IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v210y2025ics0040162524006760.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Robot adoption and firm export: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Cao, Yuanyuan
  • Chen, Shaojian
  • Tang, Heyan

Abstract

Whether the robot adoption can lead to a new competitive advantage in international trade has become an urgent problem for firms that export from China. Using matching data from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) Database and the China Industrial Enterprises Database and China Customs Database for 2011 to 2013, this study examines the impact of robot adoption on firm export and its mechanism. We find that the robot adoption significantly promotes firm export, including the value and intensity of firm export, mainly owing to an improvement in firm productivity. This effect remains robust after using instrumental variable to account for endogenous factors and replacing core explanatory variables. Heterogeneity analysis shows that, first, robot adoption plays a greater role in promoting firm export by foreign enterprises and private enterprises than by state-owned enterprises. Second, robot adoption has a stronger effect on labor-intensive industries than on non-labor-intensive industries. Third, with the increase of firm scale, innovation and human capital, the promoting effect of robot adoption on firm export increases. Our research provides empirical evidence on the positive impact of robot adoption on firm export and sheds light on how to maintain the competitiveness of manufacturing firms in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Cao, Yuanyuan & Chen, Shaojian & Tang, Heyan, 2025. "Robot adoption and firm export: Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:210:y:2025:i:c:s0040162524006760
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2024.123878
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162524006760
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techfore.2024.123878?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

    Robot adoption; Firm export; Productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity

    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:tefoso:v:210:y:2025:i:c:s0040162524006760. 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.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625 .

    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.