Hello. I'm Fabien Petit.

Abstract: The increase in employment polarization observed in several high-income economies has coincided with a reduction in inter-generational mobility. This paper argues that the disappearance of middling jobs can drive changes in mobility, notably by removing a stepping-stone towards high-paying occupations for those from less well-off family backgrounds. Using data for two British cohorts we examine how the occupational outcomes of children depend on both initial occupations and occupational upgrading during their careers. We find that transitions across occupations are key for mobility and that the effect of parental income on those transitions has become stronger over time. Moreover, the impact of parental income increased the most in the regions where the share of middling employment fell the most, suggesting that greater employment polarization may be one of the factors behind the observed decline in mobility.

Abstract: This paper measures the exposure of industries and occupations to 40 digital technologies that emerged over the past decade and estimates their impact on European employment. Using a novel approach that leverages sentence transformers, we calculate exposure scores based on the semantic similarity between patents and ISCO-08/NACE Rev.2 classifications to construct an open–access database, `TechXposure'. By combining our data with a shift–share approach, we instrument the regional exposure to emerging digital technologies to estimate their employment impact across European regions. We find an overall positive effect of emerging digital technologies on employment, with a one-standard-deviation increase in regional exposure leading to a 1.069 percentage point increase in the employment-to-population ratio. However, upon examining the individual effects of these technologies, we find that smart agriculture, the internet of things, industrial and mobile robots, digital advertising, mobile payment, electronic messaging, cloud storage, social network technologies, and machine learning negatively impact regional employment.

Abstract: This paper shows how life events change values and social identity when both are endogenous, that is when individuals identify with a social group based on shared values. When a life event occurs, it introduces new information that can change a value central to social identity, leading to a misalignment with the group's values. Consequently, individuals identify with a new group, realigning all their values, including those initially unaffected by the change, thus generating spillover effects across values. Using cohort data, I find that i) life events, such as parenthood, sickness, and unemployment, significantly alter both values and social identity; and that ii) spillover effects across values are substantial, contributing to a third of the observed change in values.

Abstract: This paper examines the labor market implications of investment in automation over the life cycle of ICT and robot technologies from 1995 to 2017 in 163 European regions. We first identify major technological breakthroughs during this period and classify phases of acceleration and deceleration in investment. We then examine how exposure to automation technologies affects employment and wages across these different phases of their life cycle. We find that the negligible long-term impact of automation on employment conceals significant short-term positive and negative effects within phases of the technology life cycle. We also find that the negative impact of ICT investments on employment is driven by the phase of the cycle when investment decelerates (and the technology is more mature). The phases of the technology life cycles are more relevant than differences in regions' structural characteristics, such as productivity and sector specialization in explaining the impact of automation to on regional employment.

Abstract: This paper examines the labor market adjustments to four automation technologies (i.e. robots, communication technology, information technology, and software/database) in 227 regions across 22 European countries from 1995 to 2017. By constructing a measure of technology penetration, we estimate changes in regional employment and wages affected by automation technologies along with the reallocation of workers between sectors. We find that labor market adjustments to automation technologies differ according to i) the technology involved, ii) the sector of penetration, iii) the sectoral composition of the region, and iv) the region's technological capabilities. These adjustments are driven largely by the reallocation of low-paid workers across sectors.

Abstract: The coincidence in timing between the start of the decline of the labor share and the entry of the baby-boomers cohort into adulthood—entering the labor market and reaching voting age—has received no attention. I argue that the observed shift away from labor toward capital is a response to changes in labor market institutions endogenously determined by the age structure of the population through voting. The size of the boomer cohort gives them large political weight and allows them to change public policy in their favor when they are young and then old. These institutional changes have consequences for the wage bargaining to which firms respond by substituting labor with capital to thwart workers' appropriation of the rents. I develop a model which links public policy to wage bargaining and calibrate it for France and the US. Numerical simulations can replicate the decline of the labor share and labor market dynamics.