Business Commons^™

Ai And Jobs: The Role Of Demand, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

In manufacturing, technology has sharply reduced jobs in recent decades. But before that, for over a century, employment grew, even in industries experiencing rapid technological change. What changed? Demand was highly elastic at first and then became inelastic. The effect of artificial intelligence (AI) on jobs will similarly depend critically on the nature of demand. This paper presents a simple model of demand that accurately predicts the rise and fall of employment in the textile, steel, and automotive industries. This model provides a useful framework for exploring how AI is likely to affect jobs over the next 10 or 20 …

Risk Regulation And Innovation: The Case Of Rights-Encumbered Biomedical Data Silos, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

Recent Supreme Court cases on patent-eligible subject matter are likely to exacerbate the longstanding problem of biomedical data fragmentation. For each data silo, multiple overlapping legal claims and claimants must be addressed to achieve the benefits of pooling.

Commentators who have discussed the data aggregation challenge have generally focused on possibilities created through public funding, through collective action by research participants, or through pressure by payers. This Article emphasizes the important role of risk regulators, most notably the precedent offered by risk regulation in the area of clinical trial data.

While U.S. risk regulators have taken some positive steps, the …

Pharmaceutical M&A Activity: Effects On Prices, Innovation, And Competition, Barak D. Richman, Will Mitchell, Elena Vidal, Kevin Schulman

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of blockbuster pharmaceutical acquisitions has prompted fears that unprecedented market concentration will weaken competition. Two of the most prominent concerns focus on the upstream and downstream ends of the pharmaceutical industry: (1) the concern that these mergers will concentrate the market for discovery and will therefore lead to fewer discoveries; and (2) the concern that merging large marketing, sales, and distribution forces will strengthen the hands of select pharmaceutical manufacturers and weaken downstream competition. Having considered potential dynamic effects in the industry and conducted a series of preliminary interviews with knowledgeable observers, though, this Article argues that neither …