Publications

We study implications of automating routine cognitive work in shared service centres (SSCs) in Poland. Drawing on 31 in-depth interviews, we highlight the negotiated nature of automation processes shaped by interactions between headquarters, SSCs, and their workers. Workers actively participated in automation processes, eliminating the most mundane tasks. This resulted in upskilling, higher job satisfaction and empowerment. Yet, this depends upon the fact that automation is triggered by labour shortages that limit the labour-intensive expansion of SSCs.

Using a a discrete choice experiment with 10,000 people in Poland, we examine public preferences for policies to achieve energy security and climate change mitigation goals in the context of the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We find a strong aversion to carbon tax, only slightly mitigated by redistribution. Income, trust, and age shape preferences for climate and energy policies, and for redistribution mechanisms.

We study the relationship between global value chain (GVC) participation, worker-level routine task intensity, and wage inequality within countries. Using survey data from 34 countries and instrumenting for GVC participation, we find that higher GVC participation is associated with more routine-intensive work, especially among workers in offshorable occupations. This indirectly widens within-country wage inequality. However, GVC participation directly contributes to reduced wage inequality, except in the richest countries. Overall, GVC participation is negatively associated with wage inequality in most low- and middle-income countries that receive offshored jobs, and positively in high-income countries that offshore jobs.

We investigate how subjective and objective assessment of COVID-19 risks affect preferences toward working from home (WFH). We conducted a discrete choice experiment combined with an information provision experiment with more than 11 000 workers in Poland. Estimating willingness to pay for WFH, we find that the subjective assessment of COVID-19 risk matters more than objective occupational exposure. Informing workers about occupational exposure to contagion generally does not affect preferences toward WFH.