In Progress

Automation in Globalization

Minimum Wage and Automation

Decomposing the Global Rise of Populist Parties
with Oren Danieli, Noam Gidron, and Ro’ee Levy

Working Papers

Welfare Effects of Polarization: Occupational Mobility over the Life-cycle
with Sagiri Kitao; PDF, 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.

COVID-19 Research

Who suffers from the COVID-19 shocks? Labor market heterogeneity and welfare consequences in Japan
with Sagiri Kitao and Minamo Mikoshiba; PDF; 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.