Impact of Global Production Automation on China's Trade and Welfare
This paper constructs a multi-sectoral Ricardian model that incorporates robot production and calculates a nationwide robot application index in order to quantify the impact of global industrial automation between 2012 and 2019 on China's trade and welfare.The results of the study reveal the following:(i)China's ability to empower production processes with robots needs to be further addressed,although China is already highly developed in industrial automation;(ii)global industrial automation has slightly increased the per capita welfare level of Chinese employees,but its contribution to productivity turns out to be minimal and the primary benefit comes from employment substitution effects;and(iii)the use of robots in developed countries has led to the reshoring of traditional industries,negatively affecting China.However,its use in emerging countries has further strengthened the industrial division and cooperation with China.This study provides important references for China to stabilize foreign trade and upgrade industrial automation.