Sofia Hernnäs defends her thesis "Automation and the Consequences of Occupational Decline"

In the dissertation, which consists of three papers; two single-authored papers and one co-authored paper Sofia analyzes how technological change affects the labor market.

The dissertation provides a novel theoretical model of how the return to individual skills are affected when automation affects some tasks in their occupation. The empirical studies in the dissertation analyzes how individual workers are affected by technological change. Sofia finds that workers in occupations that decline due to technological change experience on average only 2-5 percent lower earning over an almost 30 years long period. The earnings losses of low paid workers in the same occupations are substantially larger (8-11 percent). Sofia also shows that occupational decline is associated with higher mortality.

Discussant is Professor Sebastian Findeisen, University of Konstanz. The grading committee members are Professor Peter Fredriksson, Department of Economics, Uppsala University, Professor Petter Lundborg, Department of Economics, Lund University, and Professor Ingeborg Waernbaum, Department of Statistics, Uppsala University.

 Advisors are Associate Professor Georg Graetz and Professor Per-Anders Edin.

You can read the thesis here.

Read more about Sofia on her website.