Robots at the Tropics

In recent years, a growing concern has emerged regarding the potential effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotization on firms, and even more specifically on workers and the risks for their displacement (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014; Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2017; Graetz and Michaels, 2015, among others). The emphasis of current research studies has been driven by the rapid decrease in the prices of robots, that according to Graetz and Michaels (2015) fell by 2005 to one fifth of its 1990 level adjusting for quality. Consequently, utilization of robots has increased in a wide range of different industries, with the operational stock of robots doubled between 2005 and 2016, reaching 1,828,024 units by the end of 2016 and expected to reach three millions by 2020 (International Federation of Robotics, 2017). The evidence on the impact of robots on the global economy is still very limited and the results of recent studies exhibit great differences. For example, while Frey and Osborne (2017) indicate that the number of jobs that are in risk of automation could account for around 50%, Arntz et al.(2017) argue that this figure is overestimated due to the fact that the heterogeneity of tasks within occupations is not considered, which would reduce this number to around 9%