Does Automation in Rich Countries Hurt Developing Ones? Evidence from the U.S. and Mexico

Following a couple of decades of offshoring, the fear today is of reshoring. Using administrative data on Mexican exports by municipality, sector and destination from 2004 to 2014, this paper investigates how local labor markets in Mexico that are more exposed to automation in the U.S. through trade...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Artuc, Erhan
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2019
Series:World Bank E-Library Archive
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 01794nmm a2200217 u 4500
001 EB002107091
003 EBX01000000000000001247181
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 221013 ||| eng
100 1 |a Artuc, Erhan 
245 0 0 |a Does Automation in Rich Countries Hurt Developing Ones? Evidence from the U.S. and Mexico  |h Elektronische Ressource  |c Erhan Artuc 
260 |a Washington, D.C  |b The World Bank  |c 2019 
700 1 |a Artuc, Erhan 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b WOBA  |a World Bank E-Library Archive 
490 0 |a World Bank E-Library Archive 
028 5 0 |a 10.1596/31425 
856 4 0 |u http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/31425  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a Following a couple of decades of offshoring, the fear today is of reshoring. Using administrative data on Mexican exports by municipality, sector and destination from 2004 to 2014, this paper investigates how local labor markets in Mexico that are more exposed to automation in the U.S. through trade fared in exports and employment outcomes. The results show that an increase of one robot per thousand workers in the U.S. - about twice the increase observed between 2004-2014 - lowers growth in exports per worker from Mexico to the U.S. by 6.7 percent. Higher exposure to U.S. automation did not affect wage employment, nor manufacturing wage employment overall. Yet, the latter is the result of two counteracting forces. Exposure to U.S. automation reduced manufacturing wage employment in areas where occupations were initially more susceptible to being automated; but exposure increased manufacturing wage employment in other areas. Finally, the analysis also finds negative impacts of exposure to local automation on local labor market outcomes