Research Findings of Professor Chen Dong’s Team Published in China Industrial Economics

Recently, the paper Industrial Robot Application, Superstar Firms and Labor Income Share Changes: Coexistence of "Benefits" and "Hidden Concerns", co-authored by Professor Chen Dong from the School of Economics, Shandong University, doctoral student Yao Di from the School of Economics, Shandong University, and doctoral student Zheng Yulu from the School of Business, China University of Political Science and Law, was published in Issue 5, 2024 of China Industrial Economics, a top domestic journal in economics.

The popularization of industrial robot technology is also a process of the differentiation of enterprise market share, which may lead to the enhancement of market power and the change of factor income distribution. Starting from superstar firms, this paper examines the impact of industrial robot application on enterprise labor income share and its mechanism. The study finds that the application of industrial robots is generally conducive to improving the labor income share of enterprises, showing a "beneficial" trend for improving the position of labor factors in the primary income distribution. The "hidden concern" that cannot be ignored is that the application of industrial robots promotes the rise of superstar firms by improving the relative market power of enterprises in the industry, and superstar firms affect the labor income share through both "competition effect" and "demonstration effect". Among them, the "competition effect" is the main reason for the decline of labor income share, and the "demonstration effect" is a new reason for the decline of labor income share. At the same time, anti-monopoly policies help to improve the labor income share, but they are not applicable to the market power expansion caused by the application of industrial robots, and the "hidden concern" of superstar firms suppressing the labor income share still exists. Against the trend of "machine replacement", this paper provides empirical enlightenment for addressing the "hidden concerns" brought by superstar firms to factor income distribution.

Chen Dong is a Professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Economics, Shandong University. He has long been engaged in research on fiscal and taxation theory and policy, artificial intelligence and income distribution, and medical and health economics. He has published papers in prestigious journals such as Economic Research, China Industrial Economics, Journal of Financial Research, and The Journal of Quantitative & Technical Economics. The textbook Government Economics co-edited by him was rated as the "11th Five-Year Plan" national planning textbook and the high-quality textbook of the Ministry of Education. He has won the second and third prizes of Shandong Provincial Social Science Outstanding Achievement Awards and the National Excellent Fiscal Theory Achievement Award many times, and presided over many vertical projects such as the National Social Science Fund, the Humanities and Social Sciences Fund of the Ministry of Education, the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province and the Social Science Fund of Shandong Province many times.

Yao Di is a doctoral student at the School of Economics, Shandong University. His research field is artificial intelligence and income distribution. He has published papers in academic journals such as China Industrial Economics, Economic Science, and Economic Theory and Business Management, and participated in research projects such as the National Social Science Fund.