Robotization in Central and Eastern Europe: catching up or dependence?

Abstract

While in the most developed European countries the combination of falling robot prices and high wages boosts robotization, these driving factors do not sufficiently explain why we are experiencing today a sharp increase in deployment of industrial robots in European countries with low wages. Particularly, in Central and Eastern Europe where a decade ago industrial robots were almost non-existent but today more than 30,000 robots are at work. Hence this paper, by recalculating the data of International Federation of Robotics and EU-KLEMS addresses the main question: What drives and hinders the robotization in Central and Eastern Europe?.