| Title | Robots and Wage Polarization: The Effects of Robot Capital by Occupations |
| Date | February 24, 2022 (Thursday) 16:30-18:00 |
| Location | Hybrid |
| Abstract | Robotization has been affecting different occupations differently as the cost of adopting robots varies across occupations. To study its distributional impacts, I match unique data on imported robot prices with the occupational task information to measure the cost of using robots by occupation. The data reveal that the cost reduction by 10% induces a 1.2% drop in wages of production and transportation occupations in the US, suggesting strong substitutability. This finding motivates me to develop a model where robots are traded and can substitute for labor with different elasticities of substitution (EoS) across occupations. Using a model-implied optimal instrumental variable, I estimate higher EoS between robots and workers than those of general capital goods in production and transportation occupations. The estimated model implies that the adoption of industrial robots explains a 6.4 percent of the observed increase in the 90-50th percentile ratio of US occupational wages. |
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| Note | Please register through the link below. https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqd-yuqDIqEtCt63sVDS4AoW7Ik6S3HNYR |