Tag: consumption

How faster productivity growth in low-skill sectors contribute to wage stagnation

How faster productivity growth in low-skill sectors contribute to wage stagnation

Because productivity grows unevenly, workers reallocate between sectors, and low-skill wages stagnate, write Rachel Ngai and Orhun Sevinc The real wage of non-college workers in the U.S. has grown by about 20 per cent since the 1980s, which is less than half of the growth in aggregate labour productivity. This is rather puzzling because low-skill workers tend to work in sectors that have higher productivity growth, yet their wages are lagging behind those of high-skill workers and aggregate labour productivity. The slow growth of low-skill wages is also important for the average wage growth as non-college workers represent two-thirds […]

Autonomous Tractors, Excavators and More: Examining the Path Toward a Driverless Tomorrow

Autonomous Tractors, Excavators and More: Examining the Path Toward a Driverless Tomorrow

Autonomous equipment offers significant benefits with respect to efficiency, cost savings and safety. These machines are poised to have a profound impact in the off-road environment, upsetting and defying current models in relation to the size of the equipment and the role of the dealers and OEMs, as well as impacting the individual operator.

Although the equipment sectors that AEM represents have historically been hesitant to adopt innovative technologies, they are set for a significant amount of change, as autonomous vehicles (AV) dramatically alter the nature of the work. Future off-road autonomous equipment will handle the cycle of operation and […]

JOB SCARE: Accounting staff be warned; 97 percent of jobs could vanish

JOB SCARE: Accounting staff be warned; 97 percent of jobs could vanish

The issues arising from the changing nature of work in light of the current COVID-19 global pandemic formed the basis of a robust presentation and discussion in the first of a webinar series hosted by the School of Computing and Information Technology (SCIT), UTech, Jamaica on October 1, 2020.

Leading the presentation, Professor Sean Thorpe, Head, SCIT, postulated that several categories of work will become defunct, necessitating persons in those sectors to remould themselves to fit the new paradigm.

Thorpe said the webinar marked the school’s contribution to the conversation on current and future opportunities available for students in light of […]

RYAN MacRAE: Not only is basic income necessary, it’s also sustainable, achievable

RYAN MacRAE: Not only is basic income necessary, it's also sustainable, achievable

Could there become a time when all our basic needs are paid for by the government? That’s the question many economists and politicians around the world are starting to explore. SUBMITTED PHOTO RYAN MacRAE

Canada has been well overdue for an expansion of its social security. According to the most recent (pre-pandemic) statistics from Statistics Canada, 3.2 million Canadians still live below the national poverty line.

The federal Liberals’ anti-poverty strategy will aim to cut this number in half by 2030, but this is simply too low of a bar.The Latin American Mission Program has consistently called for the complete […]

The Future Trajectory of Automation

Imagine a catering business which serves 500 meals a day. One day, they seize an opportunity to grow their business. They automate 90% of the cooking process, and with the same number of employees in the kitchen, they can now prepare 2000 meals a day. A huge 4-times gain in the productivity of human effort!

However, there is another side to this productivity gain. Look at it from the resource perspective – it now requires 4 times more resources to keep the same number of people employed. This is a classic example of how automation is increasing the “Resource Intensity” […]

Robots Driving Forklifts Score Venture Capital, Create Jobs

Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks Covid-19’s impact on trade. Sign up here , and subscribe to our Covid-19 podcast for the latest news and analysis on the pandemic.

Silicon Valley investors are increasing bets on a Pittsburgh company that turns a venerable machine of the past century of industrialization — the forklift — into a driver of the e-commerce boom.

Seegrid Corp., a maker of autonomous forklifts and robot-powered vehicles used to move materials around warehouses and factories, just closed on equity financing totaling $52 million from Menlo, California-based venture fund G2VP LLC and an undisclosed group […]

Robots Driving Forklifts Score Venture Capital, Create Jobs

Robots Driving Forklifts Score Venture Capital, Create Jobs

(Bloomberg) — Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks Covid-19’s impact on trade. Sign up here, and subscribe to our Covid-19 podcast for the latest news and analysis on the pandemic.

Silicon Valley investors are increasing bets on a Pittsburgh company that turns a venerable machine of the past century of industrialization — the forklift — into a driver of the e-commerce boom.

Seegrid Corp., a maker of autonomous forklifts and robot-powered vehicles used to move materials around warehouses and factories, just closed on equity financing totaling $52 million from Menlo, California-based venture fund G2VP LLC and an undisclosed group […]

“Down But Not Out: Resilience in a Post-COVID World” – Keynote Speech by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director, MAS, at Singapore Maritime Lecture, on 2 September 2020

Good afternoon to everyone tuning in from Asia, and good morning to the rest watching from across the globe.

Let me thank the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) for the opportunity to deliver this Singapore Maritime Lecture virtually.

The global economy is facing its worst crisis since the Second World War. The IMF has forecast that the global economy will shrink by 4.9% this year. According to the WTO, global merchandise trade volumes contracted by an estimated 14% in the first half of 2020. And the recovery will not be spectacular – even in its more optimistic scenario, […]

Leveraging Tech for the Re-Industrializing of America

Leveraging Tech for the Re-Industrializing of America

As far back as the 1980s, there was a great deal of public handwringing over a development that became known as the “hollowing out” of America’s economy. This meant that the country’s manufacturing sector was deteriorating because companies were opting to shift their production to low-wage factories overseas, leaving the nation without robust production capabilities while posing a threat to full employment.

That phenomenon was not unique to the United States. Japan and other developed countries also followed a similar shift of production to emerging countries where labor costs were a fraction of what was being paid at home. After […]

Edmund Phelps considers the effects of automation and artificial intelligence from the perspective of welfare economics

Edmund Phelps considers the effects of automation and artificial intelligence from the perspective of welfare economics

The robots are no longer coming; they are here. The COVID-19 pandemic is hastening the spread of artificial intelligence (AI), but few have fully considered the short- and long-run consequences.

In thinking about AI, it is natural to start from the perspective of welfare economics – productivity and distribution. What are the economic effects of robots that can replicate human labour? Such concerns are not new. In the nineteenth century, many feared that new mechanical and industrial innovations would “replace” workers. The same concerns are being echoed today.

Consider a model of a national economy in which labour performed by robots […]