SMU SOE Seminar Series (December 10, 2024): Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Their Implications for Employment and Labor Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence from Korea

TOPIC:

ABSTRACT

The emergence of robots and AI has caused widespread concerns about their potentially negative effects on employment. At the same time, both technologies have the potential to contribute significantly to labor productivity growth. Applying advanced econometric techniques to a rich and unique Korean firm-level database, we examine how the adoption of robots and AI influences both employment and productivity within a unified empirical framework. We find that robots and AI have somewhat different effects on employment and labor productivity. Our results indicate that robots have a positive impact on employment but no impact on labor productivity whereas AI has a positive impact on both.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Robots, Employment, Productivity.

JEL: O33, O40, J21, J24, D22.

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