A widely-cited NBER study linked Denmark's national AI-chatbot adoption surveys to its administrative labour records, and despite finding rapid uptake of AI chatbots and new AI-related tasks at most exposed employers, its difference-in-differences design rules out any effect on workers' earnings and recorded hours larger than 2%, two years after ChatGPT's launch
This NBER working paper, authored by Anders Humlum and Emilie Vestergaard, links large-scale AI chatbot adoption surveys to administrative labor market records in Denmark. The study, revised in March 2026, used a difference-in-differences framework to compare adopters and non-adopters of AI chatbots. It found no effect on workers' earnings and recorded hours larger than 2% two years after ChatGPT's launch.
Verified 2026-09-26
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Fast AI adoption does not automatically show up in pay or hours, at least not in the first years.
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