Robots might be saving the world from a demographic disaster

pulse

March 8, 2017 9:01 PM

An aging population need not necessarily lead to slower growth, according to research by Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo from MIT.

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An aging population and its negative implications for the global economy has been a worry among economists for some time now.

Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo from the

Secular Stagnation? The Effect of Aging on Economic Growth in the Age of Automation." The paper continues, "O

"Since the early 1990s or 2000s, the periods commonly viewed as the beginning of the adverse effects of aging in much of the advanced world, there is no negative association between aging and lower GDP per capita," they find in their research.

In fact, the increasing scarcity of labor due to aging might actually be spurring the increased adoption of labor-saving technology. "A shortage of younger and middle-aged workers can trigger so much more adoption of new automation technologies that the negative effects of labor scarcity could be completely neutralized or even reversed," they note.

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