Industry spillover effects of robot applications on labor productivity: Evidence from China

This paper provides new insights into the industry spillover on labor productivity by discussing the spillover effects of robot application among industries in three spillover directions: horizontal, forward, and backward spillover. In addition, this paper measures the three spillovers with the weight matrices from the year 2012 input-output table by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics. Using a spatial econometric model and 2000–2010 data on China's secondary industry, this paper tests three hypotheses relating to the direct effect and the spillover effects of robot applications. The main results show that the robot application of one industry can improve labor productivity significantly. Moreover, all three kinds of spillover have significant positive effects on the labor productivity of a focal industry. Among them, the forward spillover exerts the greatest impact on labor productivity. The heterogeneity effects exist due to the industry's factor intensity and technological structure etc. The findings of this study could provide several important implications for the development of a given industry and the industry chain of a country as well.