Robot application and occupational injuries: Are robots necessarily safer?

•Robot application increases the rate of occupational injuries in developing countries.•Robot application does not have a persistent impact on occupational injuries.•Local governments can reduce the effect of robot application by strengthening safety regulations.•Robot application imposes a burden on the public health expenditure of local governments. Recent research argues that robots could replace workers in dangerous work environments to reduce occupational injuries. However, robot development and usage in most developing countries remain at an infant stage, robots may increase the likelihood of occupational injuries due to conditions such as limited human capital and defects. By using a city-level dataset based on the Guangdong Province in China, we find that robot application is associated with an increase in the rate of occupational injuries in the first two years, and then exhibits nonsignificant and even negative effects afterwards. We also find that local governments can reduce or even eliminate the effect of robot application on occupational injuries by strengthening safety regulations. In addition, although local governments are keen on pushing robot application and industrial intelligence, the wide application of robots may impose a burden on the public health expenditure of local governments due to occupational injuries. This study extends our knowledge by challenging the traditional view that robot application can reduce the rate of occupational injuries, and also provides suggestions on the safety regulations of developing countries at the early stage of industrial intelligence.