The Impact Of Industrial Robot Applications On The Export Of Chinese Enterprises

The growth of industrial robots is booming in China due to the improvement of the execution ability of robots,the rise of labor costs in the context of an aging population,and the changes in traditional production methods caused by COVID-19.On the other hand,the export in China is facing pressures such as contraction in demand and supply shock.In response to the requirements of creation of a new development paradigm and realizing high-quality external circulation,China has raised the development of artificial intelligence technologies into a national policy plan.At present,industrial robots have become a new way to build international core competitiveness,which is having a profound impact on the transformation and upgrading of China’s foreign trade.Therefore,different from the existing literature,which mainly studies the impact of industrial robots on the labor market and economic growth from a macro perspective,this study chooses to supplement the research gap of the current impact of industrial robots on the export level of enterprises.The design of the theoretical framework in this paper was inspired by recent research of the impact on industrial robots.From theoretical level,this paper explains the mechanism of the application of industrial robots affecting the export level of China enterprises.From a cost perspective,the impact of industrial robot applications on labor costs is complicated.On the one hand,industrial robots may reduce the labor cost of enterprises through the substitution of labor and the change of labor mode.On the other hand,the job creation and productivity effects of industrial robots can have a positive impact on employment.Considering the substitution and complementarity of industrial robots’ skills,the application of industrial robots may also change the labor structure of enterprises,therefore increase the labor costs of enterprises.From the perspective of efficiency,industrial robots can improve production and management efficiency,optimize human capital structure,and improve innovation capabilities,thereby positively affecting the export level of enterprises.In order to conduct empirical research on the influence effect and influence path of industrial robot applications on the export level of Chinese enterprises from a micro level,this paper has synthesized and optimized the previous data processing methods.And matched the Chinese customs database and industrial enterprise database on the import of industrial robots to obtain large sample data of micro-enterprises.The regression analysis shows that: First,the application of industrial robots is an important path to improve China’s export level.Multiple robustness tests for replacing both the core variables and the sample show that the effect of industrial robot applications on the export level of firms is positively significant.The deviation-share method was used to address the endogeneity issue in this paper,an instrumental variable representing the state of the art in foreign industrial robots was constructed for inspection by using data from foreign industrial robot applications.The results confirm the causal relationship between the application of industrial robots and the improvement of the enterprises export level.Second,the heterogeneity test finds that firms with higher capital intensity adopting industrial robots has a higher positive effect on export level.Compared with enterprises in different ownership types and regions,the private enterprises and the eastern region enterprises have a more significant effect of the application of industrial robots on the export level.Third,the analysis of the impact mechanism shows that industrial robots have significant externalities.On the one hand,they will stimulate the rise of labor costs of enterprises.On the other hand,they can effectively improve the total factor productivity of enterprises,thereby increasing enterprises’ export levels.In order to give full play to the active role of industrial robots and realize the high-quality development of China’s foreign trade,this paper made several recommendations based on the research results.First,it is necessary to continuously expand the application area of industrial robots to promote the growth of China’s export level.Secondly,in order to improve the intrinsic incentive for enterprises applying industrial robots and effectively exploit the production advantages of industrial robots,differentiated preferential policies should be introduced.Furthermore,the infrastructure that matches industrial robots should be built.Finally,we must focus on the independent research and development,manufacturing and innovation of industrial robots,and continuously improve China’s international competitiveness.