Firm-Level Automation: Evidence from the Netherlands

Abstract

Studying firm-level adjustments is important for understanding the economic effects of workplace automation. So far, emerging firm-level evidence is focused on robotics and the manufacturing sector. In this paper, we document that the adoption of automation technologies extends beyond manufacturing firms. We identify firm-level automation events and show that automating firms experience faster employment and revenue growth than do nonautomating firms. However, around automation events themselves, employment growth slows markedly. Notably, we find that these effects are similar for manufacturing and nonmanufacturing firms, suggesting that an increasing diffusion of automation technology has important consequences for firms and their workers.

How Robots Change Within-Firm Wage Inequality

“…However, in that study the firms are not linked to individual workers. Finally, Bessen et al (2020) provide firm level evidence on automation from the Netherlands in the period 2000-2016. Using an event study design, they find that firms save labour after investing in automation technology, while wages rise.…”

“…Recent papers byHumlum (2019), Acemoglu et.al. (2020,Bessen et al (2020) andDixon et al (2019) are discussed in the literature section below. 2 See Lachowska et al (2020),Engbom and Moser (2020) andBarth et al (2020).…”

Stop Worrying and Love the Robot: An Activity-Based Approach to Assess the Impact of Robotization on Employment Dynamics

“…To start, it is the second European country, after Germany, for robot use (Dottori, 2020). Second, from a methodological perspective, we can take advantage of the 2013 Italian National Institute for Public Policies Analysis (Inapp) Survey of Professions (Indagine Campionaria sulle Professioni, Inapp ICP hereafter), that represents the Italian equivalent of the American O*NET and provides information on the generalised tasks and the specific activities and duties of over 800 five-digit level occupations in Italy by combining survey-based worker-level information and post-survey validation by experts' focus 2 Other microeconomic studies find negative effects on firm employment once the spurious positive correlation induced by demand effects is netted out (Bessen et al, 2020;Bonfiglioli et al, 2020), while Acemoglu et al (2020a) obtain contrasting results between adopters and non-adopters but with prevailing negative effects due to the latter set of firms.…”

Robots and Worker Voice: An Empirical Exploration

“…First, the paper relates to theoretical and empirical works on the relationship between automation and labour (for a review, see Barbieri et al, 2020). The rapid diffusion of AI and robots has led many authors to investigate the effects of these technologies on labour, comparing different dimensions such as employment Restrepo, 2020, 2019a;Bessen et al, 2019Bessen et al, , 2020Graetz and Michaels, 2018b;Carbonero et al, 2020;Chiacchio et al, 2018;Dauth et al, 2017), skill polarization (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2018) and wage inequality (Barth et al, 2020). Rather than focusing on the consequences of automation technologies, we study whether labour market institutions such workplace ER affect their adoption.…”