Automation and income inequality in Europe

We study the effects of robot penetration on household income inequality in 14 European countries between 2006–2018, a period marked by the rapid adoption of industrial robots. We establish that, similarly to the United States, automation reduced relative hourly wages and employment of directly affected European demographic groups. We then use the estimated wage and employment shocks as input to the EUROMOD microsimulation model to assess how robot-driven shocks affected household income inequality. Automation had very small effects on income inequality. Household risk-sharing and tax and welfare policies largely absorbed wage and employment shocks caused by automation.