At the Competence-Centre on Microeconomic Evaluation (CC-ME) we advise and support EU policy making through ex-post causal evaluation and data-driven microeconomic analysis. The CC-ME hosts a Microeconometric Seminar Series to promote discussions with external researchers from academia and other institutions. Our Seminar Series is intended to disseminate advanced research methodologies and topics in the field of microeconomic evaluation. To further disseminate the benefits of our Series across the JRC, we post a summary of the presented papers together with the presenters' views and opinions on their research and the future of the field of Applied Economics. |
Last week we had the pleasure of having Professor Massimo Anelli from Bocconi University present his work: Robots Replacing Trade Unions: Novel Data and Evidence from Western Europe.
Professor Anelli and co-authors point out in the paper that economic distress and individual exposure to automation have emerged as significant determinants of the increasing success of populist and radical-right parties and candidates in advanced democracies. However, the debate on why such technologically-driven economic grievances have expressed a decidedly right-wing character and not favoured pro-redistribution, and traditional left-wing, parties is still unsettled.
Historically, labour unions have played a crucial role in liberal democracies by hindering the increasing wage inequality, by channelling political demands and discontent into an organized voice, and by linking blue-collar constituencies to mainstream left parties. However, the importance and effectiveness of unions in the democratic process have progressively diminished in the last decades, combined with an atomization of political demands.
The authors suggest that technological change, and robotization in particular, have directly contributed to weakening the role of unions. They employ novel granular data, at the subnational and sector level, on union density in Western Europe over two decades, to estimate the impact of industrial robot adoption on unionization rates. Furthermore, the authors shed new light on the mechanism by which regions and individuals more exposed to automation tilt towards nationalist, isolationist, and radical right parties.
To learn more about Professor Anelli’s work and opinions about the future of the field of Applied Economics we asked him to briefly answer a series of questions. You can find his answer to each of our questions below.
Q: What attracted you to research the topics in your paper? A: There is by now solid evidence that automation has moved workers at risk of technology replacement towards far-right parties, but much less towards left parties, which should offer income redistribution policies appealing in theory for the losers of automation. We conjecture that one of the reasons for this puzzling results is due to the fact that automation has destroyed jobs in highly unionized sectors and created new jobs in non-unionized sectors. |
Q: Where is the research area where your paper fits moving? A: It's moving towards understanding the mechanisms underlying causally identified reduced form effects. |
Q: What, in your opinion, will the next breakthrough in Applied Economics be? A: Understanding which re-training policies help workers losers from the technological process to get re-employed and which basic education and core skills help future workers to be complement of the technological change. |
The CC-ME team would like to congratulate Professor Anelli for his insightful research and thank him for presenting it in our Seminar Series.
For more information on the upcoming presentations and how to participate in our Seminar Series please visit our dedicated website.
| Originally Published | Last Updated | 13 Sep 2023 | 11 Mar 2024 |
| Related organisation(s) | JRC - Joint Research Centre |
| Knowledge service | Metadata | Microeconomic Evaluation |