Journal of Development Economics · 2025 · [{"name": "Jaideep Roy", "affiliation": ["University of Bath"]}, {"name": "Bibhas Saha", "affiliation": ["Durham University"]}]
中文摘要
当发展中经济体的自动化在先进部门替代低技能工人时，由于“新近”失业者的迁入，落后部门的工资可能下降。对工作和收入损失的担忧因而可能促使寻求公职的政党为赢得选举而宣布关于自动化的监管政策。我们表明，在不存在部门间溢出效应的情况下，自动化在民主制度下的采用程度相对更高，且仅保护先进部门的高技能岗位。然而，溢出效应的可能性限制了这种采用。更具体地说，如果落后部门规模较大，自动化将面临全面抵制。相反，如果先进部门规模较大，自动化程度为中等，仅使低技能岗位变得脆弱。但这些脆弱工人与落后部门的同类工人不同，可能更倾向于自动化，因为他们在先进部门的工资会降至遣散费加落后部门机会之和以下。当两个部门规模都不大时，自动化的规模变得不确定，从而将相似的经济体推向不同的增长路径。
Abstract
When automation in a developing economy displaces low-skilled workers in the advanced sector, backward sector wages may fall due to in-migration of the ‘newly’ unemployed. Fear of job and income loss may then induce office-seeking political parties to announce regulatory policies on automation for electoral success. We show that absent sectoral spillover, democratic adoption of automation is relatively higher and protects only high-skilled jobs in the advanced sector. However, the possibility of spillover limits this adoption. More specifically, if the backward sector is large, automation faces full resistance. In contrast, if the advanced sector is large, automation is moderate, making only the low-skilled jobs vulnerable. But these vulnerable workers, unlike their counterparts in the backward sector, may prefer automation because their advanced-sector wages fall below the severance pay plus backward-sector opportunities. When neither sector is large, the size of automation becomes uncertain, pushing similar economies into different growth paths.