Lu Wenyi, Fan Siyuan
School of Economics, Peking University, Beijing, China.
School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Health Econ. 2024 Sep;33(9):2088-2104. doi: 10.1002/hec.4865. Epub 2024 Jun 8.
The side effects of technological progress on the economy have been discussed frequently, but little is known regarding its health consequences. By combining the national individual-level panel data of alcohol drinking with the prefecture-level robot exposure rate in China, we find that one more robot exposure rate could induce up to 2.2% points increase in the probability of problem drinking. Such a pattern of problem drinking is explained by negative emotions, which can be ascribed to job loss due to substitution, higher income vulnerability, and reduced organization participation. Further, we provide evidence that automation can incur health costs, particularly for easily substituted workers, which would exacerbate health inequality in China. This paper sheds light on the impact of automation and the social incentives of problem drinking, emphasizing the possibly heterogeneous health cost accompanied by the automation process.
技术进步对经济的副作用已被频繁讨论，但关于其对健康的影响却知之甚少。通过将中国酒精饮用的全国个人层面面板数据与地级市层面的机器人接触率相结合，我们发现机器人接触率每增加一个百分点，问题饮酒的概率就可能增加高达2.2个百分点。这种问题饮酒模式可以用负面情绪来解释，负面情绪可归因于因替代导致的失业、更高的收入脆弱性以及组织参与度降低。此外，我们提供的证据表明，自动化会产生健康成本，尤其是对容易被替代的工人而言，这将加剧中国的健康不平等。本文揭示了自动化的影响以及问题饮酒的社会诱因，强调了自动化过程可能伴随的异质性健康成本。
