In discussing the presentation on “Demographics and Innovation” by François Derrien, the speaker noted that the paper successfully gathered various data to control for factors that appear to be correlated with age structure and innovation. She also underscored the policy implications of coping with an aging population, such as incentivizing childbirth and encouraging younger and skilled immigration. She further expressed curiosity on whether the authors would draw a similar conclusion if their analysis would be conducted using data from Asian countries.​

Are younger labor forces more innovative? The authors attempt to answer this question using the native-born labor force projected based on local historical births in the US. They used three successive levels of analysis to eliminate or examine effects such as firm and inventor life cycles. They also established that innovation activities reflect the innovative characteristics of younger labor forces, and firms in younger labor markets have higher valuations.

Some member-nations of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) will see their working-age population grow or slightly decline by 2050; others will see them shrink. Several APEC countries rely on migration to expand their labor force and GDP. The labor force participation rates among people aged 50-64 and women aged 15-64 are expected to rise in almost all APEC member countries by 2050, and affect the growth in GDP per worker. Policies should focus on migration, resolving bilateral issues, the health and training of elderly workers, child care, and gender wage gap.

Reacting to the main presentation, the author noted the importance of the topic health capacity to work and the useful results of the research, as it investigates the extent to which older Japanese people could enlarge the labor supply. Nonetheless, he pointed out potential issues with the two methods used in the study.

The labor force participation rate among Japanese men and women over the age of 65 has increased since 2010. This research shows that older people in Japan have a significant capacity to work at older ages. A follow-up study found, however, that after retirement salaried men who held jobs at age 54 have few employment opportunities and tend to become underemployed.

The presenter noted that the regression estimates are very low in the table on changes in robot inputs and impact on employment. He also suggested further disagreggating the analysis at residence, gender, and education levels.

Despite the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, job prospects in Asia are positive. Emerging technologies often automate only some tasks of a job, not the entire job. They result in the creation of non-routine, cognitive jobs, which have witnessed wage growth. Robot use, however, could lower the share of routine employment.​

In his reaction, the presenter noted that in theRepublic of Korea, the wage profile follows seniority, and the notion of equal pay for equal-value work is not prevalent. Therefore, wage is not a good indicator of productivity, and the paper needs to do more to incorporate overall changes in labor quality. ​

The authors conducted research to analyze the Republic of Korea’s human resource development from 1986 to 2016, measure changes in labor resources, and project labor quality and quantity growth up to 2040. They found that the labor quantity growth rate declined from the late 1980s to 2016, but the labor quality growth rate was sustained, and is expected to be sustained until 2035. Employing more elderly and female workers could help push labor quantity growth. ​