Equation 9 · What the Machine Breakers Actually Wanted
What does this equation mean?
Read the formula alongside the article passage below. Each part has a deeper page with its role in the equation, the supporting passage and nearby citations.
the automation frontier below which capital performs the task. Read the equation part by part below; each part has a contextual explanation and a link to its mathematical background.
Read it piece by piece
How to interpret it
Read this expression with the definitions, units, and assumptions supplied by the article.
What the article says around this equation
where tasks are indexed by x , s(x) is the value-added share of task x , I is the automation frontier below which capital performs the task, N is the upper edge of the task space where new tasks appear, and scales the induced demand from higher output. The expression is illustrative of the structure rather than a reproduction of any published estimating equation; the substantive claim it encodes is that the sign of L is not determined by the size of I alone.
Sources cited in the article section
- [10] Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor ↗
- [11] The Race between Man and Machine: Implications of Technology for Growth, Factor Shares, and Employment ↗
- [12] Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality ↗
- [19] New Frontiers: The Origins and Content of New Work, 1940-2018 ↗
These citations give research context. Read each source to check which claims it supports.