This paper studies how minimum wage policy affects firms’ adoption of automation technologies. Using both state-level measures of robot exposure and novel plant-level data on industrial robot imports linked to U.S. Census microdata from 1992-2021, we show that increases in minimum wages raise the likelihood of robot adoption in manufacturing. Our preferred identification exploits discontinuities at state borders, comparing otherwise similar firms exposed to different wage floors. Across specifications, a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage increases robot adoption by roughly 8 percent relative to the mean.
That is from Erik Brynjolfsson, et.al., including Andrew Wang. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
By the way, a photo from our textbook Modern Principles of Economics:
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That Was Then/This is Now
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Effective tax rates for billionaires
Here is the tweet, here is the source data. The post Effective tax rates for billionaires appeared first on Marginal...
*You Have No Right to Your Culture: Essays on the Human Condition*
By Bryan Caplan, now on sale. From Bryan’s Substack: My latest book of essays, You Have No Right to Your Culture:...
History of Econ Summer Camp
Graduate students with an interest in the history of economic thought should consider this summer program. Source link...
