This paper examines the impact of aging in the Republic of Korea on productivity as measured by labor productivity or total factor productivity (TFP). It also assesses the effect of robot adoption on the relation between aging and productivity using industrial level data. We find that aging is negatively associated with labor productivity and TFP growth. This is true particularly when aging is measured by increases in shares of old workers. If aging is measured by increases in the median age of workers, the negative effect is weaker. Evidence also suggests that robot technology mitigates aging's negative effect on productivity growth, particularly when productivity is measured by TFP. However, there is no evidence that robots are more heavily adopted in aged industries. While robot technology does not directly contribute to higher productivity growth, our findings suggest that the robot adoption can alleviate the negative impact of aging by helping workers in their 50s and 60s contribute less adversly to productivity growth.

本文研究了大韩民国老龄化对劳动生产率或全要素生产率（TFP）的影响。它还使用工业级数据评估采用机器人对老化与生产率之间关系的影响。我们发现老龄化与劳动生产率和全要素生产率的增长负相关。当老龄化以老工人比例的增加来衡量时，尤其如此。如果通过工人中位数年龄的增加来衡量老龄化，那么负面影响会更弱。证据还表明，机器人技术可以减轻老化对生产率增长的负面影响，特别是在通过TFP衡量生产率时。但是，没有证据表明机器人在较老的行业中被更广泛地采用。