工业机器人应用能否减缓少子老龄化冲击——基于贸易依存度的量化评估

Can Industrial Robot Adoption Mitigate the Impact of Low Fertility and Population Aging? —A Quantitative Assessment Based on Trade Dependence

中文关键词:  工业机器人  少子老龄化  贸易依存度  一般均衡模型  结构式估计

英文关键词:industrial robots  low fertility and population aging  trade dependence  general equilibrium model  structural estimation

中文摘要:

      未来较长时期内,中国将面临人口老龄化与少子化交织的少子老龄化困局。这可能引致中国经济增长动能走弱,增加值与进出口额同步收缩且外贸回落更快,进而贸易依存度被动下滑、压缩对外开放空间。而广泛应用的工业机器人与劳动力之间存在一定的替代关系。基于此,构建涵盖国内外贸易网络、劳动力内生供给与工业机器人应用的多国多区域一般均衡模型,考察了少子老龄化冲击经由有效劳动力供给变化,引致产出与进出口规模调整进而推动贸易依存度变化的过程,并采用结构式估计进行了量化分析。研究发现:(1)中国的少子老龄化冲击将减少中国的有效劳动力供给,导致中国及其他经济体的增加值和进出口额下降,从而贸易依存度下降,且中国的降幅更大；(2)中国各省份的少子老龄化冲击强度差异显著,贸易依存度变化呈现明显的异质性；(3)以2022年为基准年,若将工业机器人应用程度在基准水平上提高0.43%,则能够基本抵消2022年少子老龄化导致总抚养比上升0.58%所带来的贸易依存度负面冲击。因此,应加快工业机器人技术的推广应用并完善配套政策,以减缓少子老龄化引致的贸易依存度下滑。

英文摘要:

      In the coming decades, China will face the dual challenges of low fertility and population aging. This demographic shift risks weakening the drivers of China's economic growth, shrinks value added alongside import and export volume—with foreign trade contracting more sharply—and thereby leads to a passive decline in trade dependence and the narrowing of the space for further opening up. Meanwhile, the widespread adoption of industrial robots presents a potential substitution for labor. Against this backdrop, this study constructs a multi-country, multi-region general equilibrium model that integrates domestic and international trade networks, endogenous labor supply, and industrial robot adoption, and traces how the low fertility and population aging shocks operate through changes in effective labor supply, reshape output and trade flows, and ultimately affect trade dependence. Using structural estimation, it conducts a quantitative analysis. The results are threefold. (1) China's low fertility and population aging shocks will reduce its effective labor supply, reducing value added as well as import and export volume in China and other economies, which in turn lowers trade dependence, with a larger drop observed in China. (2) The intensity of such shocks varies significantly across China's provincial-level regions, resulting in substantial heterogeneity in changes in trade dependence. (3) Taking 2022 as the baseline year, a 0.43% increase in the level of industrial robot adoption from the baseline would be sufficient to offset the negative impact on trade dependence caused by a 0.58% rise in the total dependency ratio due to low fertility and population aging in the same year. These results suggest that China should accelerate the diffusion and adoption of industrial robots and improve supporting policies to mitigate the decline in trade dependence driven by low fertility and population aging. 