Uta SCHӦNBERG
Prof. Uta SCHӦNBERG
Economics
Chair of Economics

3917 7764

KK 937

Academic & Professional Qualification
  • Ph.D. (Economics), University College London, 2004
  • M.S. (Economics), University of Hanover, 1998
Biography

Prof. Uta Schӧnberg joined the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hong Kong as a professor in 2023. Prior to joining HKU, she held positions at the economics departments of University College London and the University of Rochester. Her research is in applied microeconomics, with a special interest in wage inequality and wage dynamics; family economics; the economics of education; and the economics of migration. Her work has appeared in leading journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, and the Journal of Political Economy. Uta served as a Joint Managing Editor at the Review of Economic Studies between 2016 and 2021 and is currently a Co-editor at the American Economic Review.

Research Interests
  • Labor Economics
  • Public Economics
Selected Publications
Recent Publications
The Effect of New Technologies on Workers, Jobs, and Skills

Technological and organizational change (T&O) is widely regarded as a key driver behind the decreasing employment share of routine jobs, which typically involve repetitive and prescribed tasks. However, the disappearance of routine jobs does not automatically mean workers in these roles will exit employment and suffer earnings losses—although this scenario often dominates the popular public debate. Even if their current positions are eliminated due to T&O, they may transition to other roles that align with and complement the changes brought about by T&O, either within the same company or at different organizations. Michele Battisti, Christian Dustmann, and Uta Schönberg (2023) (BDS hereafter) provide an in-depth investigation of how firms and workers adapt to T&O in the context of Germany.