Silvio Traverso
Papers
5
Total Citations
134
H-Index
5
About
Silvio Traverso is an economist whose research sits at the intersection of technological change, labor markets, and political economy. His work focuses primarily on the consequences of robotization and economic globalization, examining how automation reshapes employment, workplace conditions, and even electoral behavior. Traverso's most cited contribution, "Globalization, Robotization, and Electoral Outcomes" (2020, 64 citations), demonstrates how differential exposure of local labor markets to economic disruption has fueled political discontent in Italy — a finding with broad implications for understanding populist movements across advanced economies. His 2021 study on robots and COVID-19 workplace contagion (43 citations) broke new ground by linking industrial automation to public health vulnerability, revealing how robotization inadvertently reduced workers' exposure to pandemic risk. Further work explores how labor regulation shapes firms' incentives to adopt industrial robots across nineteen Western countries, contributing to comparative institutional economics. Through an innovative activity-based analytical framework, Traverso has refined our understanding of which specific occupational tasks are most susceptible to automation. Collectively, his research provides rigorous empirical evidence that illuminates automation's multidimensional societal consequences, making him a significant voice in contemporary debates about technology, work, and inequality.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Robots and risk of COVID-19 workplace contagion: Evidence from Italy43 citations · 2021
- 3Robots and labor regulation: a cross-country/cross-industry analysis14 citations · 2022
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