Riassunto analitico
Thanks to advances in robotics and Artificial Intelligence, robots are constantly improving, being more and more able to perform traditionally human-tasks. Fear that this could lead to the displacement of many workers is spreading in the developed world. In the present research, an index to measure the exposure to robots in the local systems of labour of Italy has been calculated. Two different timeframes have been taken into consideration: from 1993 to 2015, and from 2001 to 2015. This has been done by taking inspiration from the work of Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from the US Labour Market" (2017), where the same index has been calculated for the American market. In this study, a focus on manufacturing has been made, since the extent of the presence of robots in this sector. A higher exposure in the northern cities of the country has been noted, in particular in the most industrialised regions, such as Lombardia, Veneto and Emilia Romagna. Few exceptions have been registered in the south. As far as sectors are concerned, food and beverages, plastic and chemicals, and metals are the most exposed ones, even if a strong decrease in the growth of the plastic and chemicals sector has to be registered. The negative variation is particularly evident in the second period considered, because this decrease was due to the economic crisis of 2007-2008. No correlation between the index of exposure and the changes in employment has been found.
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