Industrial robots, employment growth, and labor cost: A simultaneous equation analysis

In recent years, the global rapid expansion of industrial robots has induced ever-increasing concerns for the cause and effect of such growth, particularly with regard to its relationship with labor. This paper analyzes the factors underlying the adoption of industrial robots, employment growth and structure, and labor costs, taking into account the two-way causalities between these variables. For the empirical analysis, we use the three-stage least squares (3SLS) method for the system of simultaneous equations and apply it to the panel data constructed for 42 countries.