One pragmatic advantage of the Autor et al (2013) reference style over the [57] style is that it is much easier to use when you don't have software to automatic

One pragmatic advantage of the Autor et al (2013) reference style over the [57] style is that it is much easier to use when you don't have software to automatically number references, and renumber then as new refs are added. In my career I did occasionally have to resort to manual reference numbering and it was pure hell.