Technological change presents an occupational risk for individuals in routine work, as these occupations are more prone to being automated. In a paper forthcoming with Comparative Political Studies with David Rueda, we show with survey data for 17 European countries between 2002-2012 that individuals in routine occupations prefer public insurance against the increased risk of future income loss resulting from automation. We conclude that vulnerability to automation is an important determinant of the demand for redistribution.

China’s rapid rise on the global economic stage might have substantial and unequal employment effects in advanced industrialized democracies given China’s large volume of low-wage labor. In a new paper written together with Olaf van Vliet, we analyse the effects of Chinese trade competition across 17 sectors in 18 countries. We devote attention to a new channel, increased competition from China in foreign export markets. Our empirical findings reveal overall employment declines in sectors more exposed to Chinese imports. Furthermore, our results suggest that employment effects are not equally shared across skill levels, as the share of hours worked worsens for low-skilled workers.

In a new study published in Social Indicators Research, I explore with two colleagues developments and the drivers of earnings inequality at the sectoral level using an own database that is publicly available. The study examines three key explanations for increasing earnings inequality exploiting sectoral variation within countries over time—namely, globalisation, technological change and waning labour union power. Interestingly, the results provide only limited support for the argument that international trade leads to higher levels of earnings inequality. When we focus the analysis on trade with less developed countries we find a positive association between trade and earnings inequality. With regard to technological change, our findings provide mixed evidence for the hypothesis that skill-biased technological change increases earnings inequality. Our results bring back the waning country-wide labour union power as an important driver of earnings inequality. This corresponds with the fact that our sectoral data reveal a more general trend towards rising inequality across sectors over time.

Major donors heavily rely on GNI per capita to allocate development assistance for health. In our paper, we question this paradigm by analyzing the determinants of health outcomes using cross-sectional data from 99 countries in 2012. We use disability-adjusted life years (Group I) per capita as our main indicator for health outcomes. We consider four primary variables: GNI per capita, institutional capacity, individual poverty and the epidemiological surroundings. We construct a health poverty line of 10·89 international-$ per day, which measures the minimum level of income an individual needs to have access to basic healthcare. We take the contagious nature of communicable diseases into account, by estimating the extent to which the population health in neighboring countries (the epidemiological surroundings) affects health outcomes. We apply a spatial two-stage least-squares model to mitigate the risks of reverse causality, and use additional IV estimations as sensitivity tests. Overall we find that GNI is not a significant predictor of health outcomes once other factors are controlled for.

The US lags far behind its peers on delivering “inclusive” economic growth. Moreover, since certain developed countries manage to boost incomes for the rich as well as the poor, inequality isn’t an inevitable byproduct of globalization and technological change.

See my blog on Vox with Max Roser.

With inequality rising and household incomes across developed countries stagnating, accurate monitoring of living standards cannot be achieved by relying on GDP per capita alone. In this VoxEU column I analyse with colleagues Brian Nolan and Max Roser the path of divergence between household income and GDP per capita for 27 OECD countries. It finds several reasons why GDP per capita has outpaced median incomes. We recommend to assign median income a central place in official monitoring and assessment of living standards over time.

Which model is best in delivering prosperity for its citizens? If we group countries with similar institutional settings are grouped together, can we see differences in median household income GDP per capita, or inequality? In a new working paper, we find remarkably wide variation across OECD countries in recent decades in economic performance. This variation is also seen within the liberal and coordinated market economy models distinguished in the varieties of capitalism literature, as well as within the welfare regimes commonly employed in welfare state analysis, with little difference between them in average growth rates.

In a new LIS working paper publication, written together with Brian Nolan, Lane Kenworthy, Max Roser, and Tim Smeeding, we show that there are striking differences across OECD countries in how “ordinary” households have fared from around 1980 through the Great Recession. Economic growth and inequality together leave much of the variation in the income position of these households unaccounted for, so direct measures of how these incomes in the middle of the distribution are evolving need to be central to monitoring progress towards inclusive growth.