Why Do People Blame Foreigners but Not Robots?

• In Event: New Perspectives on Trade Preferences

Abstract

Experts and populists differ markedly on their assessments of globalization. Populists blame trade, offshoring, and immigration for unemployment, wage stagnation, and the disappearance of factory jobs. Economists, on the other hand, support free trade and immigration nearly unanimously and instead emphasize the disruptions from automation and other labor-saving technology. Has globalization’s populist opposition misunderstood structural economic change, blaming immigrants and trade for changes that are mostly the result of automation?

The paper first presents evidence of such blame misattribution. Using the 2016 American National Election Studies, a nationally representative survey in the United States, I show that citizens have a tendency to misattribute blame for economic dislocations toward immigrants and workers abroad, while discounting the effects of technology and automation. Specifically, workers facing higher risk of automation tend to hold more hostile attitudes toward immigrants and free trade, but they are no less likely to support government spending to promote technology that might aid further automation.

Cognitive biases, political framing, and economic illiteracy can explain such blame misattribution. In a follow-up survey experiment, I demonstrate that individuals tend to overestimate the extent of globalization and underestimate personal risks of automation. Moreover, people see foreigners and robots through different lenses. Increased economic anxiety leads to heightened outgroup blaming and perceptions of foreigners in zero-sum terms but not robots.

Author

• Nicole Wu, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor