Innovation Economics

University of Bozen-Bolzano

Nicola Campigotto
ncampigotto@unibz.it

April 2025

Basic info


  • How to reach me: email (ncampigotto@unibz.it) or Microsoft Teams

  • Office hours: by appointment, either in person (office I307) or on Teams

  • Course materials: add link here. No textbook, only journal articles and not-yet-published working papers

  • Exam: TBD, probably a single open-ended question

Lecture roadmap


📆 Day 🕐 Time 🏫 Where
April 24 (Thu) 10-12 E322
May 6 (Tue) 9-13 (including experiment) NOI F1.2.21
May 7 (Wed) 16-19 NOI F1.2.21
May 8 (Thu) 16-19 C3.06

Course content

  • This module is entirely devoted to the economic and behavioural consequences of Artificial Intelligence (AI) diffusion

  • Some questions we will explore:

    • What are the consequences of AI on human productivity, learning, creativity, and trust?
    • Can AI impact market competition?
    • How does AI affect the labour market?

  • No definitive answers! This field of research is still largely in its infancy and AIs are evolving rapidly

Course content (cont’d)

  • We will take a mixed approach, combining theory, experiments, and empirical evidence

  • On May 6 (Lecture 2), I will ask you to partecipate in a toy laboratory experiment. Please come to class and bring your fully charged laptop. The winner gets a prize!

☝️ This is how real lab experiments look like

An icebreaking survey

  • 📝 As a warm-up exercise for our discussion, I would like you to participate in a survey

  • 👤 The survey is completely anonymous and there are no right or wrong answers, so please answer truthfully

  • ⏰ We are not in a hurry, so feel free to take your time to think about your responses

  • 🚫 Please refrain from searching for information online before submitting your answers

Let’s begin

The survey




  • Conducted by think tank PEW Research on a representative sample of US citizens and a sample of experts in the field of AI

  • Let’s discuss your responses and compare them to those from the original survey

To read the complete report, click HERE

Original survey results (1)

Original survey results (2)

Original survey results (3)

  • Your results
    • Fewer: 53
    • Not much difference: 29
    • More: 0
    • Not sure: 18

Original survey results (4)

Original survey results (5)

  • Your results
    • More concerned than excited: 35
    • Equally concerned and excited: 59
    • More excited than concerned: 6

Original survey results (5, cont’d)

  • Feel free to share here your reasons for concern and excitement about the increased use of AI in daily life

#1

Education of people will suffer.

#2

I cannot imagine life without AI anymore, I don’t know where it’s heading but I’m curious to see.

#3

I get excited cause I’m impressed by the power and the ability of AI’s tools, but concerned because by seeing that I slowly realize it could easily overtake humans’ contribution to labour (general).

#4

My best friend is doing a PhD in AI. Almost no one understands what LLM actually do.

#5

I am excited because I know that it could make my life easier but I am concerned about becoming lazier and about my relationships being affected by it.

#6

Misuse and easy learning.

#7

people won’t study that much anymore, abilities like writing and creative jobs in general will lose importance and creativity in general won’t be appreciated that much anymore.

#8

AI can have a great impact if its used right. It can be very useful for jobs and automate tasks. In my opinion AI can be very dangerous in terms of its influence on fake news, its will be much easier to fake news and can be used in a very bad way. Therefor there should be new regulations to keep track of that.

#9

I think AI is a Tool that can help, if you use it correctly. I think, if someone has bad intentions, AI is a dangerous tool.

Original survey results (6)

Original survey results (7)

  • Your results
    • Negative: 18
    • Positive: 23
    • Equally positive and negative: 53
    • Not sure: 6

Original survey results (8)

  • Your results - How often do you interact with AI?
    • Several times a day: 41
    • About once a day / several times a week: 53
    • Less often: 6
  • Your results - How often do you think other students in this class interact with AI?
    • Several times a day: 88
    • About once a day / several times a week: 12
    • Less often: 0

Original survey results (9)

  • Your results
    • Not go far enough: 47
    • Go too far: 30
    • Not sure: 23

Course references

Acemoglu, Daron, David Autor, and Simon Johnson. 2023. “Can We Have Pro-Worker AI? Choosing a Path of Machines in Service of Minds.” CEPR Policy Insight 123. https://cepr.org/publications/policy-insight-123-can-we-have-pro-worker-ai-choosing-path-machines-service-minds.
Acemoglu, Daron, and Pascual Restrepo. 2019. “Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 33 (2): 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.2.3.
———. 2022. “Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in US Wage Inequality.” Econometrica 90 (5): 1973–2016. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA19815.
Assad, Stephanie, Robert Clark, Daniel Ershov, and Lei Xu. 2024. “Algorithmic Pricing and Competition: Empirical Evidence from the German Retail Gasoline Market.” Journal of Political Economy 132 (3): 723–71. https://doi.org/10.1086/726906.
Autor, David. 2024. “Applying AI to Rebuild Middle Class Jobs.” NBER Working Paper 32140. https://doi.org/10.3386/w32140.
Bastani, Hamsa, Osbert Bastani, Alp Sungu, Haosen Ge, Özge Kabakcı, and Rei Mariman. 2024. “Generative AI Can Harm Learning.” Wharton School Research Paper, University of Pennsylvania. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4895486.
Bigoni, Maria, and Damiano Paoli. 2025. “Coordination and Leadership: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence.” Working Paper.
Calvano, Emilio, Giacomo Calzolari, Vincenzo Denicolò, Joseph E. Harrington Jr., and Sergio Pastorello. 2020. “Protecting Consumers from Collusive Prices Due to AI.” Science 370 (6520): 1040–42. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abe3796.
Calvano, Emilio, Giacomo Calzolari, Vincenzo Denicolò, and Sergio Pastorello. 2020. “Artificial Intelligence, Algorithmic Pricing, and Collusion.” American Economic Review 110 (10): 3267–97. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20190623.
Dell’Acqua, Fabrizio, Charles Ayoubi, Hila Lifshitz, Raffaella Sadun, Ethan Mollick, Lilach Mollick, Yi Han, et al. 2025. “The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI Reshaping Teamwork and Expertise.” NBER Working Paper 33641. https://doi.org/10.3386/w33641.
Doshi, Anil R., and Oliver P. Hauser. 2024. “Generative AI Enhances Individual Creativity but Reduces the Collective Diversity of Novel Content.” Science Advances 10 (28). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn5290.
Harrington Jr., Joseph E. 2019. “Developing Competition Law for Collusion by Autonomous Price-Setting Agents.” Journal of Competition Law & Economics 14 (3): 331–63. https://doi.org/10.1093/joclec/nhy016.
Noy, Shakked, and Whitney Zhang. 2023. “Experimental Evidence on the Productivity Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence.” Science 381 (6654): 187–92. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh2586.