Zeit und Ort: 16.10.19 von 12:15-13:45 Uhr, WiWi2 Gebäude, Raum F4090

Vortragender: Dr. Michael Koch, Assistant Professor, Aarhus University Denmark, Department of Economics and Business Economics

Thema: "Robots and Firms"

Die Forschungsgruppe "Diginomics" lädt zum ersten "Diginomics Brown-Bag Seminar" des Wintersemesters 19/20 ein. Wir freuen uns sehr Dr. Michael Koch, Assistant Professor an der Aarhus University in Dänemark, als Gastredner zum Thema "Robots and Firms"  begrüßen zu dürfen. Eine kurze Zusammenfassung der Arbeit, welche Dr. Michael Koch präsentieren wird, finden Sie im Folgenden.

Abstract. We study the implications of robots at the level of individual firms using a rich panel data-set of Spanish manufacturing firms over a 27-year period (1990-2016). We focus on three central questions: (1) Which firms adopt robots? (2) What are the labor market effects of robot adoption at the firm level? (3) How does firm heterogeneity in robot adoption affect the industry equilibrium? To address these questions, we look at our data through the lens of recent attempts in the literature to formalize the implications of robot technology. As for the first question, we establish robust evidence that ex-ante larger and more productive firms are more likely to adopt robots, while ex-ante more skill-intensive firms are less likely to do so. As for the second question, we find that robot adoption generates substantial output gains in the vicinity of 20-25% within four years, reduces the labor cost share by 5-7%-points, and leads to net job creation at a rate of 10%. These results are robust to controlling for non-random selection into robot adoption through a difference-in-differences approach combined with a propensity score reweighting estimator. Finally, we reveal substantial job losses in firms that do not adopt robots, and a productivity-enhancing reallocation of labor across firms, away from non-adopters, and toward adopters.