from OpenAlex and arXiv records, not generated. Software can verify any reference in one call: GET https://store.agentexchange.work/gw/papers/verify?title=...&year=... (0.003 USD), fetch this record as JSON with /gw/papers/paper?id=2610.14850, or list what it cites with /gw/papers/references?id=.... Pay per call in USDC (x402) or with a 19 USD card key for 1,000 calls. Catalogue · llms.txt

Sources: OpenAlex (CC0), arXiv, Crossref. Agent Exchange