John Van Reenen
Ronald Coase School Professor, London School of Economics
Signed the letter · Academia · United Kingdom
Economist at the London School of Economics, where he is the Ronald Coase School Professor and directs the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion at the Centre for Economic Performance. He directed the Centre for Economic Performance from 2003 to 2016 and was a professor of applied economics at MIT from 2016 to 2020. Author of work on productivity, innovation, and management practices, including 'The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms' and 'Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?'. Co-recipient of the 2009 Yrjo Jahnsson Award; appointed OBE in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to economics and public policy making. Signed the wemustactnow.ai open letter.
AI-written Documented facts only, from the sources below.
15 works in the co-authorship map · 15,329 citations across them
Sources
In the network
12 co-authors on the map · PageRank #10 of 400 · bridge #4 of 400 · 2 steps from Erik Brynjolfsson · cluster: Innovation and economic growth.
Measured on this map only, which grows out of the letter's signatories; what these numbers mean. See John Van Reenen on the map
Documented positions
Will AI actually boost productivity and growth? it's complicated
In a 2026 keynote he noted large AI productivity gains in specific tasks that shrink at the level of whole products or organisations, and argued that, as with earlier general-purpose technologies, economy-wide gains depend on reorganisation and management.
Evidence
- “Research already finds large productivity gains from AI in specific tasks, including coding, writing and customer support. But those gains become much smaller when moving from an individual task to the level of a complete product or organisation.” — source
Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates? unknown
No documented evidence reviewed yet.
Will AI widen inequality? unknown
No documented evidence reviewed yet.
Should governments act on AI now? unknown
No documented evidence reviewed yet.
How fast will the impact arrive? leans disagree
He has drawn parallels between AI and electricity and the digital revolution, which did not deliver large economy-wide productivity gains until businesses reorganised work, and suggested the same lag may apply to AI.
Evidence
- “These technologies did not immediately produce large economy-wide productivity gains because businesses first had to change how work was organised.” — source
Selected work
- The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms*
- Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?
- Management as a Technology?
Writes with
Nicholas Bloom (10), Raffaella Sadun (6), David Autor (2), David Dorn (2), Lawrence Katz (2), Philippe Aghion (2), Antoine Dechezleprêtre (1), Charles I. Jones (1), David Hémous (1), Luigi Zingales (1), Mark Schankerman (1), Ralf Martin (1)
Co-authors on the map, by papers written together (12 of 12 shown).
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