【Macro Seminar】AI and Human Capital Accumulation: Aggregate and Distributional Implications
2026/07/21
研討會日期 : 2026-07-21
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Yang Lu (盧 楊)
地點 : Conference Room B110
主持人 : Professor Terry Cheung
演講者簡介 : Dr. Yang Lu received her Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University in 2009. She is currently an Associate Professor of Economics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Her research interests are Information and Learning in Macroeconomics and Finance, and Empirical Macroeconomics and Finance.
演講摘要 : This paper investigates how human capital responses to anticipated advances in artificial intelligence (AI) reshape aggregate and distributional consequences of AI. We develop an incomplete-markets model with endogenous human capital and asset accumulation in general equilibrium, featuring three skill sectors and uninsurable idiosyncratic risk. AI enters as an anticipated, sector-biased shock that narrows middle-skill wage premiums and boosts returns to top expertise. We find that human capital responses to AI (i) drive voluntary job polarization, shifting workers from the middle toward both lower and higher skill sectors; (ii) magnify AI’s positive effects on aggregate output and consumption, while dampening its impact on employment; and (iii) alter inequality: even as polarization increases disparities in income and consumption, precautionary saving by middle-sector households reduces the rise in wealth inequality. In an extension (AI+), where AI raises the human-capital threshold for high-skill jobs, additional training and saving become concentrated among high-sector households, further increasing wealth inequality.
