廉价劳动力会替代自动化技术吗?——来自英国的证据

Will Cheap Labor Replace Automation Technology?-Evidence from the UK

与现有文献主要关注自动化技术是否替代劳动力不同,本文认为自动化技术进步与劳动力市场的潜在影响是相互的。具体地,本文检验廉价劳动力是否也可以替代自动化技术。利用2004年欧盟扩围、新成员国廉价劳动力大规模流入英国这一外生冲击,本文发现英国国内受冲击更大的职业或行业使用自动化设备的可能性更低。深入探究发现,歧视使得劳动力移民的工资低于均衡水平,促使企业用相对廉价的劳动力移民来替代自动化技术。本文还利用爱尔兰受到的同一冲击作为工具变量排除了潜在内生性问题。当以机器人安装数量作为自动化技术应用的替代度量时,结果依然稳健。机制检验表明,在劳动力移民与英国本土劳动力工资差距更大的职业中替代效应越大。本文一方面指出劳动力价格可以影响自动化技术应用,是对自动化技术和劳动力之间关系的重要补充;另一方面也具有重要的政策含义,即中国在推进以自动化为核心的智能制造过程中,劳动力等政策也会反过来影响自动化技术的应用。

Unlike much of the existing literature,which focuses primarily on the potential for automation technology to replace labor,we believe that progress in automation technology and the labor market are equally important.By taking advantage of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union and the subsequent influx of cheap labor from new member states into the UK,we find that occupations or industries that were more impacted by this influx are less likely to adopt automation equipment.Further analysis indicates that discrimination keeps the wages of immigrant labor below equilibrium,incentivizing firms to substitute automation with less expensive immigrant labor.To eliminate potential endogenous problems,we also use the same shock that Ireland experienced as an instrumental variable.Even when using robot installations as an alternative metric for the application of automation technology,the results remain robust.Our mechanism test reveals a larger substitution effect in occupations where the wage gap between immigrant and local labor is greater.Our findings highlight the importance of labor price in determining the adoption of automation technology,providing a valuable supplement to existing research on the relationship between automation technology and labor.This study also has important policy implications,indicating that in the promotion of intelligent manufacturing with automation as the core,policies relating to labor will,in turn,affect the adoption of automation technology.