This paper provides one of the first studies of the impact of the introduction of robots to equilibrium labor demand in an entire economy. We use long-term (1979–2012) industry-level panel data from Japan, a country that is over 10 times as intensive in the use of robots as in the U.S. Our model, which is derived from Acemoglu and Restrepo (2017), shows that there are three effects on labor demand in the aggregate economy from the introduction of industrial robots. The first is the negative displacement effect of robots taking over the tasks of humans. The second is the positive industry productivity effect of robots lowering costs in a particular industry. This lowering of costs draws demand to the industry and expands output and employment in that industry. The third is the positive general equilibrium effect. Robots raise productivity and expands demand in all industries, thereby increasing the product and labor demand for the industry introducing the robots. In our estimation, we find that the displacement effect is insignificant, the productivity effect is sometimes positively significant, and the macroeconomic general equilibrium effect is always highly positively significant. Overall, the introduction of robots has been beneficial to the demand for labor in Japan. Our results are robust to various controls and instrumental variables.

本文提供了关于引入机器人对整个经济中均衡劳动力需求的影响的第一批研究之一。我们使用日本的长期（1979-2012）行业水平面板数据，而日本的机器人密集程度是美国的10倍以上。我们的模型源自Acemoglu和Restrepo（2017），结果表明，引入工业机器人会对总体经济中的劳动力需求产生三种影响。首先是机器人接管人类任务的负面位移效应。第二是机器人在特定行业中降低成本的积极的行业生产力效应。成本的降低吸引了该行业的需求，并扩大了该行业的产出和就业。第三是积极的一般均衡效应。机器人提高了生产率并扩大了所有行业的需求，从而增加了引入机器人的行业对产品和劳动力的需求。在我们的估计中，我们发现置换效应微不足道，生产率效应有时是正显着的，而宏观经济一般均衡效应总是高度正的。总体而言，引进机器人对日本的劳动力需求有利。我们的结果对各种控制和仪器变量均具有鲁棒性。宏观经济的总体均衡效应总是高度积极的。总体而言，引进机器人对日本的劳动力需求有利。我们的结果对各种控制和仪器变量均具有鲁棒性。宏观经济的总体均衡效应总是高度积极的。总体而言，引进机器人对日本的劳动力需求有利。我们的结果对各种控制和仪器变量均具有鲁棒性。