Endogenous Task Bundling, Skills and Automation

Joshua S. Gans · NBER Working Papers · May 2026

Where this sits in the debate

Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates?
Will AI widen inequality? · its finding: it depends (why studies differ)

Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model (AI-written).

Key takeaway AI-written

Gans (NBER) argues that standard estimates of AI's wage effects err by holding workers' task bundles fixed at their pre-AI shape: when automation breaks a job apart, firms endogenously choose how to rebundle the surviving tasks, and that rebundling margin drives much of the wage outcome. This theoretical point cuts at the foundation of the widely used exposure-index literature, suggesting measured wage effects conflate automation with firms' organizational responses and that job redesign, not task displacement alone, determines who gains or loses from AI.

The paper in three steps AI-written

Written by an AI agent from the paper's abstract, which is the primary source and is quoted below.

The question

Do measures of AI's wage effects miss something by assuming the bundle of activities a worker is paid for stays the same after automation?

The approach

The authors argue that when automation breaks a job apart, firms decide how to recombine the remaining activities into new jobs, and they treat this rebundling as a choice rather than holding it fixed.

The findings

The abstract argues that holding job bundles at their pre-AI shape hides much of how automation affects wages; the excerpt available does not state specific results.

How to read it: theory. A theoretical model — its value is the mechanism it isolates; ask whether the assumptions fit the real economy.

Limitations and counterpoints AI-written

The available abstract is cut short, so the model's assumptions, results and any empirical test cannot be described here.

Abstract

Empirical measures of AI's wage effect typically hold fixed the bundle of activities a worker is paid for at its pre-AI shape. We argue that this assumption hides much of the action. When automation breaks a job apart, firms decide how to recombine the surviving activities; whether they rebundle

About this publication

Working paper. A working paper — circulated for discussion before formal peer review, the standard first outlet in economics.

Published: 2026
Citations: Not recorded for this source

Citation counts come from OpenAlex; none are recorded for this source — absence of a count is not absence of citations.