[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/2269.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Fear of Automation

Author

Listed:
  • Golin, M.
  • Rauh, C.
Abstract
In this paper, we establish a causal effect of workers’ perceived probability of losing one’s job due to automation on preferences for redistribution and intentions to join a union. In a representative sample of the US workforce, we elicit the perceived fear of losing one’s job to robots or artificial intelligence. We document a strong relationship between fear of automation and intentions to join a union, retrain and switch occupations, preferences for higher taxation, higher government handouts, populist attitudes, and voting intentions. We then show a causal effect of providing information about job loss probabilities on preferred levels of taxation and handouts. In contrast, our information treatment does not affect workers’ intentions to self-insure by retraining or switching occupations, but it increases workers’ self-reported likelihood of joining a union to seek more job protection. The treatment effects are mostly driven by workers who are informed about larger job loss probabilities than they perceived.

Suggested Citation

  • Golin, M. & Rauh, C., 2022. "The Impact of Fear of Automation," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2269, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:2269
    Note: cr542
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe2269.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carl Benedikt Frey & Thor Berger & Chinchih Chen, 2018. "Political machinery: did robots swing the 2016 US presidential election?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 34(3), pages 418-442.
    2. Ilyana Kuziemko & Michael I. Norton & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2015. "How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1478-1508, April.
    3. Italo Colantone & Piero Stanig, 2019. "The Surge of Economic Nationalism in Western Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 128-151, Fall.
    4. Massimo Anelli & Italo Colantone & Piero Stanig, 2019. "We Were the Robots: Automation and Voting Behavior in Western Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 7758, CESifo.
    5. Sotiris Blanas & Gino Gancia & Sang Yoon (Tim) Lee, 2019. "Who is afraid of machines?," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 34(100), pages 627-690.
    6. Sonja Settele, 2022. "How Do Beliefs about the Gender Wage Gap Affect the Demand for Public Policy?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 475-508, May.
    7. Toke S. Aidt & Raphaël Franck, 2015. "Democratization Under the Threat of Revolution: Evidence From the Great Reform Act of 1832," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 505-547, March.
    8. Alberto Alesina & Stefanie Stantcheva & Edoardo Teso, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 521-554, February.
    9. Bernard, René & Tzamourani, Panagiota & Weber, Michael, 2022. "Climate change and individual behavior," Discussion Papers 01/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2020. "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2188-2244.
    11. Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "How Do Expectations about the Macroeconomy Affect Personal Expectations and Behavior?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 731-748, October.
    12. Marcella Alsan & Sarah Eichmeyer, 2024. "Experimental Evidence on the Effectiveness of Nonexperts for Improving Vaccine Demand," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 394-414, February.
    13. Alberto Alesina & Matteo F. Ferroni & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2021. "Perceptions of Racial Gaps, their Causes, and Ways to Reduce Them," NBER Working Papers 29245, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Innocenti, Stefania & Golin, Marta, 2022. "Human capital investment and perceived automation risks: Evidence from 16 countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 27-41.
    15. Jeffrey, Karen, 2021. "Automation and the future of work: How rhetoric shapes the response in policy preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 417-433.
    16. Frey, Carl Benedikt & Osborne, Michael A., 2017. "The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 254-280.
    17. Sonja Settele, 2022. "How Do Beliefs About the Gender Wage Gap Affect the Demand for Public Policy?," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 179, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    18. Baldwin, Richard, 2022. "Globotics and macroeconomics: Globalisation and automation of the service sector," CEPR Discussion Papers 17530, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cattaneo, Maria Alejandra & Gschwendt, Christian & Wolter, Stefan C., 2024. "How Scary Is the Risk of Automation? Evidence from a Large Scale Survey Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 17097, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Maria A. Cattaneo & Christian Gschwendt & Stefan C. Wolter, 2024. "How Scary is the Risk of Automation? Evidence from a Large Survey Experiment," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0213, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    2. Riccardo Bruni & Alessandro Gioffré & Maria Marino, 2022. ""In-group bias in preferences for redistribution: a survey experiment in Italy"," IREA Working Papers 202223, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Nov 2023.
    3. Lasse J. Jessen & Sebastian Koehne & Patrick Nüß & Jens Ruhose, 2024. "Socioeconomic Inequality in Life Expectancy: Perception and Policy Demand," CESifo Working Paper Series 10940, CESifo.
    4. Colantone, Italo & Ottaviano, Gianmarco & Stanig, Piero, 2021. "The backlash of globalization," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113860, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Angerer, Silvia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp & Rittmannsberger, Thomas, 2023. "How does the vaccine approval procedure affect COVID-19 vaccination intentions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    6. Bjorn Brey, 2021. "The effect of recent technological change on US immigration policy," Discussion Papers 2021-02, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    7. Gabriele Gratton & Barton E Lee, 2024. "Liberty, Security, and Accountability: The Rise and Fall of Illiberal Democracies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(1), pages 340-371.
    8. Jeffrey, Karen & Matakos, Konstantinos, 2024. "Automation anxiety, fairness perceptions, and redistribution: Past experiences condition the response to future job loss," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 174-190.
    9. Chen, Chinchih & Frey, Carl Benedikt & Presidente, Giorgio, 2022. "Automation or globalization? The impacts of robots and Chinese imports on jobs in the United Kingdom," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 528-542.
    10. Abeliansky, Ana Lucia & Prettner, Klaus, 2023. "Automation and population growth: Theory and cross-country evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 345-358.
    11. Grewenig, Elisabeth & Lergetporer, Philipp & Simon, Lisa & Werner, Katharina & Woessmann, Ludger, 2023. "Can internet surveys represent the entire population? A practitioners’ analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. AndrÉ van Hoorn, 2022. "Automatability of Work and Preferences for Redistribution," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(1), pages 130-157, February.
    13. van Hoorn, Andre, 2018. "The Political Economy of Automation: Occupational Automatability and Preferences for Redistribution," MPRA Paper 86460, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Eugenio Levi & Isabelle Sin & Steven Stillman, 2021. "Understanding the Origins of Populist Political Parties and the Role of External Shocks," Working Papers 21_09, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    15. Lergetporer, Philipp & Woessmann, Ludger, 2023. "Earnings information and public preferences for university tuition: Evidence from representative experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    16. Philipp Lergetporer & Katharina Wedel & Katharina Werner, 2023. "Automatability of Occupations, Workers’ Labor-Market Expectations, and Willingness to Train," CESifo Working Paper Series 10862, CESifo.
    17. Hermes, Henning & Lergetporer, Philipp & Mierisch, Fabian & Schwerdt, Guido & Wiederhold, Simon, 2024. "Does Information about Inequality and Discrimination in Early Child Care Affect Policy Preferences?," IZA Discussion Papers 16759, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7n49nkmngd8448a5ts5gt5ade0 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Aina Gallego & Thomas Kurer & Nikolas Schöll, 2018. "Not so disruptive after all: How workplace digitalization affects political preferences," Economics Working Papers 1623, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    20. Eric S. M. Protzer, 2019. "Social Mobility Explains Populism, Not Inequality or Culture," Growth Lab Working Papers 146, Harvard's Growth Lab.
    21. Filip Pertold & Sofiana Sinani & Michal Soltes, 2023. "Gender Gap in Reported Childcare Preferences among Parents," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp770, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Automation; Inequality; information treatment; Political attitudes; Political preferences; Populism; Redistribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • J58 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Public Policy
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:2269. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jake Dyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.