Automation and income inequality in Europe

Karina Doorley, Jan Gromadzki, Piotr Lewandowski, Dora Tuda and Philippe Van Kerm

No 1070, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: We study the effects of robot penetration on household income inequality in 14 European countries between 2006-2018, a period of rapid adoption of industrial robots. Automation reduced relative hourly wages and employment of more exposed demographic groups, similarly to the results for the US. Using robot-driven wage and employment shocks as input to the EUROMOD microsimulation model, we find that automation had minor effects on income inequality. Household labour income diversification and tax and welfare policies largely absorbed labour market shocks caused by automation. Transfers played a key role in cushioning the transmission of these shocks to household incomes.

Keywords: Robots; automation; tasks; income inequality; wage inequality; microsimulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-eur, nep-inv, nep-lma and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/287766/1/1884511678.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Automation and income inequality in Europe (2023)
Working Paper: Automation and income inequality in Europe (2023)
Working Paper: Automation and Income Inequality in Europe (2023)
Working Paper: Automation and Income Inequality in Europe (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:287766

DOI: 10.4419/96973242

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().