Dr. Benjamin Ferschli

Profile

I have joined the department of Economics as Lecturer in 2026. Previously, I have completed my PhD at the University of Oxford as a Clarendon scholar, and was a fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the Johannes-Kepler University.

I conduct multidisciplinary research at the intersection of (socio-)eocnomics, political economy and economic sociology. I use qualitative, quantiative and mixed/mutiple methods in a question driven approach within a pluralist theoretical framework.

Research interests

My primary research interest lies in in work and employment.

Most recently, I have researched the causes of firms’ automation decisions in the automotive industry, and their consequences for work and employment. This includes the inferential analysis of determinants of productivity and employment in the OECD automotive industry vis a vis robot-use, as well as an in-depth case-study of the Austian automotive industry based on interviews, detailed descriptive statistics and observation.

This study contained analyses of the economic and technological dimensions of the organization of work, tasks and skills; the political economic determining factors of production dynamics and competition and the negotiation of technological implementation on the shopfloor between workers, unions and management.

I have a particular continuing interest in manufacturing employment and production, and thus global processes of de-industrialization and re-industrialization.

I also have an ongoing interest in studying the causes and consequences of competition, in particular regarding concetration and inequality outcomes, both within sectors and between households.

Finally, I maintain a more fundamental interest in the historical of economic thought as well as in the scientific theory of economics.

Qualifications

• DPhil University of Oxford
• MPhil University of Cambridge
• BSc University of Business and Economics Vienna
• BA University of Vienna

Professional memberships

• Society for the Advancement for Socio- Economics
• International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy
• European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy
• Critical Political Economy Research Network
• International Karl Polanyi Society

Student education

I am presently teaching Business Economics and Economic Research Methods.