IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v218y2024icp406-422.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Losing trust when pursuing development: How automation hindered political trust in China?

Author

Listed:
  • Lu, Wenyi
  • Zhuang, Shilong
  • Fan, Siyuan

Abstract

The side effects of automation on the economy have been discussed frequently, but little is known regarding its political consequences. This paper examines the causal effect that automation induces on political costs for the local government. By combining the national individual-level panel data of political trust with the prefecture-level robot exposure rate in China, we find that the development of automation would reduce individuals’ political trust in the Chinese local government. Furthermore, we explore the channels through which the automation process could affect political trust, namely the risk of unemployment, intensified pessimism about local government, higher downside risk, and declining organization participation. This paper provides empirical evidence for the impact of automation and the source of political legitimacy, emphasizing the crucial role of governments in coping with technological progress and making good use of endogenous creative destruction.

Suggested Citation

  • Lu, Wenyi & Zhuang, Shilong & Fan, Siyuan, 2024. "Losing trust when pursuing development: How automation hindered political trust in China?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 406-422.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:218:y:2024:i:c:p:406-422
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.12.025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268123004626
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.12.025?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

    Keywords

    Automation; Political trust; Legitimacy; Development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • P26 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Property Rights

    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:eee:jeborg:v:218:y:2024:i:c:p:406-422. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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.