Lecture Introduction

This paper investigates how robot adoption interacts with trade slowdowns to impact local labor markets in China. We highlight the role of industrial robots in mitigating the adverse impact of export slowdown on the local labor market. Employing a Bartik-style instrumental variable approach, we construct a prefecture-level measure of robot adoption and find that an interquartile increase in robot installations leads to a relative increase in the employment of around 0.16 percentage points, holding the Chinese export shock constant at its mean value of 61.42 dollars per worker. Our evidence suggests that firms’ adoption of robots helps offset employment losses from trade slowdown by increasing domestic sales and local consumption. Moreover, this adjustment coincides with shifts in employment structure that disproportionately benefit highly educated workers, as they are less vulnerable to automation.

Speaker

Dr. Chan Yu

Associate Professor, School of Insurance, University of International Business and Economics

Speaker Biography:
Chan Yu is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Insurance, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE). She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin, USA. Her research focuses on labor economics and international economics, with particular emphasis on the impact of trade shocks on labor markets, factors influencing human capital development, and immigration policies. Her work has been published in top-tier international journals such as the Journal of International Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Review of International Economics, and Health Economics. She is also the principal investigator of a Youth Program grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Lecture Time
June 4, 2025, 13:00–14:30

Venue
Room 347, Qiu Shi Building

Lecture Language
Chinese & English

Moderator
Dr. Xuening Wang

Faculty and students are warmly welcome to attend!