Robots at work

Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We analyze for the first time the economic contributions of modern industrial robots, which are flexible, versatile, and autonomous machines. We use novel panel data on robot adoption within industries in 17 countries from 1993-2007, and new instrumental variables that rely on robots’ comparative advantage in specific tasks. Our findings suggest that increased robot use contributed approximately 0.37 percentage points to annual labor productivity growth, while at the same time raising total factor productivity and lowering output prices. Our estimates also suggest that robots did not significantly reduce total employment, although they did reduce low-skilled workers’ employment share

Keywords: robots; productivity; technological change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E23 J23 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-12-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (258)

Published in Review of Economics and Statistics, 1, December, 2018, 100(5), pp. 753-768. ISSN: 0034-6535

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/87218/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Robots at Work (2018)
Working Paper: Robots at Work (2015)
Working Paper: Robots at Work (2015)
Working Paper: Robots at work (2015)
Working Paper: Robots at Work (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:87218

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