Demographics and Automation | Zendy

Daron Acemoğlu | Zendy; Pascual Restrepo | Zendy

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Demographics and Automation

Author(s) -

Daron Acemoğlu,

Pascual Restrepo

Publication year - 2021

Publication title -

the review of economic studies

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 15.641

H-Index - 141

eISSN - 1467-937X

pISSN - 0034-6527

DOI - 10.1093/restud/rdab031

Subject(s) - automation , economic shortage , productivity , demographics , industrial organization , technological change , economics , emerging technologies , business , robot , robotics , operations management , computer science , engineering , economic growth , artificial intelligence , sociology , demography , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , government (linguistics)

We argue theoretically and document empirically that aging leads to greater (industrial) automation, because it creates a shortage of middle-aged workers specializing in manual production tasks. We show that demographic change is associated with greater adoption of robots and other automation technologies across countries and with more robotics-related activities across U.S. commuting zones. We also document more automation innovation in countries undergoing faster aging. Our directed technological change model predicts that the response of automation technologies to aging should be more pronounced in industries that rely more on middle-aged workers and those that present greater opportunities for automation and that productivity should improve and the labor share should decline relatively in industries that are more amenable to automation. The evidence supports all four of these predictions.

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