Anton Korinek

Anton Korinek is an Austrian-American economist at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, known for modelling how artificial intelligence reshapes labour markets and public finance. His research sits at the intersection of macroeconomics, tax policy, and automation risk, and has shaped the terms of debate in Washington over how governments would fund themselves if AI erases the wage base that underpins modern taxation.

A Brookings working paper by Korinek and co-author Benjamin Lockwood concluded that roughly three-quarters of US federal tax revenue derives from labour taxation; they argue that sufficient AI-driven displacement would force a structural shift toward consumption-based tax systems. That fiscal cliff analysis was cited as bipartisan legislators debated the Economy of the Future Commission Act, a bill designed to model exactly these second-order consequences.

The central tension in Korinek's work is timing: the tax base erosion he documents could arrive faster than any legislature can retool revenue systems, particularly as agencies like the IRS simultaneously lose capacity through staffing cuts. Whether his findings produce precautionary reform or sit ignored until a fiscal crisis forces action remains the defining open question around his research programme.