1. 討論亞洲人口老化 Large parts of Asia are getting old before they get rich Even poor countries must start planning for an ageing population A bulge in a country’s working-age population is a blessing. Lots of workers support relatively few children and retired people. So long as the labour market can absorb a surge of job-seekers, output per head will rise. That can boost savings and investment, leading to higher economic growth, more productivity gains and developmental lift-off. Yet for countries that fail to seize this opportunity, the results can be grim—as many developing countries may soon discover. ….. **Dividend booster ** India provides a happier example of this. A continent-size country, its boom is fuelled by internal migration. Its last census, in 2011, counted 450m internal migrants. Many travel from the poor north to the more prosperous south and west, to seize new opportunities and, increasingly, to take up those being vacated by the south’s ageing workers. It is an inspiring illustration of what relatively unfettered labour markets can do—and a lesson for Japan, Thailand and governments everywhere. 2. 美國製造業越來越沒有效率 Why American manufacturing is becoming less efficient The unfortunate reversal of a long-standing trend A better clue is provided by what went well in earlier decades. During the 1990s and 2000s manufacturing productivity soared, with the production of computers and electronics, especially semiconductor chips, leading the way. Gains seem to have topped out at around the time things went wrong more broadly, in the early 2010s. All told, more than a third of the overall slowdown in manufacturing since 2011 is accounted for by computers and electronics. Yet problems with computers are not the whole story. Productivity has fallen in both durable manufacturing, which includes most tech, and the non-durable sort, which includes items like cigarettes and clothes. Fourteen out of 19 manufacturing sub-sectors, from machinery to textiles, saw declines during the 2010s. Perhaps all those computers have been put to poor use. America may be a technology superpower, but when it comes to using tech in the physical world it lags behind others. It ranks seventh out of 15 countries in the adoption of robots per worker, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think-tank. South Korea, the world leader, uses over three times more robots per worker. And after adjusting for average wages—richer countries tend to be more advanced—America ranks 11th. …. Could things change? Industrial-policy advocates hope that America’s subsidies for chip production and green tech will lead to a manufacturing renaissance. The idea is to boost productivity by enticing companies and investment to cluster in a given region, much as Shenzhen in China used its status as a special economic zone to become an impressive manufacturing hub. A breakthrough in robotics or artificial intelligence could push things along, just as information technology led to a surge in productivity from 1995 to 2004. For the moment, though, this is just speculation. And American manufacturing needs all the help it can get. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

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