Do recessions accelerate routine-biased technological change in Western Europe?
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24230516 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Thomas Rabensteiner (0000-0001-9289-3579, University of Greenwich Centre for Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability, , London, SE10 9LS), Alexander Guschanski (0000-0002-7818-8264, University of Greenwich Centre for Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability, , London, SE10 9LS) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-10-16 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Socio-Economic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ser/mwag067 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 74 |
The decline of routine employment is a well-documented feature of high-income economies, commonly attributed to routine-biased technological change (RBTC). This article examines the impact of the Great Recession on RBTC and routine employment in Western Europe. Using a continuous difference-in-differences analysis that leverages variation in recession severity across industries, we establish a set of new findings. First, routine employment declined more slowly in industries more severely affected by the Great Recession. Second, these industries also experienced persistent relative declines in their capital stock, particularly in IT and software capital. These results suggest that the recession slowed RBTC in Western Europe, in contrast to evidence from the United States, where recessions have accelerated it. Lastly, we show that differences in labour market institutions may help reconcile these divergent results: after the Great Recession, routine employment declined more slowly in countries with more regulated labour markets and higher reliance on short-time work schemes.
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| Highly cited | No |
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