Chek Yin Choi successfully defends his thesis

IIES graduate student Chek Yin Choi has successfully defended his doctoral thesis "Input Market, Automation, and Inflation: Essays in Macroeconomics", which consists of three essays in macroeconomics.

In the first essay, Chek studies how firms find suppliers of intermediate goods and how this affects the economy. He shows that easier access to suppliers can increase productivity by helping firms find better and cheaper inputs. At the same time, these gains tend to benefit the most productive firms the most, contributing to greater market concentration.

The second essay focuses on automation and its effects on workers. Using detailed Swedish data, Chek shows that conclusions about the labour market effects of automation depend heavily on how automation is measured. Focusing only on industrial robots may overlook important effects from other types of capital equipment and technologies.

Chek’s work also provides insights into why inflation can remain elevated after the original shock has passed. In the final essay, he shows that firms do not adjust their prices immediately when economic conditions change, and that this price-setting behaviour can help explain the persistence of inflation.

Overall, his thesis highlights how decisions made at the firm level, from choosing suppliers and investing in technology to setting prices, can have important effects on the wider economy.

Andreas Moxnes, BI Norwegian Business School, kindly acted as opponent, providing a thorough and engaging discussion from the very start.

Read more about Chek's thesis.