UNTANGLED RESEARCHERS PRESENT PAPERS AT THE EALE CONFERENCE

In the session on Mobility, chaired by UNTANGLED researcher Piotr Lewandowski (IBS), Ludivine Martin from LISER (the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research) presented research on the skills supplied by migrant workers to the French and German labour markets. The paper, co-authored with Ronald Bachmann (RWI – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung) and Bertrand Verheyden (LISER), analyses data on the distribution of migrants across various business sectors, occupations and regions, as well as education levels and age groups. The authors identify the occupations that are under- or over-supplied and assess the role of migrants in addressing the labour shortages faced by France and Germany.

Karina Doorley (ESRI) presented another UNTANGLED study, investigating how robot penetration impacted income inequality in 14 European countries during the period from 2006 to 2018. This paper, co-authored with Dora Tuda (ESRI), Philippe Van Kerm (LISER), Piotr Lewandowski, and Jan Gromadzki (IBS – Institute for Structural Research), reveals that while automation did contribute to widening income inequality in European countries, its impact was relatively small. The study highlights that European countries’ tax and benefit systems effectively absorbed the wage and employment shocks resulting from automation, with benefits playing a particularly significant role, especially in Western Europe. These findings suggest that welfare states in Europe are more effective in mitigating the effects of automation than the system in the United States.