Michaels, G. & Graetz, G. (2015) “Estimating the impact of robots on productivity and employment“, VoxEU Organisation, 18 Μαρτίου.
Robots may be dangerous not only to the action heroes of cinema, but also to the average manufacturing worker. This column analyses the effect robots have had in 14 industries across 17 developed countries from 1993 to 2007. Industrial robots increase labour productivity, total factor productivity, and wages. While they don’t significantly change total hours worked, they may be a threat to low- and middle-skilled workers.
Robots’ capacity for autonomous movement and their ability to perform an expanding set of tasks have captured writers’ imaginations for almost a century. Recently robots have emerged from the pages of science fiction novels into the real world, and discussions of their possible economic effects have become ubiquitous (see e.g. The Economist 2014, Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014). But a serious problem inhibits these discussions – there has so far been no systematic empirical analysis of the effects that robots are already having.
In recent work we begin to remedy this problem (Graetz and Michaels 2015). We compile a new dataset spanning 14 industries (mainly manufacturing industries, but also agriculture and utilities) in 17 developed countries (including European countries, Australia, South Korea, and the US). Uniquely, our dataset includes a measure of the use of industrial robots employed in each industry, in each of these countries, and how it has changed from 1993-2007. We obtain information on other economic performance indicators from the EUKLEMS database (Timmer et al. 2007).
We find that industrial robots increase labour productivity, total factor productivity, and wages. At the same time, while industrial robots had no significant effect on total hours worked, there is some evidence that they reduced the employment of low skilled workers, and to a lesser extent also middle skilled workers.
Σχετικές αναρτήσεις:
- Lebon, Ι. & Rebière, Τ. (2015) “How Many Educated Workers for Your Economy? European Targets, Optimal Public Spending, and Labor Market Impact“, IZA DP No. 8854, Φεβρουάριος.
- Eichhorst, W., Kahanec, M., Kendzia, M., Wehner, C., et al. (2013), “Social Protection Rights of Economically Dependent Self-employed Workers”, IZA Research Report, N. 54.
- IZA, (2013), “Combining the Entry of Young People in the Labour Market with the Retention of Older Workers”, IZA Report, N. 53.