Professional Documents
Culture Documents
BacksNews Volume 8 Issue 09
08Jan2019
The future is dim for Americans without
college degrees
AMERICA’S AGEING economic boom can still produce pleasant surprises. Companies added
an astonishing 312,000 new jobs in December, the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported on
January 4th, and raised pay at the fastest clip in years. For the third of workingage Americans
without any college education, such spells of rapid income growth have been exceedingly rare,
not only since the financial crisis but in the past halfcentury. But however long this expansion
lasts, their economic prospects still look grim.
The misfortunes of the leftbehind were a recurring topic at this year’s meeting, in Atlanta, of the
American Economic Association, one of the biggest annual convocations of economists. David
Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered the most pointed characterisation,
drawing on forthcoming research coauthored with Juliette Fournier, also of MIT. The earnings of
workers without a college education have scarcely risen in 50 years, after adjusting for inflation;
for men they have fallen. This stagnation coincided with tectonic changes in American
employment. The share of jobs that require either a lot of training, or very little, has grown since
1970. Much of the production and office work that requires moderate training, which once
employed vast numbers of workers without college degrees, has disappeared, either shipped
abroad or offloaded on robots and computers. The resulting hardship has been implicated in a
rise in mortality in parts of America and a turn toward angry nationalism that helped put Donald
Trump in the White House.
Working out what to do about those left behind by economic progress is becoming an obsession
of policy wonks. Mr Autor and Ms Fournier provide important new context. In the 1950s, they
show, there was almost no relationship between how densely populated a place was and the
share of its residents with college degrees. That has changed utterly: the share of the
workingage population with a college degree is now 20 percentage points higher in urban
places than it is in rural ones. In 1970 that gap was just five percentage points. Several decades
ago midskilled work was clustered in big cities, while lowskilled work was most prevalent in the
countryside. No longer; those midskilled jobs that remain are more likely to be found in rural
areas than in urban ones.
As the geographical pattern of work has shifted, so has that of wages. Economists have long
acknowledged the existence of an urban wage premium: workers in more densely populated
places earn more, in part because of the productivity benefits of crowding together that nurture
urban growth in the first place. This pay premium used to hold across the range of skills. In 1970
workers without any college education could expect to get a boost to their earnings when they
moved to a big city, just as bettereducated workers did. Since then the urban wage advantage
for welleducated workers has become more pronounced, even as that for lesseducated
workers has all but disappeared.
Economists seeking to explain why poorer Americans are not moving to find better opportunities
should take note, Mr Autor mused in his lecture. Explanations for falling mobility in America
generally focus on obstacles to migration—expensive urban housing, locationspecific
occupational licences, varying government benefits and so on. These no doubt matter, but they
may not be the whole story. Often, people may be staying where their economic prospects are
best.
That is clearest among the welloff. In the past halfcentury young adults tended to move from
less populous to more populous places, often to attend university. Once they became
middleaged they tended to move to suburban or rural locations. That has become far less likely.
Falling mobility seems to reflect, in part, the fact that people who move to big cities tend to stay
there, kept by higher wages, better amenities and crime rates in cities that are lower than they
used to be.
But for workers without a college education, moving to big cities in the first place may provide no
benefit. Building more affordable housing in those cities would allow them to accommodate
more people. But the collapse of the urban wage premium for lesseducated workers means
that the extra housing would mostly attract additional college graduates.
The last mile
For now, technological progress is reinforcing these trends. When a sufficient number of people
asked by Census officials to name their career respond with a previously untracked occupation
(such as programmer or barista), the officials introduce a new occupational category. Analysing
recent additions, Mr Autor and Ms Fournier reckon that new types of jobs fall into three broad
categories: frontier work, closely associated with new technologies; wealth work, catering to the
needs of welltodo professionals; and “lastmile jobs”, which Mr Autor characterises as those
left over when most of a task has been automated. That includes delivery services, picking
packages in Amazon warehouses and scouring socialmedia posts for offensive content.
Most jobs in the first two of these categories are located in cities, open mainly to holders of
college degrees and decently paid (frontier work is particularly lucrative). Only the lastmile jobs
are occupied disproportionately by workers without a college education. They are better than
nothing, but only just. Both wages and the quality of such jobs are typically low, which is just as
well, since they are unlikely to avoid the creeping tide of automation for very long.
Perhaps the past will not prove a prologue. Some futurists, including Daniel Susskind of the
University of Oxford, suggest that artificial intelligence may eventually displace highly trained
professionals, just as earlier innovations squeezed out others. That might not help leftbehind
workers but would reduce both inequality (though by levelling down, not up) and the cost of
crucial services. Meanwhile, as Mr Autor said, there is no land of opportunity for workers without
a college education. That is a dismal state of affairs, and one the thousands of economists in
Atlanta are just starting to confront.
How the British Government Is Rehearsing
WorstCase Brexit Scenarios?
The British government has confirmed that the Brexit deal will finally get its postponed
parliamentary vote on Tuesday, January 15th. If lawmakers approve the agreement struck
between Prime Minister Theresa May and the European Union, then there will be an orderly
divorce on March 29th—but if not, the result will likely be chaotic.
On Monday, the British government continued preparations for the “nodeal” scenario by parking
87 trucks at the obscure Manston Airport, near the crucial port of Dover in Kent. The trucks will
drive to the port to stresstest the road network there.
Dover is the busiest ferry port in Europe and the main freight link between the U.K. and the
European mainland. If the U.K. crashes out of the EU without a Brexit deal, there will likely be
massive congestion at Dover, due to the new customs checks that will suddenly come into force.
Manston Airport would provide the emergency truck parking lot.
Meanwhile, according to consulting giant EY, the British financial sector is frantically shifting
around $1 trillion in assets from the U.K. to other financial hubs in the EU, such as Frankfurt.
“The closer we get to March 29th without a deal, the more assets will be transferred and
headcount hired locally or relocated,” said Omar Ali, EY’s U.K. financial services chief.
With the fateful date fast approaching, many have warned about the impact of a nodeal Brexit
on Britain’s food and medicine supplies—hence the truckrelated rehearsals in Kent.
Some ardent Brexiteers, such as former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, maintain a nodeal
Brexit is closest to the arrangement that the British people voted for in 2016, when they narrowly
backed Brexit in a referendum.
However, more than 200 lawmakers have signed a letter to May, demanding that she rule out a
nodeal Brexit. It is not clear how May could rule out the possibility, given that nodeal is the
default scenario if members of Parliament do not approve her deal. And although that deal
would certainly leave the U.K. worse off than it is now, for years subject to EU rules over which it
has no control, it is the only deal that is on the table.
Thus far, the numbers do not look good for May. The prime minister has repeatedly begged her
EU counterparts to provide more concessions that could let her win over skeptical
parliamentarians—and is still trying—but those other EU leaders are united in their resistance to
any further changes.
If May’s government loses its vote next week, it is quite possible that it will collapse. If that
happens, there are a range of possible scenarios: a new, likely hardBrexiteer Conservative
leader to replace May; a snap election; or perhaps even the formation of a minority government
by the opposition Labour Party, most members of which want a fresh referendum—though party
leader Jeremy Corbyn does not.
India’s GDP set to eclipse US’ by 2030:
StanChart
New York: Seven of the world’s top 10 economies by 2030 will likely be current emerging
markets.
The prediction for a shakeup of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) rankings comes in
new longterm forecasts by Standard Chartered Plc, which includes a projection for China to
become the largest economy by 2020, using purchasing power parity exchange rates and
nominal GDP. India will likely be larger than the US in the same time period while Indonesia will
break into the top 5 economies.
“Our longterm growth forecasts are underpinned by one key principle: countries’ share of world
GDP should eventually converge with their share of the world’s population, driven by the
convergence of per capita GDP between advanced and emerging economies,” Standard
Chartered economists led by David Mann wrote in a note.
They project trend growth for India to accelerate to 7.8% by the 2020s while China’s will
moderate to 5% by 2030 reflecting a natural slowdown given the economy’s size.
Asia’s share of global GDP, which rose to 28% last year from 20% in 2010, will likely reach 35%
by 2030—matching that of the euro area and US combined.
CBI vs CBI
The Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated Alok Kumar Verma as the director of the Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI) but, dampening the moral victory, barred him from taking fresh
policy decisions for the remaining three weeks of his term.
The ruling came two months after Verma was divested of his powers by the centre. With just
weeks to go for his 31 January retirement, the apex court’s move may have ensured a dignified
end to Verma’s career, but his powers as the CBI chief stand clipped.
A former senior CBI official said Verma was not out of the woods yet, as a selection committee
comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun
Kharge and Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi is set to review the Central Vigilance Commission’s
(CVC’s) findings against him.
“Alok Verma has not been exonerated yet. While the Supreme Court should have passed the
order two months back, the selection committee will now decide on whether Verma is free of
blame or not. What the court order has done is, it has retained the autonomy of the director for
the future where he cannot be arbitrarily sent on leave by the government,” said the former
official, requesting anonymity.
On 23 October, the centre sent both special director Rakesh Asthana and Verma on leave,
divesting them of their powers. The centre intervened after the battle between the two top cops
spun out of control with both levelling bribery and graft charges against each other. There is still
no clarity on if and when Asthana will resume service.
The matter led to a political slugfest on Tuesday, with Congress party spokesperson Randeep
Surjewala saying the “Supreme Court judgement is a lesson for PM Modi’s government.”
Justifying the action taken by the centre, finance minister Arun Jaitley said the decision was
aimed at protecting the reputation of the agency.
“This action taken was perfectly bona fide as there were crossallegations made by both the
officers, and in accordance with recommendations of the CVC. The government felt that in the
larger interest of fair and impartial investigation and credibility of CBI, the two officers must
recuse themselves,” Jaitley told reporters.
Jaitley added that the centre would comply with the SC’s order, which also upheld the protected
twoyear tenure of the CBI chief.
“The court apparently has strengthened the immunity given to the CBI director in the larger
interest of the fair and impartial working of the CBI. At the same time, the court has devised an
accountability mechanism. The directions of the court will obviously be complied with,” he said.
A threejudge bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices K.M. Joseph and
Sanjay Kishan Kaul set aside the 23 October order of the centre divesting Verma of his powers
and appointing CBI joint director Nageshwar Rao as the interim chief after Verma was sent on
leave.
Verma’s fate, however, rests on the final decision of the highpowered committee which has
been asked to convene a meeting within a week to examine the CVC’s charges against him.
“Alok Kumar Verma as the director, CBI during the interregnum and in terms of this order will be
confined only to the exercise of the ongoing routine functions without any fresh initiative, having
no major policy or institutional implications,” the judgement said.
Highlighting the legislative intent behind certain provisions of the Delhi Special Police
Establishment Act, 1946, the court held that it was to ensure “complete insulation of the office of
the Director, CBI from all kinds of extraneous influences and uphold the integrity and
independence of the institution of the CBI as a whole”.
The very public fallout between the two top officials of the CBI has not only sullied the agency’s
reputation but also affected its work, because Rao too is not allowed to take fresh policy
decisions.
The main issue for consideration before the apex court was whether the government should
have consulted the highpowered committee before sending Verma on leave.
The centre, through attorney general K.K. Venugopal, had justified the government’s decision
not to seek the approval of the highpowered committee on the grounds that the committee’s
mandate was limited to recommending names for the post of CBI director. He claimed that the
government’s intervention was made in public interest and that the primary concern was to
protect people’s faith and restore confidence in the CBI as public opinion was becoming
negative because of the fight between Verma and Asthana.
The government’s decision to divest Verma of powers was opposed by his lawyer and eminent
jurist Fali Nariman, who relied on a 1997 judgment (Vineet Narain versus Union of India) that
laid down guidelines on the functioning of the CVC and the CBI.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta had argued on behalf of the CVC that the centre was
empowered to make a reference to the CVC for inquiries against CBI officials. The only
limitation the CVC faces is that it cannot ask the CBI to decide a case in a particular manner.
The apex court was ruling on a batch of petitions, including one filed by Prashant Bhushanled
nongovernmental organization Common Cause, who have challenged the order sending the
CBI director on leave and divesting him of all powers. Verma, in his plea, said the centre’s action
was “patently illegal” and in violation of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, which
provided the CBI director a twoyear term.
VCs invested Record $9.3 Billion Into AI
Startups Last Year
Artificial intelligence was a nobrainer bet for humans in 2018. Venture capital funding of AI
companies soared 72 percent last year, hitting a record $9.3 billion, according to a new report
from PwC and CB Insights.
The surge comes after three years of steadily increasing investment, with the average annual
increase from 2015 to 2017 at 28 percent. The recent boost partly reflects the frothy funding
environment overall: venture investing in the U.S. hit $99.5 billion in 2018, the highest level
since 2000.
It also indicates larger excitement around the industry. College students last year enrolled in
introductory AI and machine learning classes in record numbers, the number of academic
papers on the topic shot up and officials mentioned the technology in more than 70 meetings of
the U.S. Congress, according to Stanford University analysis of transcripts.
AI technology has matured in recent years, as more companies have started using predictive
algorithms and other automated techniques across myriad disciplines. In the fourth quarter, the
largest AI deal in the U.S. was a $400 million funding round raised by synthetic biology startup
Zymergen Inc. Zymergen uses AIpowered robots to genetically engineer microbes to create
new materials like flexible glass and improve existing ones like paint that resists radar detection.
The largest deal in AI in the U.S. for all of 2018 was selfdriving car startup Zoox Inc.’s $500
million funding round. And even that was dwarfed overseas by the $600 million investors plowed
into Beijingbased SenseTime Group Ltd. SenseTime sells software that recognizes people and
objects, and with a $4.5 billion valuation, is the world’s most valuable AI startup.
But the growth hasn’t been distributed evenly. For the first time since at least 2013, the number
of deals in AI decreased, even as total money invested surged an indication that investors are
beginning to concentrate their bets on the companies they see as the winners. The trend toward
selectivity was especially pronounced in seedstage startups, with seedstage deals falling from
39 percent of total deals in 2017 to just 30 percent in 2018.
"There’s big overcrowding at the seed stage," said CB Insights intelligence analyst Mike Wholey.
"It’s gotten really easy with opensource products to start an AI company."