Assoc. Prof. Michel Serafinelli, Ph.D.

Labor, Regional and Environmental Economics

Michel Serafinelli’s primary research and teaching fields are Labor, Regional and Environmental Economics. Some of his research is at the intersection of his primary fields and Political Economy. Research keywords are local labor markets, green labor demand, productivity, human capital.
While at CES, Mr. Serafinelli will work on a project analyzing labor market evolutions in rural areas since 1970 in Europe’s three most populous countries – the UK, Italy and Germany – to help tackle the challenge of regional inequality. Using various datasets from each country, the project will: 1) examine whether there have been significant differences in economic performance across rural areas; 2) document changes in the industry structure, and investigate whether industry turnover is positively associated with employment growth; and 3) study what happens in rural areas after an increase in tourism attractiveness.
He will also work on a second project studying whether an increase in local green jobs leads to the creation of a significant number of additional jobs in the community. The focus will be on disadvantaged places (remote areas, declining industrial areas).
Michel Serafinelli will deliver three CES Lectures entitled “The Geography of Employment and the Environment”, focusing on issues at the intersection of Regional, Labor and Environmental Economics. Keywords are agglomeration advantages, local labor markets, local communities and the environment. Special attention will be devoted to methods. Despite all the talk about the “death of distance”, geography matters more than ever. This course is a journey through the current economic landscape. The aim is to understand the economic forces driving trends in labor market and environmental outcomes across cities and regions.
Michel Serafinelli is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Economics at University of Essex; previous to Essex he was at University of Toronto; He holds a PhD from UC Berkeley; he is a Research Fellow at IZA and CReAM at UCL, and an Associate Editor at the Economic Journal.