Population Aging, Productivity, and Technology in Japan

Wednesday, January 29, 2020
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
(Pacific)
Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, Third Floor, Central, C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305
Speaker: 
  • Daiji Kawaguchi, Professor of Economics, University of Tokyo

Japan faces a rapid population decrease and aging. Workers’ aging is negatively associated with labor productivity. For instance, a 10% increase in the fraction of workers aged 55 and above is associated with a 3% decrease in labor productivity. Kawaguchi will present his recent research that assesses the impact of population aging on labor productivity. He will also address whether the adoption of a new technology, such as purchases of industrial robot or information and communications technology (ICT) equipment, can mitigate the negative impact of worker’ aging on labor productivity and what impact, if any, it has on Japan moving forward in addressing its aging population, adoption of new technology, and increasing labor shortage.

SPEAKER

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Portrait of Daiji Kawaguchi

Daiji Kawaguchi is Professor of Economics at the University of Tokyo. Dr. Kawaguchi graduated from Waseda University (B.A., 1994), Hitotsubashi University, (M.A., 1996) and Michigan State University (Ph.D., 2002). In addition to his position at U of Tokyo, Kawaguchi is a Research Associate of Tokyo Center for Economic Research. Before joining University of Tokyo faculty in 2016, Kawaguchi was Assistant Professor of Economics at Osaka University (2002-03) and University of Tsukuba (2003-05), and Associate and full Professor at Hitotsubashi University (2005-2016).