Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets
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.