One analysis, by David Autor at MIT and colleagues, suggests that in manufacturing the impact of trade with China could be much bigger.

ECONOMIST: After a period on the wane, inequality is waxing again

In a forthcoming paper in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Susan Houseman of the W.E.

ECONOMIST: Temporary work may dim future employment prospects

But the rolls grew quickly even when the share of 50- to 64-year-olds was steady, according to David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Mark Duggan of the University of Maryland.

ECONOMIST: Politicians are ignoring a big, dysfunctional programme

But as David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out in a new paper on labour market polarisation, fading union power has been more the effect than the cause of occupational shifts.

ECONOMIST: The middle-class task- force

David Autor, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), points out that the main effect of automation in the computer era is not that it destroys blue-collar jobs but that it destroys any job that can be reduced to a routine.

ECONOMIST: A university degree no longer confers financial security