9:30am-9:35am | Introduction: Marco Del Negro (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
9:35am-11:05am | Session 1: Work from Home and the Future of Cities How is remote work changing workplace productivity and does this vary by the type of work (individual vs. collaborative, more or less technical, etc.)? How does the shift to remote work change the density of cities, geographies of residency, and the location of where work is completed? If cities are depopulating, how does that alter agglomeration and the advantages that used to be associated with cities? What can we expect the challenges and advantages of cities to be going forward? What does all of the above imply for aggregate productivity growth over the next decades? Chair: Natalia Emanuel (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) Panelists: Emma Harrington (University of Virginia), Sitian Liu (Queen's University), Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh (Columbia University) |
11:10am-12:40pm | Session 2: AI, Tech, and the Future of Productivity Growth What are the future growth prospects of the tech sector and its potential contributions to aggregate productivity growth? Has the tech sector reached the state of maturity and will thus slow down? Or will it continue to spread to and disrupt other important sectors of the economy, such as transportation (self-driving cars/trucks), healthcare (personalized medicine), and education (learning platforms)? What are the prospects of AI (and in particular large language models) for disrupting the service industries? Is this likely to bring about substantial productivity growth in the medium run? What industries are most likely to be affected, if any? Taken as a whole, how likely are the tech and AI industries to spur an acceleration of productivity growth over the next decade? Chair: Danial Lashkari (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) Panelists: Avi Goldfarb (University of Toronto), Prasanna Tambe (University of Pennsylvania), Laura Veldkamp (Columbia University) |
12:40pm-1:30pm | Lunch |
1:30pm-3:00pm | Session 3: What Are the Major Structural Forces Shaping Productivity Growth over the Next Decades? Which of the following structural drivers will play the most important roles in shaping productivity growth over the next few decades? I) declining fertility and slowing population growth, II) the rise of superstar workers and the inequality in opportunities for skill acquisition, III) the rise of superstar firms and market power; IV) the disruptive effects of climate change and/or the opportunities offered by the transition to green technologies, V) de-globalization and the breakdown of the global supply chains, and VI) the potential of AI to revolutionize the service sectors. Chair: Jeremy Pearce (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) Panelists: John Fernald (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco), Lucia Foster (U.S. Census), Robert Gordon (Northwestern University) |