Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets
Daron Acemoglu, Pascual Restrepo
Summary
The authors study how the spread of industrial robots affected US local labor markets between 1990 and 2007, using variation in industry robot adoption combined with regional industry composition. They estimate the effect on employment and wages in commuting zones more exposed to robotization. They find that each additional robot per thousand workers reduced the employment-to-population ratio and wages in the affected local labor markets, with the largest negative effects on routine manual occupations.
Key findings
- Greater exposure to industrial robots lowered local employment-to-population ratios and wages.
- One more robot per thousand workers is associated with measurable declines in employment and wages within a commuting zone.
- Negative effects are concentrated among routine manual jobs and workers without college education.
Subjects & keywords
Cite this paper
Daron Acemoglu, & Pascual Restrepo (2020). Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets. Journal of Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1086/705716
@article{acemoglu2020robots,
author = {Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo},
title = {Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets},
journal = {Journal of Political Economy},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.1086/705716},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1086/705716}
}