Should we tax robots?

What if the U.S. placed a tax on robots? Because robots can replace jobs, the idea goes, a stiff tax on them would give firms incentive to help retain workers, while also compensating for a dropoff in payroll taxes when robots are used. Thus far, South Korea has reduced incentives for firms to deploy robots; European Union policymakers, on the other hand, considered a robot tax but did not enact it. Now a study by MIT economists scrutinizes the existing evidence and suggests the optimal policy in this situation would indeed include a tax on robots, but only a modest one. In the meantime, for people who have envisioned a steep tax on robots, however, they are “qualitatively right, but quantitatively off,” Werning concludes.