Yale University Economics Professor and Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller says technology is to blame for all of the world's problems and rising economic inequality.
“People are worried about technology,” Shiller told Yahoo Finance. “It’s all of these amazing devices that are out there helping us—they’re great — but the benefits of them seem to go substantially toward a minority of wealthy people,” he said.
Shiller, who is the co-creator of the S&P/Case Shiller Index on housing prices, also claims that technological advances have caused “rising inequality.”
Shiller also said that economic uncertainty could force the Federal Reserve to leave rates near zero for “a really long time.”
“The economy is still weak. Unemployment looks all right but wages aren’t growing,” said Shiller. “The rest of the world is looking weak… It’s a matter of judgement, but if I were on the Federal Open Market Committee, I would want to wait until next year [to raise rates] and see how things go.”
And new research indicates that indeed, income inequality helps to paint a bleak economic future for today's younger generation: ironically, the same generation arguably benefiting most from such technological advances.
The new report, entitled "Poorer Than Their Parents? Flat Or Falling Incomes In Advanced Economies," comes from the McKinsey Global Institute. The study examined the prospects for over 800 million workers in the 25 wealthiest countries and found that the rising generation is at serious risk of ending up poorer than their parents.
The report found that between 2005 and 2014, real incomes in those same advanced economies were flat or fell for 65 to 70 percent of households, or more than 540 million people.
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