Answered step by step
Verified Expert Solution
Link Copied!

Question

1 Approved Answer

I need a 100 word paragraph answering the question below based on the Case Study below Working in the Fourth Industrial Revolution signals the increasing

image text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribed

I need a 100 word paragraph answering the question below based on the Case Study below

Working in the Fourth Industrial Revolution signals the increasing likelihood of working alongside ever-smarter machines. Some advice workers to complement, not compete with, Al-powered tools. How would you do so?

image text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribed
CASE Economic Environments of the United Kingdom, and Italy. The United States had it even West: Problems, Puzzles, and the worse. Four out of five households saw flat or falling income before factoring in taxes and transfers. Fourth Industrial Revolution Likewise, real median not wealth has not recovered in 13 countries since the financial crisis; it declined from Scanning the emerging economies, such as China, India, $104,371 to $80,659 on average in 22 developed econo- Brazil, and Indonesia, we find entrepreneurial folks and en- mies between 2007 and 2018. This has hit workers the terprising companies seeking brighter futures. Scanning hardest. In the United States, again, the average net worth the developed economies of the West, such as Canada, per household $692,100. However, the median net worth is Germany, Italy, and the United States, we find folks $97,300-median is the middle point where half the house- chasing similar dreams. Different economic circumstances, holds have more, and half have less. Why the big difference? however, means those in the developed economies face dif- The average, or the "mean, is skewed by the super-rich. ferent opportunities and challenges than their counterparts Consequently, income inequality, compounded by wealth in the emerging economies. disparities, are growing problems throughout developed The sheer stature of Western markets-although 14 economies, as the rich reap disproportional rewards and percent of the global population, they account for 40 per- leave workers farther behind. $3 cent of global GDP-makes them big, powerful players in On the policy front, low and zero interest rate policies the global economy. Still, ongoing trends and tough situa- implemented by anxious central bankers meant that real tions give pause. Yes, the developed economies currently Interest rates were not just low within the context of mod- account for 40 percent of global GDP, but their share was em times-they were at the lowest levels in 5,000 years.4 57 percent in 2000 and is heading to 37 percent by 2025.1 Movement in some markets, notably Japan, Sweden, and Yes, companies in the developed economies are the mak- Switzerland, toward negative interest rate policies created ers of innovative, world-class processes and products. the unprecedented situation whereby investors paid gov- Their competitors in emerging economies, meanwhile, are emments to hold their money. In 2019, in the latest sign of cleverly reinventing systems of production and distribution ebbing confidence, Japanese and European Investors paid and experimenting with new business models. So, from a their governments to hold more than $11 trillion of their big picture point of view, managers ask a basic question: bonds. These trends only worsened in the financial fallout as production frontiers shift, market systems transform, of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic environments evolve, and emerging economies Notwithstanding extraordinary monetary expansion and steadily predominate, what will the developed economies of increasing fiscal stimulus in nearly every Western market, the West do? falling aggregate demand meant that, for the first time since the Great Depression, deflation, not inflation, posed the greatest systemic risk. Countries, with fewer and fewer pol- Persistent Problems and Troublesome Anomalies icy options, resorted to competitive currency devaluations while central bankers speculated about "helicopter money" Since the 2008 financial crisis, a phenomenon largely made and politicians debated universal basic income schemes. in the West, real cumulative growth in the developed econo- Public debt and unfunded nondebt liabilities grew ominously mies has struggled-the EU recorded negative 2 percent high, weighing down public-sector balance sheets. Fading while the United States hit 34 percent versus 139 percent public-sector investment, given growing debt burdens and In China and 96 percent in India." Slow growth fuels a cas- falling aggregate demand, aggravated market shortfalls. cade of problems. The West wrestles with persistent unem- Problems and puzzles in the West have significant policy ployment, slowing wage growth, fraying social security nets, consequences. Notably, growing state intervention in the and worsening income inequality. For instance, wages grew marketplace tests the legitimacy of economic freedom in at 98 percent for households in nearly every developed the developed economies. In the United States, long the economy from 1995 to 2004. From 2005 to 2014, however, chief advocate of the free market ideology and laissez-faire wage stagnation prevailed. Since then, wage income had outlook, growing government involvement in its economy decreased for many households in France, Netherlands, had dropped It from a free to mostly free ranking In 2016.Similarly, Its economic problems have triggered politi- its subsequent iterations. Then, radical productivity innova- cal difficulties; as reported in Chapter 3, the United States tions led to booming growth, growing income, and expanding fell from a full to a flawed democracy in 2017. Elsewhere, employment. Now, scanning the emerging techno-landscape, economic nationalism, notably BREXIT, and escalating pop- analysts wondered what the heck was truly happening. ulism, such as seen in the "mouvement des gilets jaunes" Might the economies of the West, given the emergent Fourth (yellow vest movement) in France or the "Anti-Extradition Industrial Revolution, be in the early stage of a fundamental Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB)" movement in Hong Kong, shift in how people work, consumers spend, companies com- and social unrest and civil strife, dramatically highlighted by pete, officials regulate, and markets perform? ? the Black Lives Matter movement, complicated economic policies. The COVID-19 pandemic tumbled national econ- omles, particularly in developed countries, into recession. The Promise and Peril of the Fourth Industrial The global economy shrank almost 4.9 percent, the United Revolution States's GNP fell eight percent, and market problems world- wide echoed the Great Depression of the 1930s. Table 4.9 profiles the plvotal stages in how we have produced, consumed, and worked over the past 250 years or so. Every few generations a wave of technology rolls In that transforms What's Next for the West? economies and opens new frontiers. Today, the systemic con- Increasingly, mindful of the comeback of emerging econ- vergence of the physical and digital world ushers in the Fourth omies, managers ask what's next for the West. Would Industrial Revolution. This era, even if it only faintly echoes aggressive growth stimuli and fiscal engineering finally preceding stages, will unleash tools and techniques that radi- revitalize aggregate demand? Could even looser monetary cally disrupt the Idea of work, productivity, and prosperity. policy generate organic growth? Would the unemployed The "Internet of things" steadily digitizes the physical In Portugal, Italy, France, and Spain, among others, rejoin world, tracking data feeds among sensors loaded in billions the workforce? How might consumers, from Australia to of objects. Clever folks synthesize Ingenious materials and the United States, regain their mojo and resume spend- redesign production and consumption systems to maximize Ing? Others raised far more worrisome questions. Might esource efficiencies. 3-D printing, as "one of the pillars of ong-term stagnation be the price the West must pay for the future of manufacturing," signals that big factories in far- using extreme monetary and fiscal policies to pull consumer away places may be unnecessary to achieve efficient pro- demand forward? Was It finally time to complement, if not duction. The falling cost of making smaller batches of a wider replace, conventional monetary measures with estimators variety of products opens scenarios where companies make of happiness, stability, and sustainability to better estimate Items tailored to a customer's request. Robotic platforms productivity and prosperity? Ideologically, would economic steadily support small-scale factorles, located anywhere and freedom survive growing state intervention? Ultimately, how everywhere, that support mass customization. Already, robot might the developed economies compete, presuming they makers contend that machines are more cost-effective than can, against enterprising emerging economies? humans in an expanding range of applications, suggesting Searching here, there, and everywhere for answers, ana- that "We're on the cusp of completely changing manufac lyats projected wide-ranging scenarios. But, as growth stayed turing and distribution. I think It's not as a singular event, stuck In a rut and policymakers applied drastic tactics, atten- but it will ultimately have as big an impact as the Internet." ton turned to a provocative possibility. Looking to the past Likewise, cheap smartphones, each equivalent to the super- for Insight centered on preceding growth spurts in the West, computers of a generation or two ago and increasingly In especially those associated with the Industrial Revolution and everyone's pocket, turbocharge the techno sphere. TABLE 4.9 Stages of the Industrial Revolution Slage Start Catalyst Key Outcomes 1784 Water- and ateam-powered mechanical production equipment. Transition from an agrarian to industrial economy. 1870 Electrical energy and division of labor supported widespread, Moved many workers from agrarian to Industrial lifestyles. large-scale Industrialization. Mass production, mass Resulting jobs and careers fueled the rise of the middle consumption, mass media, and masa distribution ensued. class and, by extension, property rights, the rule of law, and democracy. 1970 Electronics and information technology opened a digital world. Connectivity resets automation, production, communication, Exploration opened business frontiers and career paths. and collaboration standards. Emergence of knowledge workers and the creative class. 10 Ubiquitous connectivity, artificial Inteligence-based software, big Emerging cyber-physical systems transform production and data platforms, and robotic technologies expand the scale and consumpilon processes. Revolutionary efficiencies drive a new scope of the techno sphere cycle of global economic activity.Timing Revolutions The prospect of tech-utopia in the form of the Fourth Industrial Revolution signaled an alternative path. Robots, Preceding iterations of the Industrial Revolution transformed 3-D printing, artificial intelligence, infinite connectivity, to economic logics, marketplace activities, and workplace say nothing of nanotechnology, implantable devices, standards. Earlier, for instance, machine power replaced wearable tech, and sentient machines, arguably reset the farm labor-in 1800, 83 percent of the U.S. labor force was dimensions and dynamics of economic environments in employed in agriculture; in 1900, it was 41 percent; today, the favor of the West. Various meta-measures, notably it's less than 2 percent. Likewise, automation replaced fac- the GCI, Gil, and WCI indices, indicate that the West is tory labor-in 1965, 28 percent of the U.S. labor force was employed in manufacturing; today, it's about 10 percent.9 superbly positioned to imagine and invent the tools of the future-as we see in Table 4.8, countries like Switzerland, Now, as had happened in farming and manufacturing, busi- Sweden, United States, and Germany consistently rank in ness processes, historically the realm of white-collar jobs, the top. As had happened in the early days of the first are becoming automated via machine learning that progres- Industrial Revolution, the West's development of the then sively taps artificial intelligence to turbocharge the system. tools of the future shifted the economic center of gravity. Workers in a wide range of professions (.e., accounting, Once again, some believed, and many in the West hoped, education, and medicine) and industries (i.e., transportation, history would repeat. Those in the East, understandably, manufacturing, energy) face growing job insecurity. Some forecast a different future, essentially calling for going expect emerging techno-systems, in the form of frightfully back to the future, circa 1799; then, the East dominated powerful thinking machines applying increasingly sophisti- the global economy. cated learning-based algorithms, joining, and perhaps re- placing, executives. 90 The drama and trauma of economics are endlessly fascinating. Currently, few other issues captivate folks Unlike before, where these shifts unfolded over three or more than mapping the performance and forecasting the four generations, the West faces the unprecedented chal- potential of economic environments worldwide. From lenge of experiencing the latest shift in a single generation. Beijing to Washington, from Tokyo to New Delhi, from Forecasts are dire: estimates see nearly half of the jobs in Jakarta to Berlin, workers, consumers, companies, citi- developed economies at high risk from the changes under- zens, regulators, and governments, as you yourself are way in digitization and automation." Artificial intelligence doing right now, wonder what it all means to their lives and robots will eliminate 75 million jobs worldwide by 2022. and their livelihoods. Worse still, more than half of all tasks in the workplace will be done by machines by 2025. Still, there are bright linings in the apocalypse. The World QUESTIONS Economic Forum estimates that more than 130 million new jobs will be created by machines in that time frame, Indeed, 4-3 Forecast your personal future given (1) the ongoing comeback it advised that "Despite bringing widespread disruption, the of emerging economies and then (2) the techno-transformations advent of machines, robots and algorithm could actually powered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Which scenario have a positive impact on human employment." People, do you prefer? Why? however, must learn new ideas, master new skills, and ac- 4-4 Forecast your professional future given (1) the ongoing quire new abilities to stay ahead of the "seismic shift" in how comeback of emerging economies and then (2) the techno- we use machines. Longer term, people anticipate lifelong transformations powered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. learning and continual adaptation as the Fourth Industrial Which scenario do you prefer? Why? Revolution transforms the economic environment. 4-5 Historically, those in the West hold that economic freedom is the catalyst of prosperity. Given the recent performance of Change and Consequences emerging economies, do you think state capitalism might do a better job? By definition, a revolution radically disrupts, if not resets, exis- 4-6 In the realm of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, should govern- tence. In the economic realm, the West faces daunting pros- ments estimate performance with monetary aggregates, like pects. In the least, expanding challenges from fast-growing, GDP, or sustainability and stability, like human development or competitive, and innovative competitors from the East are unavoidable. The improving performance and potential of happiness? emerging economies, as spotlighted throughout the chapter, 4-7 Working in the Fourth Industrial Revolution signals the increase increasingly determines the economic center of gravity for ing likelihood of working alongside ever-smarter machines. the world. Initiatives, notably China's One Belt, One Road, Some advice workers to complement, not compete with, open immense possibilities to blaze brighter futures. Built on Al-powered tools. How would you do so? a demographic base of billions of people, many of whom are 4-8 Who will likely benefit more from the Fourth Industrial willing to work far harder for far less than others, the East Revolution: workers in developed, emerging, or developing threatens intense, Immense competition to the West. economies? Why

Step by Step Solution

There are 3 Steps involved in it

Step: 1

blur-text-image

Get Instant Access to Expert-Tailored Solutions

See step-by-step solutions with expert insights and AI powered tools for academic success

Step: 2

blur-text-image

Step: 3

blur-text-image

Ace Your Homework with AI

Get the answers you need in no time with our AI-driven, step-by-step assistance

Get Started

Recommended Textbook for

International economics

Authors: Robert J. Carbaugh

13th Edition

978-1439038949, 1439038945, 978-8131518823

More Books

Students also viewed these Economics questions

Question

Is there someone at work who encourages my development? LO.1

Answered: 1 week ago

Question

Identify the four reasons for project closure. LO2

Answered: 1 week ago

Question

List and briefly describe the ways projects may be closed. LO2

Answered: 1 week ago