In Progress

Decomposing the Rise of the Populist Radical Right
with Oren Danieli, Noam Gidron, and Ro’ee Levy
Last updated in October 2022

Abstract Support for populist radical right parties in Europe has dramatically increased in the twenty-first century. We decompose the rise of the populist radical right between 2005-2020 into four components: changes in party positions, changes in voter characteristics (demographics and opinions), changes in voters' priorities, and a residual. We merge data on party positions from the Comparative Manifesto Project with data on voter characteristics from the Integrated Value Survey. Using a probabilistic voting model, we estimate voting priorities: the parameters of the utility function, which determine the weights voters place on different party positions, given their characteristics. We find that shifts in party positions and changes in voter characteristics explain only a negligible part of the rise of the populist radical right. Instead, the main driver behind the success of populist radical right parties lies in voters' changing priorities: voters---mainly older, non-unionized low-educated males---increasingly place a higher priority on cultural issues compared to economic issues. This allows populist radical right parties to tap into a preexisting reservoir of culturally conservative voters.

Automation and Comparative Advantage

Abstract I study how automation affects comparative advantage. In the past centuries, the initial stages of economic development featured comparative advantage in low-skill-intensive sectors due to low-skill-labor abundance, as predicted by the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem. I show, however, that this relationship has weakened—or even reversed—in the 21st century. This decoupling/reversal occurs because automation provides developed countries with endogenous comparative advantage in low-skill-intensive sectors. My counterfactual analysis shows that recent developing countries would have specialized in low-skill intensive sectors and enjoyed more gains from trade, as East Asian countries did, without automation in developed countries.

Welfare Effects of Polarization: Occupational Mobility over the Life-cycle
with Sagiri Kitao
Last updated in July 2020

Abstract What are the welfare effects of polarization: wage and employment losses of middle-class workers relative to low- and high-skill groups? We build a model of overlapping generations who choose consumption, savings, labor supply, and occupations over their life-cycles, and accumulate human capital. We simulate a wage shift observed since the early 1980s and investigate individuals’ responses. Polarization improves welfare of young individuals that are high-skilled, while it hurts low-skilled individuals across all ages and especially younger ones. The gain of the high-skilled is larger for generations entering in later periods, who can fully exploit the rising skill premium.

Minimum Wage and Technology

Applied work for the Japanese labor market

Who suffers from the COVID-19 shocks? Labor market heterogeneity and welfare consequences in Japan
with Sagiri Kitao and Minamo Mikoshiba; Publisher’s Site
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, March 2021

Abstract Effects of the COVID-19 shocks in the Japanese labor market vary across workers of different age groups, genders, employment types, education levels, occupations, and industries. We document heterogeneous changes in employment and earnings in response to the COVID-19 shocks, observed in various data sources during the initial months after the onset of the pandemic in Japan. We then feed these shocks into a life-cycle model of heterogeneous agents to quantify welfare consequences of the COVID-19 shocks. In each dimension of the heterogeneity, the shocks are amplified for those who earned less prior to the crisis. Contingent workers are hit harder than regular workers, younger workers than older workers, females than males, and workers engaged in social and non-flexible jobs than those in ordinary and flexible jobs. The most severely hurt by the COVID-19 shocks has been a group of female, contingent, low-skilled workers, engaged in social and non-flexible jobs and without a spouse of a different group.