[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/28034.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

U.S. Robots and their Impacts in the Tropics: Evidence from Colombian Labor Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Adriana D. Kugler
  • Maurice Kugler
  • Laura Ripani
  • Rodimiro Rodrigo
Abstract
Previous studies for developed countries show negative short-run impacts of automation on employment and earnings. In this paper, we instead examine whether automation by a key trading partner can hurt workers in a developing country. We specifically focus in Colombia’s labor market, and how the automation in the U.S. impacts Colombian workers by replacing exports from Colombia for cheaper robot-made U.S. products. We use employer-employee matched data from the Colombian social security records combined with data on U.S. exposure to robots in different sectors from 2011 to 2016 to examine if robots in the U.S. are displacing workers in Colombia. We find that U.S. robots decrease employment and earnings for Colombian workers in those sectors of local labor markets that have high levels of automation -measured as robots per thousand workers- in the U.S. labor market. In terms of turnover, as expected, there is an increase in dismissals and a decrease in hires for workers in sectors highly impacted by robots in the U.S. Moreover, the negative displacement effects of robots are greater for women; older workers; workers employed in small and medium sized enterprises, and workers employed in manufacturing. Importantly, local labor markets which exported the most to the U.S. in the past, are also the most affected by the increased adoption of U.S. robots, suggesting that Colombian workers may be losing employment to automated jobs reshored back to the U.S. Our estimates suggest that during our period of analysis, the adoption of robots in the U.S. led to a cumulative loss of between 63,000 and 100,000 jobs in Colombia.

Suggested Citation

  • Adriana D. Kugler & Maurice Kugler & Laura Ripani & Rodimiro Rodrigo, 2020. "U.S. Robots and their Impacts in the Tropics: Evidence from Colombian Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 28034, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28034
    Note: ITI LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w28034.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Dario Guarascio & Alessandro Piccirillo & Jelena Reljic, 2024. "Will robot replace workers? Assessing the impact of robots on employment and wages with meta-analysis," LEM Papers Series 2024/03, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Cilekoglu, Akin A. & Moreno, Rosina & Ramos, Raul, 2024. "The impact of robot adoption on global sourcing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    3. Wang, Jiaxin & Zhao, Mu & Huang, Xiang & Song, Zilong & Sun, Di, 2024. "Supply chain diffusion mechanisms for AI applications: A perspective on audit pricing," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Calì, Massimiliano & Presidente, Giorgio, 2021. "Robots For Economic Development," GLO Discussion Paper Series 942, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Ling Li & Perry Singleton, 2021. "The Effect of Industrial Robots on Workplace Safety," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 239, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    6. Brambilla, Irene & César, Andrés & Falcone, Guillermo & Gasparini, Leonardo, 2023. "The impact of robots in Latin America: Evidence from local labor markets," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    7. Artuc, Erhan & Bastos, Paulo & Rijkers, Bob, 2023. "Robots, tasks, and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    8. Andreas Baur & Lisandra Flach & Isabella Gourevich & Florian Unger, 2023. "North-South Trade: The Impact of Robotization," CESifo Working Paper Series 10865, CESifo.
    9. Gustavo de Souza & Haishi Li, 2023. "Robots, Tools, and Jobs: Evidence from Brazilian Labor Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 10813, CESifo.
    10. Jurkat, Anne & Klump, Rainer & Schneider, Florian, 2023. "Robots and Wages: A Meta-Analysis," EconStor Preprints 274156, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    11. Diaz Pavez, Luis R. & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada, 2021. "The impact of local and foreign automation on labor market outcomes in emerging countries," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 423, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    12. Cali,Massimiliano & Presidente,Giorgio, 2021. "Automation and Manufacturing Performance in a Developing Country," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9653, The World Bank.
    13. Antonio Martins-Neto & Nanditha Mathew & Pierre Mohnen & Tania Treibich, 2024. "Is There Job Polarization in Developing Economies? A Review and Outlook," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 39(2), pages 259-288.
    14. Ximena del Carpio & José A. Cuesta & Maurice D. Kugler & Gustavo Hernández & Gabriel Piraquive, 2022. "What Effects Could Global Value Chain and Digital Infrastructure Development Policies Have on Poverty and Inequality after COVID-19?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-29, January.
    15. Pinheiro, Alexandra & Sochirca, Elena & Afonso, Oscar & Neves, Pedro Cunha, 2023. "Automation and off(re)shoring: A meta-regression analysis," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    16. Rodimiro Rodrigo, 2022. "Robot Adoption, Organizational Capital and the Productivity Paradox," Working Papers gueconwpa~22-22-03, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    17. Ballestar, María Teresa & García-Lazaro, Aida & Sainz, Jorge & Sanz, Ismael, 2022. "Why is your company not robotic? The technology and human capital needed by firms to become robotic," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 328-343.
    18. Gustavo de Souza & Haishi Li, 2023. "Robots, Tools, and Jobs: Evidence from Brazilian Labor Markets," Working Paper Series WP 2023-42, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    19. Fernández, Cristina & Suecún, Cecilia, 2023. "Automation of the labor force and informality with focus on the Colombian case," Informes de Investigación 21023, Fedesarrollo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C36 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:28034. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.