Conflict or cooperation? Exploring the relationship between cooperative institutions and robotisation

Robotization of production challenges the status‐quo in the economy, some win, while others lose out. Literature has argued that automation causes redistribution, both between capital and labour as within either category. We also know that many economies have chosen to adopt cooperative institutions to negotiate the negative by‐products of such economic changes. What is, however, less clear is how such institutions influence rates of automation themselves. This article contributes to this debate by conducting a panel analysis of sectoral robotization rates and cooperative institutions in 25 OECD countries between 1993 and 2017 using an original institutional indicator. The findings suggest that aside from simply redistributing the costs and benefits of automation throughout the productive sector, cooperative institutions also meaningfully predict higher levels of robot density, showing that more institutionalized economies do not lag behind in terms of automation. What is more, these institutions also seem to co‐determine the rates of robotization occurring during recessions.