Working Paper #2020-040
Automation, globalisation and relative wages: An empirical analysis of winners and losers
In this paper, we study the effects of advances in robotics, tangible
and intangible technologies, and trade openness and global value chain
participation on relative wages, relying upon the skill-biased technical
change and polarisation of the labour force frameworks. The empirical
analysis is carried out using a panel dataset comprising 18 mostly
advanced European economies and 6 industries, with annual observations
spanning the period 2008-2017. Our findings suggest that intangible
technologies - especially software & databases - significantly increase
the wage premium for high relative to lower-skilled labour.
Additionally, the tangible component of ICT primarily benefits
lower-skilled workers, whereas R&D and trade openness produce polarising
effects. The results are robust to the inclusion of sector-specific
labour market regulations variables in the models.
- Keywords
-
- Robots
- Intangibles
- Automation
- ICT
- Globalisation
- Wage Differentials
- JEL codes
-
- C01
- F16
- F63
- J31
- O11
- O33
- O43
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Gravina, A. F., & Foster-McGregor, N. (2020). Automation, globalisation and relative wages: An empirical analysis of winners and losers (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2020-040). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=8622