The Rise of Robots and the Fall of Routine Jobs

Publication | August 2020
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This paper finds that greater use of industrial robots relates significantly to a fall in the employment share of routine manual jobs in high-income economies, but not in emerging market and transition economies.

The study examines the impact of industrial robots on jobs by combining data on robot adoption and occupations by industry in 37 economies for the period 2005–2015. It looks at differences across industries in the share of tasks replaceable by robots to differentiate effects by the routine intensity of employment.

Contents

  • Introduction
  • Theoretical Framework
  • Methodology
  • Data and Descriptive Analysis
  • Econometric Results
  • Concluding Remarks

Additional Details

Authors
Type
Series
Subjects
  • Economics
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Social development and protection
  • Social protection - labor and employment
Pages
  • 42
Dimensions
  • 8.5 x 11
SKU
  • WPS200236-2
ISSN
  • 2313-6537 (print)
  • 2313-6545 (electronic)

Published Versions

de Vries, Gaaitzen J., Elisabetta Gentile, Sébastien Miroudot, and Konstantin M. Wacker. 2020. "The Rise of Robots and the Fall of Routine Jobs." Labour Economics 66: 101885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101885.

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