Pascual Restrepo

About

Pascual Restrepo is a prominent labor economist whose research sits at the intersection of automation, technological change, and labor market outcomes. He is best known for his groundbreaking work on industrial robots and employment, most notably the landmark study "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets," co-authored with Daron Acemoglu, which has accumulated over 3,400 citations and fundamentally reshaped how economists think about automation's displacement effects. By exploiting variation in industry-level robot adoption across local US labor markets, Restrepo demonstrated that rising robot usage measurably reduces employment and wages — providing some of the most rigorous causal evidence in the automation debate. Beyond this seminal contribution, Restrepo has expanded the frontier of automation research in several directions. His work on demographics and automation reveals a compelling feedback loop: aging populations, facing shortages of middle-aged manual workers, accelerate robot adoption. His firm-level analyses — drawing on French manufacturing data and the US Annual Business Survey — illuminate how automation reshapes workforce composition and labor shares within individual companies. With nearly 5,900 cumulative citations across his most recognized work, Restrepo has established himself as one of the defining voices in understanding how technology transforms modern labor markets.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets

   3,417 citations · 2019
2. 2
   Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets

   898 citations · 2017
3. 3
   Demographics and Automation

   526 citations · 2021
4. 4
   Competing with Robots: Firm-Level Evidence from France

   359 citations · 2020
5. 5
   Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets

   269 citations · 2017
6. 6
   Demographics and Automation

   111 citations · 2018
7. 7
   Automation and the Workforce: A Firm-Level View from the 2019 Annual Business Survey

   85 citations · 2022
8. 8
   Automation and the Workforce: A Firm-Level View from the 2019 Annual Business Survey

   61 citations · 2022
9. 9
   Competing with Robots: Firm-Level Evidence from France

   49 citations · 2020
10. 10
    Advanced Technology Adoption: Selection or Causal Effects?

    48 citations · 2023

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links