Robots and Export Quality

Robots and Export Quality

Robots are rapidly becoming a key part of manufacturing in developed and emerging economies. This paper examines a new channel for how automation can affect international trade: quality upgrading. Automation can reduce production errors, particular...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: DeStefano, Timothy, Timmis, Jonathan
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:
ROBOTS
AUTOMATION
PRODUCT QUALITY
TRADE
GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN
TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/915351622137193881/Robots-and-Export-Quality
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35639
id okr-10986-35639
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-356392021-06-03T05:10:46Z Robots and Export Quality DeStefano, Timothy Timmis, Jonathan ROBOTS AUTOMATION PRODUCT QUALITY TRADE GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION Robots are rapidly becoming a key part of manufacturing in developed and emerging economies. This paper examines a new channel for how automation can affect international trade: quality upgrading. Automation can reduce production errors, particularly of repetitive processes, leading to higher quality products. The effects of robot use on export quality are estimated, by combining cross-country and cross-industry data on industrial robots with detailed Harmonized System 10-digit trade data. Robot diffusion in (preexisting) foreign customers is used as an instrumental variable to predict robot adoption in the home country-industry. The findings show that robot diffusion leads to increases in the quality of exported products. Quality improvements are predominantly driven by the upgrading of developing country exports; and within countries, quality improvements are driven by upgrading of (initially) lower-quality exports of developed and developing countries. The paper also finds some differences in the type of robots—sophisticated or more basic—associated with quality gains in developing and developed economies. 2021-06-02T13:21:07Z 2021-06-02T13:21:07Z 2021-05 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/915351622137193881/Robots-and-Export-Quality http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35639 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9678 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic ROBOTS
AUTOMATION
PRODUCT QUALITY
TRADE
GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN
TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
spellingShingle ROBOTS
AUTOMATION
PRODUCT QUALITY
TRADE
GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN
TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
DeStefano, Timothy
Timmis, Jonathan
Robots and Export Quality
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9678
description Robots are rapidly becoming a key part of manufacturing in developed and emerging economies. This paper examines a new channel for how automation can affect international trade: quality upgrading. Automation can reduce production errors, particularly of repetitive processes, leading to higher quality products. The effects of robot use on export quality are estimated, by combining cross-country and cross-industry data on industrial robots with detailed Harmonized System 10-digit trade data. Robot diffusion in (preexisting) foreign customers is used as an instrumental variable to predict robot adoption in the home country-industry. The findings show that robot diffusion leads to increases in the quality of exported products. Quality improvements are predominantly driven by the upgrading of developing country exports; and within countries, quality improvements are driven by upgrading of (initially) lower-quality exports of developed and developing countries. The paper also finds some differences in the type of robots—sophisticated or more basic—associated with quality gains in developing and developed economies.
format Working Paper
author DeStefano, Timothy
Timmis, Jonathan
author_facet DeStefano, Timothy
Timmis, Jonathan
author_sort DeStefano, Timothy
title Robots and Export Quality
title_short Robots and Export Quality
title_full Robots and Export Quality
title_fullStr Robots and Export Quality
title_full_unstemmed Robots and Export Quality
title_sort robots and export quality
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2021
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/915351622137193881/Robots-and-Export-Quality
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35639
_version_ 1764483474009358336

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