Falling birth rates lead to higher wages and GDP productivity per worker according to an optimistic but radical theory espoused by a group of Anglo-American economists.

According to their just published paper, a slump in birth rates makes us all richer because it forces companies to develop new technology to fill the gap left by fewer workers.

Then, as companies struggle to hire from a smaller pool of talent, they are forced to increase wages.

The paper shows that countries with the lowest birth rates have experienced the biggest rise in the use of new technology and automation.

“Robot deployment in Japan, South Korea and China exceeds 40 robots per 1,000 workers, which is nearly four times the global average,” says Maria Vassalou, the head of Pictet Research Institute in Switzerland.

David Miles, of the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility, says people who write about low fertility rates as posing some sort of “economic and fiscal disaster,” are, “almost completely wrong-headed”.