Robots are not always bad for employment and wages

Abstract

We reassess the impact that robotization has on wages and employment, using a database on US commuting zones from 1990 to 2007. Using an argument based on the transitional dynamics we show that the negative displacement effects of robotization can be surpassed by productivity and reallocation effects, leading to positive effects on employment after a certain level of penetration in industry. In fact, we confirm this effect through regressions that are subject to different robustness checks. Previous evidence according to which robotization always decreases employment and wages are thus not confirmed.