working papers

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 effect of the adoption of automation technologies – industrial robots, and software and databases – on the incidence of atypical employment in 13 EU countries between 2006 and 2018. Industrial robots significantly increase atypical employment share, mostly through involuntary part-time and involuntary fixed-term work. There's no effect of software and databases. Higher trade union density mitigates the robots’ impact on atypical employment, while employment protection legislation plays no role.

We study implications of automation of 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 limit the labour-intensive expansion of SSCs.

We study the effects of robot penetration on household income inequality in 14 European countries between 2006–2018. We find that, similarly to the United States, automation reduced relative hourly wages and employment of directly affected European demographic groups. We then use the estimated wage and employment shocks as input to the EUROMOD microsimulation model to assess how robot-driven shocks affected household income inequality. Automation had tiny effects on income inequality. Transfers played a key role in cushioning the transmission of these shocks to household incomes.