Three Essays on Trade, Tasks, and Technology PDF Download

Author: Eric C. Carlson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In recent years, economists have become increasingly concerned with the economic effects of automation. Robots and artificial intelligence have become fixtures of modern production, transforming the landscape of labor markets and reshaping patterns of international trade. This dissertation explores the economic changes brought about by these new technologies.The first essay provides a theoretical framework for understanding how automation in industrialized countries in the global North affects trade with developing countries in the global South. I show that automation can lead trading partners to change the mix of products they export and import. For example, as the stock of automatable capital increases in the global North, rich countries reshore production of traditionally labor-intensive goods. I also show that, in the context of automation, trade restrictions aimed at protecting labor-intensive industries can backfire. This is because trade restrictions protect domestic industries from foreign competition but do not protect domestic workers from competition with machines. Reducing the scale of production through a reduction in the size of the market exacerbates worker-machine competition which reduces the economic welfare of low-skilled workers.The second essay offers empirical support for the reshoring hypothesis. Using an exposure model, I partition the US into disjoint local labor markets which each differ in terms of exposure to automation. Using demographic data from the Census and American Community Survey, data on occupation characteristics from O*NET, and export data from the Census, I find that local labor markets that were historically more exposed to automation experienced larger increases in export growth relative to their otherwise comparable counterparts with lower levels of automation exposure. While this relationship is economically and statistically significant for horizontal trade movements between the US and other rich countries, the effect is largest for vertical trade between the US and lower-middle income countries like China. This suggests that automation has changed traditional patterns of comparative advantage between economies in the global North and those in the global South.The last essay looks at the effect of automation on the gender wage gap. As in the second essay, the unit of analysis is the local labor market. Using labor market data from the Census and automation data from O*NET, I find suggestive evidence that automation has reduced the wage gap between men and women. However, this effect is primarily relegated to the market for skilled labor. I find that the reduction in the pay differentials by gender is concentrated among workers with college degrees and find little change in the gender wage gap among workers without college degrees.