Economics Pedagogy seminar - Petar Stankov (Royal Holloway)

Wednesday, 04 November 2026 at 13:30

AI and the Measurement of Human Capital

Event details

Observed performance in knowledge-intensive tasks, such as learning, reflects both genuine effort and substitution of effort to artificial intelligence (AI), neither of which is directly observed. This paper shows that substitution of effort to AI could be identified from observed performance measures. Identification relies on matching tasks where the use of AI is allowed to comparable tasks performed in controlled environments where the use of AI is reliably restricted. As a proof-of-concept, the framework is implemented in a small higher education setting. The results suggest that the use of AI in knowledge-intensive tasks, such as learning, creates a mismatch between observed performance and underlying human capital. This introduces a measurement error in performance, compressing its observed distribution relative to the underlying distribution of skills, and carrying implications for the design of tasks in environments where effort is unobservable, but performance outcomes depend on the use of AI.

Organiser

University of Exeter Business School - Economics

Location

Conference Room 2 XFi