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Shaping the direction of structural change : how firms and institutions influence the outcomes of economic transformations in the 21st century
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Florence : European University Institute, 2025
EUI; SPS; PhD Thesis
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KÜSTERMANN, Leon David, Shaping the direction of structural change : how firms and institutions influence the outcomes of economic transformations in the 21st century, Florence : European University Institute, 2025, EUI, SPS, PhD Thesis - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/94074
Abstract
Driven by technological change, globalization, and climate transitions, structural change has benefited people unequally and, thereby, deepened societal and political polarization in postindustrial societies. This raises the question of how deterministic the outcomes of structural change are. While there is an increasing scholarly interest in the processes that can exacerbate or prevent disadvantageous outcomes, there are also three biases this dissertation seeks to overcome. Concretely, there has been the tendency (1) to di!erentiate statically between the winners and losers of structural change, (2) to focus on the most visible yet not the most representative outcomes of structural change, and (3) to assume that the main role of institutions is to compensate the ”losers” for losses after they materialize. Against this backdrop, I consider firms as the societal actors that bring structural change most immediately in the lived experiences of their workers. Concretely, I focus on how firms design jobs for workers with occupational risks and maintain their commitment to these workers in periods of restructuring. Thereby, I argue that firms can either broaden the circle of workers who benefit from structural change or trigger the mechanisms that cause resentment and radicalize people politically. This firm perspective also enables a better understanding of which policy interventions a!ect the outcomes of structural change, namely those that increase the institutional capacity to support firms managing structural change inclusively in their organizations. I test these arguments empirically in three papers, using survey and administrative register data, overcoming the challenge of studying the role of firms empirically. Ultimately, my dissertation demonstrates how firms and the institutions in which they are embedded not just react to structural change but endogenously shape its direction and outcomes. This has important implications for behavioral and institutional debates about structural change in political science as well as in the welfare state literature.
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Defence date: 21 November 2025
Examining Board: Prof. Anton Hemerijck (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Thomas Kurer (University of Zurich, External Co-supervisor); Prof Pavithra Suryanarayan (London School of Economics); Prof Simon Hix (European University Institute)
Examining Board: Prof. Anton Hemerijck (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Thomas Kurer (University of Zurich, External Co-supervisor); Prof Pavithra Suryanarayan (London School of Economics); Prof Simon Hix (European University Institute)
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Chapter 2 'Upgrading jobs for all: How welfare states shape differences in life satisfaction between the winners and losers of structural change' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Upgrading jobs for all: How welfare states shape differences in life satisfaction between the winners and losers of structural change' (2025) in the journal 'Socio-economic review'.