IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ecinnt/v33y2024i8p1145-1158.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mitigating the labor displacing effects of automation through a robot tax: evidence from a survey experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Emanuela Carbonara
  • Chiara N. Focacci
  • Enrico Santarelli

Abstract

We examine how taxation might influence the relationship between automation and employment dynamics. The results obtained through a survey experiment with 2,000 entrepreneurs residing in the U.S. show that the implementation of a robot tax leads to a significant decrease in the inclination of entrepreneurs to reduce workforce levels. Conversely, an equal but negative robot tax, functioning as a reward for automation, motivates entrepreneurs to downsize their workforce. Nevertheless, the impact of the former outweighs that of the latter. Among participants who place higher value on automation we observe a 0.174 increase in the log-odds of reducing the workforce and a 0.312 decrease in the log-odds of reducing automation equipment. These changes are statistically significant at the 1% level. With respect to possible gender effects, male entrepreneurs are found to have a greater likelihood of firing employees, regardless of the treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Emanuela Carbonara & Chiara N. Focacci & Enrico Santarelli, 2024. "Mitigating the labor displacing effects of automation through a robot tax: evidence from a survey experiment," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(8), pages 1145-1158, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ecinnt:v:33:y:2024:i:8:p:1145-1158
    DOI: 10.1080/10438599.2023.2293031
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10438599.2023.2293031
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10438599.2023.2293031?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ecinnt:v:33:y:2024:i:8:p:1145-1158. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GEIN20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.