David Autor

Overview

Ford Professor of Economics at MIT and co-director of the MIT Work of the Future task force. Works on labor market inequality, technological change, trade, and disability insurance. Among the most cited labor economists of his generation.

Key Contributions / Features

• Original conditional applicants framework (Autor and Duggan 2002, CRR WP): Working paper coining the "conditional applicants" term and developing the full theoretical model of DI application as a dynamic programming problem. Established the unemployment-suppression counterfactual: measured U.S. unemployment would have been ~0.64–0.65 pp higher in 1998 absent the 1984 liberalization. Replacement rate at male 10th percentile: 53% (1979) → 63% (1998). See Conditional DI Applicants, DI Replacement Rate, and DI Countercyclicality.
• DI growth and replacement rate mechanism (Autor and Duggan 2003): With Mark Duggan, documented that the 1984 Reform Act combined with declining low-skill wages and a progressive benefit formula to mechanically raise DI replacement rates for low-wage workers, doubling the labor force exit propensity of displaced high school dropouts and lowering measured unemployment by ~0.5 pp. See DI Replacement Rate and Conditional DI Applicants.
• Three-cause framework and fiscal synthesis (Autor and Duggan 2006): JEP synthesis formalizing the three-cause DI growth framework: (1) 1984 Reform Act — medical-only awards fell 82% → 40%; mental/musculoskeletal rose +323% to 52% of all awards; (2) rising replacement rate via the bracket effect and earnings history effect (10th-percentile male 50–61: 68% → 86% incl. Medicare net fringe, 1984–2002); (3) rising female insured rates (61% → 76%). Projected steady-state enrollment of 7% of nonelderly adults; formalized the "unemployability insurance" characterization and documented DA&A requalification (2/3 of 130,000 terminated beneficiaries requalified under other impairments). ALJ statistics: attorney representation 37% → 70% (1977–2000); ALJ award share 12% → 27% (1979–2002). See DI Growth Decomposition, DI Replacement Rate, and Conditional DI Applicants.
• Processing delay and labor force decay (Autor, Maestas, Mullen, and Strand 2015): Using the DIODS universe of 1,039,221 2005 SSDI initial determinations and separate jackknife examiner IVs for processing time (EXTIME) and allowance propensity (EXALLOW), showed that each additional month of administrative processing time reduces employment by 0.44–0.52 pp and annual earnings by $133 (year 3), with effects persisting 6+ years. A falsification test (zero delay effect during the statutory 5-month waiting period) confirms the mechanism is LFP atrophy, not examiner quality. The joint two-IV system corrects the MMS (2013) receipt estimate upward from −27 pp to −48 pp employment (year 3); the total SSDI program effect is 105–150% larger than prior literature estimated. See Causal Effects of DI Receipt and DI Application Costs and Take-Up.
• Income vs. substitution effects in DI (Autor and Duggan 2007): With Mark Duggan, introduced the income vs. substitution effect distinction for DI labor supply and provided preliminary evidence using the 2001 Agent Orange VDC expansion as a natural experiment. VDC benefits are not work-contingent, so the 3.21 pp NILF increase among affected Vietnam veterans identifies a pure income effect — with no implicit tax on work operating. Argues that Ticket to Work and all similar policies exclusively target the substitution channel and therefore have near-zero leverage on aggregate LFP exit from DI. See Causal Effects of DI Receipt.
• China trade shock synthesis (Autor, Dorn, and Hanson 2016): Review article formalizing the Bartik-IV strategy in a gravity-model (Eaton-Kortum 2002) framework. Documents that 1 pp import penetration → −1.30 log pts manufacturing employment (2SLS); CZ-level: −$549 income per adult, +$57.7 in transfers (10% offset), NILF +0.55 pp — with no offsetting reallocation over a decade. Transfer cascade (Figure 7) shows SSDI absorbs $8.40 per$1,000 exposure vs. TAA's $3.65. Worker-level SSA data show low-wage workers remain trapped in trade-exposed industries (industry correlation 0.43 vs. 0.17 counterfactual). See China Trade Shock and Conditional DI Applicants.
• Manufacturing decline and family structure (Autor, Dorn, and Hanson 2019): Extended the China Syndrome design with gender-specific Bartik instruments to show that male-intensive trade shocks causally raise male idleness and mortality (D&A poisoning, HIV/AIDS, homicide) and reduce marriage rates, fertility, and children's household stability across all U.S. young adults. See China Trade Shock, Marriage Market, and Deaths of Despair.
• Job polarization synthesis (Autor 2010): Policy report for the Center for American Progress and Hamilton Project documenting employment polarization since 1979 — middle-skill jobs (clerical, admin, production) fell from 57.3% to 45.7% of employment 1979–2009; high-skill and low-skill ends expanded. Synthesizes the RBTC framework (from ALM 2003 with Levy and Murnane) and extends it with international evidence (all 16 EU countries, 1993–2006), the "polarizing recession" pattern (r = 0.76 between pre- and within-recession occupational growth), gender asymmetries (female workers shifted up; less-educated males shifted down), and the college wage premium surge (1.50x to 1.95x, entirely post-1980). Establishes the structural context for the later ADH China Syndrome work. See Occupational Polarization and Routine-Biased Technological Change.
• Family disadvantage and the gender gap in educational outcomes (Autor, Figlio, Karbownik, Roth, and Wasserman 2019, AEJ Applied 11(3): 338–381): Using linked Florida administrative data on ~770,000 children born 1992–2002, documented that family disadvantage disproportionately widens the boy-girl gap in behavioral and educational outcomes. Each SD increase in a composite SES index (mother's education, age, Medicaid birth, marital status; eigenvalue 2.26) closes the suspension gap by 2.2 pp, the absences gap by 0.075 pp, the kindergarten readiness gap by 1.15 pp, and the HS graduation gap by 1.5 pp. A fetal origins falsification test (birthweight SES gradient ≈ 3 grams/SD — negligible) confirms the mechanism is postnatal. Behavioral outcomes (suspensions) account for ~90.6% of the mediator path from family disadvantage to dropout; test scores account for negligible share. School and neighborhood controls reduce the family SES effect by ≤25%, establishing family as an independent input. See Gender Gap in Educational Outcomes.

Related

• Mark Duggan
• David Dorn
• Gordon Hanson
• David Figlio
• Krzysztof Karbownik
• Jeffrey Roth
• Melanie Wasserman
• Disability Insurance Program
• DI Replacement Rate
• Causal Effects of DI Receipt
• Conditional DI Applicants
• DI Growth Decomposition
• China Trade Shock
• Marriage Market
• Gender Gap in Educational Outcomes
• Occupational Polarization
• Routine-Biased Technological Change

Sources

• Autor and Duggan 2002 — The Rise in Disability Recipiency and the Decline in Unemployment
• Autor and Duggan 2003 — The Rise in the Disability Rolls and the Decline in Unemployment
• Autor and Duggan 2006 — The Growth in the Social Security Disability Rolls A Fiscal Crisis Unfolding
• Autor and Duggan 2007 — Distinguishing Income from Substitution Effects in Disability Insurance
• Autor and Duggan 2010 — Supporting Work A Proposal for Modernizing the U.S. Disability Insurance System
• Autor Dorn and Hanson 2016 — The China Shock Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade
• Autor, Dorn, and Hanson 2019 — When Work Disappears Manufacturing Decline and the Falling Marriage Market Value of Young Men
• Autor Maestas Mullen and Strand 2015 — Does Delay Cause Decay The Effect of Administrative Decision Time on the Labor Force Participation and Earnings of Disability Applicants
• Autor Figlio Karbownik Roth and Wasserman 2019 — Family Disadvantage and the Gender Gap in Behavioral and Educational Outcomes
• Autor 2010 — The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market
• Autor 2019 — Work of the Past, Work of the Future
• Autor Dorn and Hanson 2013 — The China Syndrome Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States
• Carey Miller and Molitor 2025 — Why Does Disability Increase During Recessions Evidence from Medicare
• Cutler Meara and Richards-Shubik 2012 — Unemployment and Disability Evidence from the Great Recession
• Duggan, Rosenheck, and Singleton 2010 — Federal Policy and the Rise in Disability Enrollment Evidence for the VA's Disability Compensation Program
• Duggan, Singleton, and Song 2007 — Aching to Retire The Rise in the Full Retirement Age and Its Impact on the Disability Rolls
• Kuziemko et al 2014 — Last-Place Aversion Evidence and Redistributive Implications
• Low and Pistaferri 2020 — Disability Insurance Theoretical Trade-Offs and Empirical Evidence
• Meyer and Mok 2013 — Disability, Earnings, Income and Consumption
• Mueller Rothstein and von Wachter 2016 — Unemployment Insurance and Disability Insurance in the Great Recession
• Strand and Messel 2019 — The Ability of Older Workers with Impairments to Adapt to New Jobs