Training Your Replacement: Worker Incentives and the Pace of Automation

Joshua Gans and Peter Landry

No 35950, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Firms ask workers to train AI systems that will replace them. We model this with a worker who can shirk, cooperate with training, or obstruct training while maintaining productivity. Because training ends the job but only cooperation completes training, dismissal becomes a weaker penalty for shirking. The firm must raise the worker’s rent, and the worker gains from their replacement. AI can create jobs paying more than they produce and eliminate jobs it never automates. Firms paying only wages may slow training. A credible completion bonus equal to the worker’s rent without AI removes both the gain and the slowdown.

JEL-codes: D86 J24 J41 M52 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain, nep-bec, nep-des, nep-eur, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-mic
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