WHAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE: A CROSS-COUNTRY STUDY OF INDUSTRIAL ROBOT ADOPTION

Using data of industrial robots from the International Federation of Robotics, we examine why some countries adopt industrial robots (robots) more than other countries.Our data covers 63 countries from 2010-2021.We document substantial heterogeneity in the extent to which different countries embrace robots.Countries with larger economy sizes tend to adopt more robots.In terms of labor market characteristics, we find that countries with higher employment-to-population ratios and larger proportions of populations aged 65 and above have adopted more robots, even after we account for various other independent variables.Countries that have made efforts to gain comparative advantages in science and technology, measured by the research and development expenditure as a percentage of its GDP, have also used more robots.Additionally, we observe a significant difference in robot usage across regions and income groups.Given that national culture greatly impacts our society, we conduct further analysis to find out which national culture features (using Hofstede's cultural dimensions) have significant impacts on robot adoption.We find that higher degrees of masculinity and individualism are positively related while long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance are negatively related to robot adoption.Since our study covers a relatively long time span, as a robustness check we control the time effect, with results being qualitatively the same.To account for variations in population sizes across countries, we use an alternative measure of robot adoption, operational stock of industrial robots per million population, and get similar results.Our study sheds light on technological integration for policymakers and researchers.