THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES: LABOR, TRADE AND REGULATION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69980/ephijer.v10i1.182Keywords:
Autonomous vehicles, lkets, trade costs, regulation, transition policyAbstract
Driverless cars are vehicles which drive by themselves in absence of human input due to high tech. engineering. When AVs take over driving tasks, it adds to productivity for freight and passenger transport and reduces operating costs. It can reshape the spatial organization of economic activity. Yet, these benefits come with distributional outcomes: there’s a risk of displacement for jobs heavily reliant on driving (like truck, taxi, and delivery drivers). There are new opportunities for fleet management, maintenance, software, and logistics optimization. Besides, there’s also wage and skill polarization. For trade, logistics that use audio-visual technologies can bring about lower transport costs and faster cross-border supply chains, as well as new service models (on-demand logistics, micro-fulfilment), but it could also transform comparative advantages among regions reliant on transport-dependant sectors. The regulation will need to address safety, liability, data privacy, urban impact, as well as labour and social policies to mitigate these transition costs. This paper combines theoretical and empirical evidence, formulates an integrated analytical framework constructed by combining the task-based labor model with trade-cost simulation, and scenarios-based results assessing the short- and medium impact AVs under different adoption speeds. Policy advice urges gradual regulation; retraining and income support schemes; data and liability standards; targeted infrastructure investment for maximising gains while mitigating social costs. To achieve the equitable and sustainable benefits of AV coordinated public–private responses are essential.
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