Automation or globalization? The impacts of robots and Chinese imports on jobs in the United Kingdom

In this paper, we examine how robot adoption and Chinese import competition shaped employment patterns in 352 cities across the United Kingdom. We find that cities whose initial industry composition exposed them to industrial robots and China’s integration into the world economy experienced significant employment declines. When pitched against other capital and technologies, the impact of robots remains distinct. Our findings suggest that one more robot per thousand workers reduced the employment-to-population ratio by 0.5 percentage points, while an increase of $1,000 imports from China per worker reduced the employment-to-population ratio by 0.11 percentage points. We also show that while these are sizable effects, penetration of both robots and Chinese imports are too small to account for Brexit.