Impacts of Industrial Robotics

According to leading expert opinion, industrial robots are among the most important innovations of recent decades. Yet there is very considerable uncertainty (and disagreement) as to the rate at which the use of robots will spread and what their effects on employment, costs, and market structure will be. As stressed in 1983 by Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment: “A central question for an analysis of the social and economic impacts of programmable automation is whether programmable automation is likely to spread especially rapidly among firms and industries, and why.”

In this timely and interesting book, Steven Miller analyzes the job displacement effects of industrial robots, as well as their potential impacts on production costs. Combining engineering and economic data, he concludes that robot use will continue to be concentrated within large firms for the next several years, displacement impacts will be concentrated within particular geographic locations and industries, and that very few workers will actually lose their employment as a direct result of robot use. He also analyzes the effects of flexible manufacturing systems on production costs