What is ai-economics-reader?

This repository contains a free e-book titled "The Economics of Transformative AI: A Reader," available in both English and Chinese. It was written to explain a September 2025 academic workshop hosted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, where leading economists gathered to discuss a single question: if AI becomes capable of doing most human mental work, how does the economy change? The original workshop talks were dense and aimed at fellow economists, so this project rewrites all 17 of them into a single course that a high-school reader can follow. The book is split into four parts. The first covers how AI affects the value of knowledge and what it means for firms and research. The second looks at economic growth, jobs, and what place people might have in an AI-heavy world. The third covers markets, AI agents acting on behalf of people, and how competition might shift. The fourth addresses government finances, the cost of reducing AI-related risks, and the challenge of measuring AI's impact in official statistics. Before the main chapters, the book includes a short economics primer that builds up core ideas from scratch: supply and demand, production functions, comparative advantage, labor share of income, and similar concepts. Each chapter then adds study aids, including a summary, a key concept box, and open-ended questions for reflection. Twelve hand-built diagrams illustrate ideas like the productivity curve over time and how labor's share of income could trend toward zero. The files are self-contained HTML pages that open directly in any browser without needing an internet connection, plus PDF versions for printing. Both languages are included in the same repository. The project is unofficial and not endorsed by the NBER or any of the speakers whose talks it adapts. The authors are transparent about this and recommend checking original published papers for anything that needs to be cited. The license is Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, meaning anyone can share or adapt the writing and diagrams for non-commercial purposes as long as they credit the source and share under the same terms.