Automation, wage inequality and implications of a robot tax

作者：Zhang, Pengqing^*

来源：International Review of Economics & Finance, 2019, 59: 500-509.

DOI：10.1016/j.iref.2018.10.013

• Automation
• Wage inequality
• Robot taxation
• General equilibrium approach

To examine how automation affects the skilled-unskilled wage gap and whether robots should be taxed, this paper embeds the use of robots within the specific-factor framework. In the basic model, we show that an acceleration in automation generates the displacement effect and the capital reallocation effect. If the elasticity of substitution between labor and capital in the robot producing sector is not too small (resp. is sufficiently small), then the capital reallocation effect cannot (resp. can) counteract the displacement effect and thus the wage gap will be expanded (resp. will be narrowed down). In the extended models, the results of the basic model will still hold when a labor union is introduced into the robot-using sector, but the wage gap will be unconditionally expanded when a regulated wage rate is introduced into that sector. In both the basic model and the extended models, a tax on robots will unambiguously narrow down the wage gap.

• 出版日期2019-1
• 单位南京大学