Event summary

Biography: 

Hugo Castro Silva is a researcher at CEGIST, the Center for Management Studies at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Universidade, and an assistant professor at IST. He teaches Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Econometrics, and Quantitative Research Methods, at the Bachelor, Master and PhD levels. Hugo received a PhD with honors in Engineering and Management and an MSc in Industrial Engineering and Management from IST. Though an engineer at heart, his research work is on Labor Economics with a special focus on the relationships between technology, human capital, and employment, as well as different aspects of labor market segmentation. His research work has been published in Research Policy, Small Business Economics, and the International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal. He is currently a member of the Executive Board of CEGIST.

Abstract:

Our study investigates the impacts of labor-saving and labor-augmenting digital technol-ogies on employment at the municipality level in Portugal. We focus on agglomeration externalities from industrial diversity and labor specialization, employing occupation-level exposure measures by Frey and Osborne (2017) and Felten et al. (2021). We find that regions with both related and unrelated industrial variety have higher shares of work-ers at risk of being replaced by technology, as well as a greater exposure to the comple-mentary effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Specialization in services decreases the vul-nerability to the negative impacts of digitalization and favors AI’s benefits. In particular, knowledge intensity in services strongly decreases the share of employment at high risk of replacement, while promoting exposure to labor-friendly technologies. Our research emphasizes the need for region-specific strategies to navigate the technological landscape, highlighting that a nuanced understanding of local labor markets is required for formulat-ing effective policies to mitigate risks and harness the advantages of digitalization.

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