Automation and Inequality: How Robots Shift Income Between Workers and Owners Staff working paper 2026-34 Gabriela Galassi, Gaelan MacKenzie This paper examines the direct effects of industrial robot adoption on workers and owners within Canadian private corporations. Adoption increases firm scale and per-worker payroll but does not decrease the labor share of value added. Conventional accounting of labor income earned by owners masks the impact on non-owner workers. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): D, D2, D22, D3, D33, J, J2, J23, J3, J31, O, O3, O33 Research Theme(s): Structural challenges, Digitalization and productivity
Demographic Origins of the Decline in Labor’s Share Staff working paper 2023-20 Andrew Glover, Jacob Short Declining labour market dynamism of workers results in an increasing wedge between their earnings and their marginal product as they age. This wedge and the demographic shift in the earnings shares of older workers can account for 59% of the decline in labor’s share of earnings in the United States. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): D, D3, D33, E, E2, E25, J, J1, J3, J6, J62 Research Theme(s): Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Demographics and labour supply