Tag: inequality

Robots will help people, not replace them

Robots will help people, not replace them

The idea that automation will drive up unemployment or drive down wages — in other words, that robots will take people’s jobs — has become almost an article of faith for many Americans.

Everyone can point to instances of automation reducing demand for certain workers. And with so-called artificial intelligence technology improving rapidly, there’s widespread worry that many humans will simply be made obsolete. News outlets are full of eye-grabbing forecasts of the percentage of jobs that will be replaced.

But those estimates are little more than guesswork. The truth is, nobody knows how many jobs will be replaced by automation, […]

Driven by technology

Driven by technology

Santosh Kumar Dash

The accession of Trump to US presidency, the move towards exit of Britain from the European Union and the referendum in Italy have all given nightmares to economists chanting the mantra, “Free trade is good for everybody”. It is ironic that the sellers of free trade and globalisation are now batting for restrictions and protectionism. Beneath this call for mercantilism lies the rise in unemployment and inequality in most advanced countries. The majority of voters in industrialised countries now increasingly believe that job losses have risen as a result of free trade and globalisation. A careful […]

Robots Might Turn Out to Be Great Co-Workers

Robots Might Turn Out to Be Great Co-Workers

(Bloomberg Opinion) — The idea that automation will drive up unemployment or drive down wages — in other words, that robots will take people’s jobs — has become almost an article of faith for many Americans. Everyone can point to instances of automation reducing demand for certain workers. And with so-called artificial intelligence technology improving rapidly, there’s widespread worry that many humans will simply be made obsolete. News outlets are full of eye-grabbing forecasts of the percentage of jobs that will be replaced.But those estimates are little more than guesswork. The truth is, nobody knows how many jobs will […]

Industrial robots are bringing jobs back home, but not for low-skilled workers

Industrial robots are bringing jobs back home, but not for low-skilled workers

An immense rise in automation by means of industrial robots has taken place. Figures from the International Federation of Robotics reveal that while automation was almost an unkown phenomenon in the 1970s, with fewer than 3000 industrial robots installed worldwide, the operational stock of robots is nowadays already approaching 2.5 million .

At the same time, nations tend to apply more and more protectionist policies. The notion gains ground that the relocation of production from foreign countries to the home country and the renegotiation of trade deals would bring jobs back home. This argument has been most prominently expressed by […]

Automation is remaking Mississippi jobs: Are workers ready?

Automation is remaking Mississippi jobs: Are workers ready?

A high school student repairs a car in an automotive shop class. Jobs in automotive body repair are relatively safe from automation, and they don’t require a college degree. Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Mississippi Learning newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes with trends and top stories about education in Mississippi. Subscribe today!

Rising use of automated technologies has eliminated thousands of jobs in Mississippi, and many more are at risk, according to a recent report by the Brookings Institution. The report looked at the percentage of tasks — that is, what people actually […]

The Evolution of Work in Urban Labor Markets

The Evolution of Work in Urban Labor Markets

The Google logo adorns the outside of their New York City office, June 3, 2019. Over the past four decades, wage inequality in the U.S. has grown remarkably, with the earnings of the most educated increasing and the earnings of the least educated falling in real terms. But that’s not the whole story. The polarization of employment by educational attainment has been accompanied by—and is likely the result of—a less widely recognized polarization of jobs across regions.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor gave an interesting keynote address on this topic at the annual conference of MIT’s Initiative on […]

The Indignity of Universal Basic Income

The Indignity of Universal Basic Income

There is an increasing push to implement some form of Universal Basic Income (UBI), especially among tech elites who believe that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will bring about mass technologically-driven unemployment. Andrew Yang, the founder of Venture for America, is running for president on the belief that a UBI will resolve many of the woes of the losers of economic transition in recent decades. There is something to be said for the idea of UBI as a more efficient replacement for today’s bureaucratic welfare systems. And if it were somehow feasible, it would certainly attest to the […]

The Indignity of Universal Basic Income

The Indignity of Universal Basic Income

There is an increasing push to implement some form of Universal Basic Income (UBI), especially among tech elites who believe that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will bring about mass technologically-driven unemployment. Andrew Yang, the founder of Venture for America, is running for president on the belief that a UBI will resolve many of the woes of the losers of economic transition in recent decades. There is something to be said for the idea of UBI as a more efficient replacement for today’s bureaucratic welfare systems. And if it were somehow feasible, it would certainly attest to the […]

Explaining the labor share: automation vs labor market institutions

Guimarães, Luis and Gil, Pedro (2019): Explaining the labor share: automation vs labor market institutions.

This is the latest version of this item. Abstract

In this paper, we build a theoretical model to study the effects of automation and labor market institutions on the labor share. In our model, firms choose between two technologies: an automated technology and a manual technology. In this context, the labor share reflects both the average wage level (versus output) and the distribution of firms between the two technologies. Our model offers three main insights. First, automation-augmenting shocks reduce the labor share but […]

Automation to push 40-160 m women for occupational transition by 2030: Study

Automation to push 40-160 m women for occupational transition by 2030: Study

The estimate presented in the Women Deliver Conference 2019 today at Vancouver, Canada; is based on the study of six mature economies (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and four emerging economies (China, India, Mexico, and South Africa), which together account for around half of the world’s population and about 60 percent of global GDP.

Image Credit: @WomenDeliver The age of automation, and on the near horizon, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies offer new job opportunities and avenues for economic advancement, but women face new challenges overlaid on long-established ones. Between 40 million and […]