Working Paper: NBER ID: w30612
Authors: Kyogo Kanazawa; Daiji Kawaguchi; Hitoshi Shigeoka; Yasutora Watanabe
Abstract: We examine the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on productivity in the context of taxi drivers. The AI we study assists drivers with finding customers by suggesting routes along which the demand is predicted to be high. We find that AI improves drivers’ productivity by shortening the cruising time, and such gain is accrued only to low-skilled drivers, narrowing the productivity gap between high- and low-skilled drivers by 14%. The result indicates that AI's impact on human labor is more nuanced and complex than a job displacement story, which was the primary focus of existing studies.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Productivity; Taxi Drivers; Labor Economics
JEL Codes: J22; J24; L92; R41
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| AI (C45) | productivity (O49) |
| low-skilled drivers (R48) | productivity increase (O49) |
| high-skilled drivers (R48) | productivity effect (O49) |
| AI (C45) | productivity gap reduction (O49) |
| AI substitutes for worker skill (J24) | productivity (O49) |