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About

Fabio Montobbio is a prominent researcher specializing in the economics of innovation, technological change, and the future of work. His scholarship sits at the intersection of labor economics, patent analysis, and automation, where he has made significant methodological and empirical contributions to understanding how robotic technologies reshape employment and occupational structures. Montobbio's most influential work examines the labor-saving dimensions of robotic innovation. His 2022 paper on the origins of robots' labor-saving impact (84 citations) broke new ground by identifying explicit labor-saving heuristics embedded within robotic patents, mapping the innovators, industries, and technological fields most exposed to automation-driven displacement. Building on this, he developed novel direct and text-similarity measures of occupational exposure to labor-saving technologies, offering researchers more precise tools to quantify automation risk at the occupational level. His 2023 critical review of the empirical literature on technology and employment (44 citations) synthesizes three waves of scholarly debate, distilling hard-won lessons and charting a rigorous path forward for the field. Together, his publications have accumulated over 150 citations, establishing him as a leading voice in automation research and an essential reference for scholars and policymakers grappling with technology's transformative impact on labor markets.