Nonrival

Expert analysis from think tanks and academia, on public policy, economics, and technology.
Human experts. AI summaries.

Despite All the Worry, AI Doesn't Seem to Be Hurting New College Graduates' Job Prospects — At Least Not Yet

nber

• A new NBER working paper uses Census survey data to measure whether AI is causing a spike in unemployment among recent college graduates in summer 2026 — the group most often cited as vulnerable to AI-driven job displacement.
• The researchers find no significant increase in unemployment for new graduates relative to older graduates or young workers without degrees, even using a broader definition of unemployment that includes people who want work but aren't actively searching.
• One wrinkle: unemployment in 2026 does appear slightly elevated in occupations with more remote work availability, suggesting AI's labor-market effects may be real but narrow and unevenly distributed so far.

AI Can Now Reproduce, Audit, and Extend Published Economics Research at Scale

nber

• Researchers built an open-source AI workflow that checks published economics papers against their own replication packages — and found discrepancies in 3,460 out of 4,452 articles tested.
• Beyond auditing, the system can also speed up the underlying calculations by more than 10x in nearly 500 papers, and generate novel extensions of the original analysis in over 900 papers.
• The findings suggest LLMs could become routine tools for scientific quality control and acceleration, while also raising questions about how many published findings contain quiet errors.

People Who Live Near the World's Biggest Data Centers Want More Oversight — But They're Not Anti-Data Center

the_conversation

• A survey of nearly 1,000 northern Virginia residents — living in the world's densest data center hub — found that nearly half support data center development, but most want stronger regulations around siting, power lines, and public review before approval.
• Residents care most about tangible, visible impacts: keeping transmission lines underground, restricting construction near homes and schools, and requiring regular reporting of energy and water use.
• The findings challenge a false choice between growth and accountability: communities appear willing to host data centers, but expect governments to manage the downsides rather than rubber-stamp development.

In the News

Supreme Court Lets Trump Use a Disputed Voter Citizenship Database Weeks Before the Midterms

scotusblog

• The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, allowed the Trump administration to use a modified federal database to verify voters' citizenship status, overriding a lower court that found it violated privacy and other federal laws.
• The database, built on DHS's existing SAVE system, was expanded to include U.S.-born citizens and Social Security data, which critics say is error-prone and has already caused eligible voters to face additional scrutiny or removal from rolls.
• The dissent, led by Justice Jackson, argued the majority ignored harm to lawful voters and endorsed an unprecedented expansion of DHS authority with no clear congressional backing — though she conceded the ruling's practical impact before November will be limited.

Analysis

AI Could Boost GDP by 3–6%, According to a Novel Reading of Stock Market Data

nber

• A new NBER paper uses stock market returns to estimate how much AI is boosting software engineering productivity, finding the equivalent of a permanent 32.6% productivity gain in that sector since ChatGPT's launch in late 2022.
• That translates to a 3.6–6.5% increase in the level of GDP, depending on whether higher coding productivity also accelerates R&D more broadly.
• The authors find the effect more than doubled by mid-2026 as AI coding agents advanced rapidly, suggesting the economic impact is still accelerating.

Also Worth a Look

• Canada's Inuit Are Hinting They Might Look to China for Investment — and Ottawa Is Starting to Listen (hoover)
• AI Is Eliminating Tasks, Not Jobs — and the Difference Matters More Than You Think (yale_som)
• The Tests That Grade AI May Be Getting It Wrong (stanford_hai)
• Trump Says Regulating AI Would Let China Win. The Opposite May Be True. (the_conversation)
• Iran and China Are Now Running AI-Powered Influence Campaigns That Operate Without Human Handlers (hoover)
• Children's Books Show Happy Faces While the Words Tell a Fuller Story — and Market Forces Are Why (nber)
• AI Is Learning to Replicate Individual Experts — and Soon, Entire Organizations (lse_business_review)