More Power to the People: Electricity Adoption, Technological Change, and Labor Conflict

Molinder, Jakob; Karlsson, Tobias

doi:10.1017/s0022050721000127

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…While automation has proven to be a benefit for the whole economy in the long run (Atack et al., 2019), its short‐run effects tend to be Pareto‐suboptimal as some jobs and skills are destroyed or left severely devalued. In a world where work is the primary mechanism to distribute income, automation, therefore, almost inevitably elicits deep distributive conflict, particularly between capital and labour (Frey, 2019; Carpettini and Voth, 2020; Molinder et al., 2021). This begs the question of how institutions that co‐determine the relative power resources these competing groups have available to them in that conflict influences the pace of labour‐saving technological change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflict or cooperation? Exploring the relationship between cooperative institutions and robotisation

Overbeke

2022

Brit J Industrial Rel

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Robotization of production challenges the status‐quo in the economy, some win, while others lose out. Literature has argued that automation causes redistribution, both between capital and labour as within either category. We also know that many economies have chosen to adopt cooperative institutions to negotiate the negative by‐products of such economic changes. What is, however, less clear is how such institutions influence rates of automation themselves. This article contributes to this debate by conducting a panel analysis of sectoral robotization rates and cooperative institutions in 25 OECD countries between 1993 and 2017 using an original institutional indicator. The findings suggest that aside from simply redistributing the costs and benefits of automation throughout the productive sector, cooperative institutions also meaningfully predict higher levels of robot density, showing that more institutionalized economies do not lag behind in terms of automation. What is more, these institutions also seem to co‐determine the rates of robotization occurring during recessions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflict or cooperation? Exploring the relationship between cooperative institutions and robotisation

Overbeke

2022

Brit J Industrial Rel

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“…In the specific case of the United States, studies analysing this topic for the first phases of the distribution of electricity in the rural world find an increase in agricultural employment generated by greater activity in the sector (Gaggl et al, 2019), although in the medium and long term, electrification contributed to the structural change and the reduction in employment in the primary sector (Lewis and Severnini, 2020). Other studies conducted for the Nordic countries find an almost immediate effect in the structural change and mobility of the workers and, as a result, a reduction in agricultural employment (Leknes and Modalsli, 2020;Molinder et al, 2021). In short, it seems that rural electrification did not prevent the rural exodus processes, although it could have made them more gradual in some cases (Brassley et al, 2017b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Rural electrification in Spain: territorial expansion and effects on the agricultural sector (c. 1900–c. 2000)

Garrués-Irurzun

Goñi

2022

Rural History

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Rural electrification is closely linked one way or another to rural development, and enables the understanding of the complexity of social and economic development paths. The objective of this work is to analyse rural electrification in a European peripherical country like Spain throughout the twentieth century, contributing to the international debate on the issue. The article studies the territorial expansion of electricity in the Spanish countryside, tracing different phases and explaining the delay in the construction of a national network. It also analyses the relationship that arose in the long term between electrification and the evolution of the agricultural sector. The article concludes that, in the Spanish case, rural electrification played a modest role in agricultural change until the 1980s and was, to a great extent, the consequence, rather than the cause, of the modernisation of the sector to these years.

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“… 1 For studies adopting geographical area, town or parish as the unit of analysis, see Molinder, Karlsson and Enflo 2019; Molinder, Karlsson, and Enflo 2021. …”

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confidence: 99%

Dynamics of Policy and Politics: Politics of Unemployment in Sweden during the Interwar Period

Ahn¹

2022

Arch. eur. sociol.

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Inspired by the theoretical perspective that “new policies create a new politics,” this paper explores how unemployment policies affected the politics of tripartite relations in Sweden during the interwar period. After the economic depression of 1920, strike activities began to decrease. Our panel data analysis finds that after 1920, the strength of the relationship between unemployment and strike activities decreased substantially. Historical interpretations complement statistical analysis. In the 1920s, the implementation of unemployment policies entailed the following feedback effects: First, the state reinforced its capacities, gaining increasingly firm control over strike activities. Second, the union movement was plunged into internal conflicts. In contrast to the arguments of power resources theory and the theory of cross-class coalition, neither the empowerment of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SAP) nor employers’ lockouts induced the Confederation of Labor Unions (LO) to turn towards concertation. Rather, this turnaround occurred in the 1920s while LO coped with the feedback effects engendered endogenously in processes of the implementation of unemployment policies.

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More Power to the People: Electricity Adoption, Technological Change, and Labor Conflict

Cited by 9 publications

References 33 publications

Conflict or cooperation? Exploring the relationship between cooperative institutions and robotisation

Conflict or cooperation? Exploring the relationship between cooperative institutions and robotisation

Rural electrification in Spain: territorial expansion and effects on the agricultural sector (c. 1900–c. 2000)

Dynamics of Policy and Politics: Politics of Unemployment in Sweden during the Interwar Period

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