Straits Times (Singapore):
Fear all working robots, not just big bionic arms
1 July 2015
A February study by economists Georg Graetz of Uppsala University and Guy Michaels of the London School of Economics (LSE), using data from the International Federation of Robotics, has shown that robots of the same quality have become almost 80 per cent cheaper between 1990 and 2005. In the 17 countries they studied, increasing use of robots raised annual growth of labour productivity by 0.36 percentage point, a figure which is ''fairly comparable to the estimated total contribution of steam technology to British annual labour productivity growth of around 0.35 percentage point, which was, however, sustained over a period that was about four times longer, from 1850-1910'', the researchers noted.
This article was published online by the Straits Times (Singapore) on July 1, 2015
Link to article here
Related publications
'Robots at Work', Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels, Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper No.1335, March 2015
Related links
Georg Graetz webpage
Guy Michaels webpage
Labour Markets Programme webpage