Following a couple of decades ofoffshoring, the fear today is of reshoring. Usingadministrative data on Mexican exports by municipality,sector and destination from 2004 to 2014, this paperinvestigates how local labor markets in Mexico that are moreexposed to automation in the U.S. through trade fared inexports and employment outcomes. The results show that anincrease of one robot per thousand workers in the U.S. —about twice the increase observed between 2004-2014 — lowersgrowth in exports per worker from Mexico to the U.S. by 6.7percent. Higher exposure to U.S. automation did not affectwage employment, nor manufacturing wage employment overall.Yet, the latter is the result of two counteracting forces.Exposure to U.S. automation reduced manufacturing wageemployment in areas where occupations were initially moresusceptible to being automated; but exposure increasedmanufacturing wage employment in other areas. Finally, theanalysis also finds negative impacts of exposure to localautomation on local labor market outcomes.
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