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| Type | Working Paper |
| Scope | Discipline-based scholarship |
| Title | Induced automation: evidence from firm-level patent data |
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| Institution | University of Zurich |
| Series Name | Working paper series / Department of Economics |
| Number | 384 |
| ISSN | 1664-705X |
| Number of Pages | 78 |
| Date | 2021 |
| Abstract Text | Do higher wages lead to more automation innovation? To answer this question, we first use the frequency of certain keywords in patent text to create a new measure of automation innovation in machinery. We show that our measure is correlated with a reduction in routine tasks in a cross-sectoral analysis in the US. We combine macroeconomic data from 41 countries and information on geographical patent history to build firm-specific measures of low- and high-skill wages. In a firm-level panel analysis, we find that an increase in low-skill wages leads to more automation innovation with an elasticity between 2 and 5. Placebo regressions show that the effect is specific to automation innovations. Finally, we focus on a specific labor market shock, the German Hartz reforms, and show that they reduced automation innovations by those non-German firms relatively more exposed to Germany. |
| Free access at | Official URL |
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| Other Identification Number | merlin-id:21019 |
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| Keywords | Automation, innovation, patents, income inequality |