Rania Gihleb

University of Pittsburgh, Ifo Institute for Economic Research

Papers

Total Citations

179

H-Index

About

Rania Gihleb is an economist whose research sits at the compelling intersection of labor economics, technology adoption, and worker well-being. Her most prominent work centers on understanding how the rise of industrial automation — particularly the deployment of industrial robots — shapes outcomes for the workforce, with a particular focus on occupational safety and health. Gihleb's most influential contribution, "Industrial Robots, Workers' Safety, and Health," has garnered significant scholarly attention, accumulating nearly 180 citations across its various iterations and versions. This body of work leverages establishment-level injury data to rigorously examine how robot exposure at the commuting zone level affects workplace injury rates. Her findings reveal a nuanced and perhaps counterintuitive relationship: a one standard deviation increase in robot exposure is associated with a meaningful reduction in work-related annual injury rates, suggesting that automation may relieve workers from dangerous, physically demanding tasks. Her research makes important contributions to policy debates surrounding technological displacement, offering empirical grounding for discussions that often focus narrowly on job loss while neglecting broader worker welfare dimensions. For students and researchers studying the future of work, automation, and labor market policy, Gihleb's scholarship offers rigorous, data-driven insights into how technology can reshape not just employment, but the very conditions under which people work.