The Future of Work

Prof. David Autor (image: MIT News Office)
Prof. David Autor (image: MIT News Office)

Institutional Communication Service

5 November 2019

Labour markets in advanced economies are exposed to the effects of automation, digitisation and global trade. The greater access to higher education has, on the one hand, enabled and fuelled this progress but, on the other, polarised labour markets, especially in urban areas, between highly qualified and unskilled jobs. However, the aggregate demand of labour is rising. David Autor, Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), shares his analysis and views in the keynote speech that will be given during the conference "The Future of Work", organised by the UBS Center for Economics and Society and USI, on 27 November at the Lugano campus.

Prof. Autor, defined by the journal Economist as "the academic voice of the American worker", explores the labour market impacts of technological change and global trade on job polarisation, skill demands, earning levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes. Part of his analysis observes how automation displaces employment and reduces labour’s share of value-added in the industries in which it originates (a direct effect) but also, in the case of employment, how these own-industry losses are reversed by indirect gains in customer industries and induced increases in aggregate demand.

Prof. Autor’s keynote speech is followed by a high-profile panel discussion between Sergio Ermotti (CEO UBS Group), Mauro Dell’Ambrogio (former Secretary of State for Education, Research and Innovation), and Ferdinando Giugliano (columnist for La Repubblica and Bloomberg), moderated by Professor Rico Maggi (USI Institute for Economic Research).

Full details about the event are attached.

 

Participation is subject to registration, online at: 
https://www.ubscenter.uzh.ch/en/news_events/register.html?event=opinions_autor&token=45x0a

 

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