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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Physician Incomes and the Extreme Shortage of High IQ Workers
Physician incomes are extraordinarily high in the United States. A new NBER paper finds that U.S. physicians earn roughly two...
South African safari photo by Holly Cowen
The post South African safari photo by Holly Cowen appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION. Source link...
I talk with Larry Kotlikoff
Name: Greg Mankiw Location: United States I am the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. I use...
Monday assorted links
1. What people get wrong about women’s rights (Alice Evans, The Economist). 2. The case against liberal interventionism. 3. More...
