Industrial robot adoption and the resilience of manufacturing global value chains

In the context of increasing global economic uncertainty, promoting the deep integration of artificial intelligence technology and the real economy has become a core concern for ensuring the safety of the manufacturing industry chain and advancing high-quality development. However, how industrial robot adoption (IRA) can empower global value chain (GVC) resilience, its mechanisms of action and boundaries of influence remain to be clarified as a major practical issue that requires urgent investigation. To examine this issue, this study uses the World Industrial Robot Database from the International Federation of Robotics, World Bank World Development Indicators and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) input–output tables to construct a three-dimensional, country–industry–year panel covering nine manufacturing industries in 53 countries from 2000 to 2018. We quantify manufacturing GVCs’ resilience from safety and stability dimensions and systematically examine the influence of IRA. The findings reveal that IRA can significantly improve manufacturing GVCs’ overall resilience, which remains valid following a series of robustness and endogeneity tests. Further analysis reveals that this enabling effect is more prominent for labour- and technology-intensive industries, OECD countries and high import-dependent countries. Mechanism analysis confirms that IRA primarily enhances GVCs’ resilience through three channels of labour substitution, reduced trade costs and promoting technological innovation. In addition, our spatial econometric model results demonstrate that the impact of IRA not only benefits the country but also has a positive driving effect on neighbouring countries’ GVC resilience through significant positive spatial spillover effects. This study provides new insights into the evolution of manufacturing GVCs in the era of Industry 4.0 and offers valuable empirical evidence and decision-making guidance for countries to advance GVC upgrading.