News Briefs

Andrew Van Dam of the Washington Post writes that most of the decline since 1999 in the share of Americans with jobs is due to an aging population. Van Dam also points to recent research that shows that the rest of the decline in the share of Americans with jobs can be explained by trade with China and the rise of robots, while other common explanations such as immigration have had little to no effect. WaPo

The Financial Times reports that rising interest rates and recent changes to the U.S. tax code are squeezing major utility companies. Due to the relatively regular flow of earnings and dividends from these highly-regulated utilities, their shares traditionally behave more like bonds, thus falling when interest rates are expected to rise. FT