Computer Income Share as Policy Signal

Updated: 2026.01.16 12D ago 1 sources
Track the share of national factor income accruing to computing capital (GPUs, datacenter services, NPUs) as an observable macro metric. Rising values would indicate a structural shift in returns from labor to capital driven by automation and AI, useful for taxation, labor policy and climate planning. — A standardized ‘computer income share’ would give policymakers a simple, auditable early‑warning about automation’s distributional, fiscal and energy effects and trigger appropriate redistributive or industrial responses.

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The share of factor income paid to computers
Tyler Cowen 2026.01.16 100% relevant
Tyler Cowen’s post highlights the same concept — measuring how much factor income goes to ‘computers’ — which concretely exemplifies this proposed metric (actor: national accounts/data series).
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