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2025ECO003
Doctoral thesis

Labor market adjustments to structural change : evidence from automation and tourism

  • 2025

PhD: Università della Svizzera italiana

Job polarization
Local labor market shocks
Automation
Tourism
Human capital
College enrollment
Service jobs
Labor market adjustment
English This dissertation investigates how local labor markets in advanced economies respond to job polarization, with particular emphasis on automation and tourism as drivers. Using data from the United States and Italy, I examine how these structural shifts in the labor market influence educational choices and shape long-term local economic trajectories. The first chapter analyzes the effects of industrial robot adoption on college enrollment in the U.S., showing that automation leads to greater educational investment, particularly in community colleges and applied fields. The second and third chapters turn to the rise of low-skill service jobs by studying the impact of tourism shocks in Italy. I find that positive tourism shocks temporarily increase employment but reduce college enrollment, suggesting that short-term labor market opportunities can distort long-term human capital accumulation. Furthermore, I show that greater exposure to tourism can hinder long-term economic development by reallocating labor and resources from high-productivity to lower-productivity sectors.
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Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
License
License undefined
Open access status
green
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https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1332695
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