Gary L. Anderson

National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Papers

Total Citations

141

H-Index

About

Gary L. Anderson is a leading researcher at the intersection of labor economics, technology adoption, and innovation policy. His most influential work leverages unique, large-scale survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau to provide a firm-level view of automation’s impact on the American workforce. His landmark 2022 paper, "Automation and the Workforce," with 85 citations, was the first to comprehensively describe automation adoption across all U.S. economic sectors using a novel module from the Annual Business Survey. Building on this, his 2023 study (48 citations) critically examines whether advanced technology makes firms grow, or if already-large, high-growth firms are simply more likely to adopt—a key distinction for understanding causality in economic outcomes. While his primary focus is on the economics of automation, his earlier, interdisciplinary work on a robotic system for Mars exploration (2007) demonstrates a rare breadth of technical expertise. Anderson’s research is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the real-world, firm-level dynamics behind the headlines on robots and jobs.