National Bureau of Economic Research

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has recently emerged as a potentially transformative workplace technology. The ultimate impact of generative AI on the economy will depend on how many workers adopt the technology, how intensively they use it, and for which tasks. In The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI (NBER Working Paper 32966), researchers Alexander Bick, Adam Blandin, and David J. Deming report on a nationally representative US survey of generative AI adoption at work ...

Historically, retirees in the US relied on the “three-legged stool” of Social Security, defined benefit (DB) pension plans, and personal savings to provide retirement income. Beginning in the late 1970s, however, access to DB plans began to fall while access to defined contribution (DC) plans, which require individuals to make their own savings plan contributions and investment decisions during their working years, rose. As of December 2023, retirement assets in DC plans — e.g., 401(k)s — and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) totaled $24.1 trillion, with 56 percent of those assets held in IRAs. Nearly two-thirds of IRAs contained funds rolled over from 401(k)s or other employer-sponsored retirement plans. By comparison, DB plans held $11.8…

Recognizing the rising toll of chronic late-life diseases as the US population ages, the NBER has launched a multi-year initiative on the economics of Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementias (AD/ADRD). The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has awarded the NBER a five-year grant to serve as a Coordinating Center for the Economics of AD/ADRD, focusing on the care, treatment, and prevention of these diseases. The Center is co-directed by neurobiologist Rhoda Au of Boston University, Julie Bynum, a geriatric care specialist at the University of Michigan, and research associate Kathleen McGarry of UCLA; Susan Stewart is the Executive Director. It will coordinate the work of several NIA-funded research…

In the Netherlands, there are striking socioeconomic differences in mortality among older adults, with a 4.4 percentage point (67 percent) higher five-year mortality rate for 70-year-old individuals with below-median income than for those with above-median income. To better understand the role of chronic disease in these health disparities, Kaveh Danesh, Jonathan T. Kolstad, William D. Parker, and Johannes Spinnewijn develop an index of chronic disease burden in The Chronic Disease Index: Analyzing Health Inequalities over the Lifecycle (NBER Working Paper 32577). This index is a measure...

Social Security Disability (SSD) program beneficiaries, like other consumers, have been negatively affected by inflation over the past several years. In a survey from June of 2023, more than half (59 percent) of SSD program beneficiaries reported higher prices for the disability-related goods and services they need to purchase, and more than one-quarter reported reducing food spending to cover disability-related costs, Zachary Morris and Stephanie Rennane found in Examining the Impact of Inflation on the Economic Security of Disability Program Beneficiaries (NBER RDRC Paper NB23-08).

Using new survey data, the researchers found that 82 percent of beneficiaries reported out-of-pocket expenses related to their disability, with average annual spending of $4,412 and median spending...

Sociologists have argued that “third places” like cafés, which provide opportunities for individuals to socialize and exchange ideas outside of home and work, improve neighborhood life. But what about the relationship between such places and economic activity? In Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés (NBER Working Paper 32604), researchers Jinkyong Choi, Jorge Guzman, and Mario L. Small use data on US business registrations between 1990 and 2022 from the Startup Cartography Project to examine whether the opening of a Starbucks in a neighborhood with no previous cafés affects local entrepreneurship...