National Bureau of Economic Research
Private US research body that officially dates recessions; published 2026 study on US-Europe GenAI adoption gap.
The National Bureau of Economic Research found in a paper published 1 June that 43% of US workers use generative AI at work, versus 32% across six European countries, attributing the gap to management practices rather than regulation.
Last refreshed: 17 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Why do US workers use AI more than Europeans — and does it come down to management, not regulation?
Timeline for National Bureau of Economic Research
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AI: Jobs, Power & MoneyPublished working paper finding 43% US vs 32% European generative AI adoption, attributing gap to management practices
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AI: Jobs, Power & MoneyQ1 GDP contracts under tariff drag
US Midterms 2026Background
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is a private, non-governmental, nonpartisan research organisation founded in 1920 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its Business Cycle Dating Committee holds the sole recognised authority to declare the start and end dates of US recessions, using broad monthly indicators, employment, real income, industrial production and retail sales, rather than the popular two-consecutive-quarters GDP rule.
Its most recent calls placed the COVID recession from February to April 2020 and the prior Great Recession from December 2007 to June 2009. Because Federal Reserve communications and official policy language typically avoid the word recession until NBER acts, its determinations carry weight well beyond the dating itself.
Beyond recession dating, the organisation publishes working papers across all fields of economics, several of which, including its work on generative AI adoption and productivity, are now cited by both sides of the argument over whether recent layoffs reflect real automation or ordinary cost-cutting relabelled as such.
US workers use AI more than Europeans
A paper published 1 June by NBER researchers (w34995) found 43% of US workers use generative AI at work, against 32% across six European countries surveyed in early 2026 . The 11-point gap traces primarily to differences in management practices rather than regulation, the researchers concluded, a finding that complicates simpler explanations resting on Europe's more protective labour rules.
The gap parallels the US-Europe personal-computer adoption lag of the early 1990s, which closed by 2001; if history repeats, European AI-linked labour disruption would trail the US by three to five years, giving policymakers there a rare advance warning most economic transitions do not provide.
Its verdict on Q1 GDP is pending
The Bureau of Economic Analysis recorded a 0.3% GDP contraction in the first quarter of 2026, published 13 April, the first negative quarter of the current administration's second term . Under NBER's own methodology, a recession call rests on broad monthly indicators, employment, real income, industrial production and retail sales, not the popular two-consecutive-quarters GDP rule, so one contractionary quarter does not itself trigger a declaration.
Because NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee holds the sole recognised authority to date US recessions, its eventual verdict on this period carries direct political weight: a formal recession finding would validate messaging linking the contraction to tariff policy, while continued silence lets the debate run on GDP headlines alone.