The contribution of industrial robots to labor productivity growth and economic convergence: A production frontier approach

This paper investigates the contribution of industrial robots to labor productivity growth and the process of economic convergence in 19 developed and 17 emerging countries in the period 1999 to 2019. To answer our research questions, we extend the non-parametric production frontier framework by considering industrial robots as a separate production factor. Production frontiers and distances to the frontiers are estimated by Data Envelopment Analysis, a method based on linear programming models. Considerable contributions of robotization to labor productivity growth are mainly found in emerging countries and are rather modest in most developed countries. In the period 2009 to 2019 robot capital deepening as a source of productivity growth has gained in importance in emerging countries but not in developed countries. Within the period 1999 to 2019 we find some evidence of i) unconditional β-convergence, ii) a reduction in the dispersion of productivity levels across economies (σ-convergence) and iii) a depolarization (shift from bimodal to unimodal distribution) of the labor productivity distribution. Non-robot physical capital deepening and robotization are the most important drivers of β-convergence. Robot capital deepening contributed to the depolarization of the labor productivity distribution and to σ-convergence. Though, the effect of robot capital deepening on the entire shift of the labor productivity distribution between 1999 and 2019 is modest and dominated by other growth factors such as technological change and non-robot physical capital deepening.