The Impact Of FDI In The Automotive Industry On The Application Of Industrial Robots In Its Production Value Chain

The growth of the fourth Industrial revolution is sweeping the world.Although this revolution started over ten years ago,the progress process of this industrial revolution is gradual and slow due to the gradual nature of technological progress.In the past,the impact on manufacturing will be more pronounced than other service industries.More and more scholars have paid attention to the impact of technological upgrading and the emergence of new technologies brought by the fourth Industrial Revolution on the global manufacturing industry.Based on this background,this paper focuses on industrial robots,a key production technology of the fourth industrial revolution,and studies the impact of FDI on the use of industrial robots in two main links of the automotive production value chain through its technological spillover effect.The change in the number of industrial robots used in the automobile manufacturing industry reflects the degree of technological spillover effect of FDI,and industrial robots,as the representative technology of the fourth Industrial Revolution,also reflects the influence of FDI on the fourth Industrial Revolution.This paper mainly uses the data released by the International Federation of Robotics and the FDIMarket database and classifies the data according to the production links of different value chains.The relationship between the amount of foreign direct investment in the automotive industry and the operating stock of industrial robots in 34 countries during 2003-2019 was studied.It is found that the combination of foreign direct investment and innovation capability of the host country has a positive and significant impact on the application of industrial robots.By classifying the data according to production links of different value chains,this paper also found that the influence of foreign direct investment on robot application is different in different production value chains.Fdi combined with the innovation capability of the host country has a positive and significant impact on the application of industrial robots in the manufacturing of automobile and its engine parts and accessories,but has no significant impact on the automobile manufacturing industry.This not only indicates that FDI has a positive impact on the application of industrial robots in the automobile industry,but also requires the host country to have a certain basic innovation ability.It also indicates that the influence of FDI has significant heterogeneity in different production stages of the value chain of the automobile manufacturing industry.