Abstract:

Under the background of China's high-level opening-up, the import of industrial robots is an important activity to expand the import of key equipment, and also a key force to improve people's income and expand domestic demand under the double cycle pattern. This paper uses the matching data between industrial enterprises and robot trade in China from 2000 to 2013 to investigate and reveal that: (1) The import of industrial robots will improve the average salary of employees in Chinese enterprises, and this effect is robust. (2) From the perspective of influence mechanism, the positive impact of robots on wage income mainly comes from the upgrading of skill structure caused by the substitution effect, the reduction of consumer price, and the expansion of output caused by productivity improvement. (3) At the heterogeneous level, the improvement effect of robots on wages is mainly concentrated on certain industries, such as capital or technology-intensive and foreign-owned enterprises. The study of this paper has a certain practical significance on how to use the strategy of expanding imports to achieve the goal of expanding domestic demand during the "14th Five-Year Plan".

Key words:

industrial robot imports, salary income, skill structure optimization effect, productivity effect