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Automation and Local Labour Markets: Impact of Immigrant Mobility

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  • Anand Chopra
  • Ronit Mukherji

Abstract

This paper illustrates the role of low-skilled immigrants' location choice as a channel through which local labour markets adjust to automation. We employ a shift-share instrumental variable approach to demonstrate that low-skilled immigrants are more mobile than low-skilled native born in response to robot exposure. Low-skilled immigrants are less likely to enter and more likely to exit from highly robot-exposed regions. Immigrants' location decisions attenuate wage losses due to robot exposure for low-skilled natives. Low-skilled native workers experience a 0.07 percentage point smaller decline in wages comparing commuting zones at the 50th and 25th percentiles of low-skilled immigrant shares.

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  • Anand Chopra & Ronit Mukherji, 2024. "Automation and Local Labour Markets: Impact of Immigrant Mobility," Working Papers 202409, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:liv:livedp:202409
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    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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