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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221212T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221212T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221207T013300Z
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UID:14908-1670843700-1670848200@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Firm-Level Production Networks: What Do We (Really) Know?
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	  	Speaker: François Lafond  	  	Abstract: Firm-level datasets on production networks are often confidential and arise from different data collection methods\, making it difficult to determine stylized facts. Are standard network properties similar across all available datasets\, and if not\, why? We provide benchmark results from two administrative data sets (Ecuador and Hungary) which are exceptional in that there are no reporting thresholds. We compare these networks to a leading commercial data set (FactSet)\, and a systematic synthesis of published results. The administrative data sets with no reporting thresholds have remarkably similar properties\, but differ substantially from non-administrative sources\, or from administrative datasets with higher reporting thresholds. Our results provide a roadmap for a distributed micro-data project\, offer insights into the direction of biases on key metrics when using partial datasets\, and have wide implications for reconstructing the global firm-level production network and for modelling heterogeneity in macro. (Joint work with Andrea Bacilieri\, András Borsos\, and Pablo Astudillo-Estevez). 	  	The seminar will be on Zoom. The link to the registration page is: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/640145716?pwd=bTUxOXRad0o2ZTJtbWRxTGpta1BlQT09 	  	About the Speaker: François Lafond is deputy director of the Complexity Economics group at the Institute for New Economic Thinking\, University of Oxford\, and an associate member of Nuffield college\, Oxford. His main areas of research are in the economics of innovation and productivity\, environmental economics\, networks and complex systems\, applied econometrics and forecasting. 	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/firm-level-production-networks-what-do-we-really-know/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221205T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221205T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221129T222300Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T001902Z
UID:14916-1670238900-1670243400@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Green Technological Diversification: The Role of International Linkages in Leader and Follower Countries
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Andrea Morrison\, Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the Department of Political and Social Sciences\, University of Pavia	 			Abstract: To achieve a more environmentally sustainable economy\, countries must diversify their innovation efforts towards green technologies. Technological diversification is understood as a path-dependent process constrained by endogenous (local) capabilities. In this context\, the increasing global connectivity and the internationalization of innovative activity makes the role of external knowledge linkages more and more relevant.  This paper investigates the process of green technological diversification in 49 countries over a 40-year time span\, aiming at unveiling the role of external linkages\, as proxied by co-inventor collaborations. Results show that international co-inventor linkages among countries with complementary capabilities support green diversification. On the other hand\, the existence of linkages per se facilitates does not affect diversification.				 				This seminar will take place via Zoom. Please register in advance.				 				About the speaker: Andrea Morrison is currently Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the Department of Political and Social Sciences\, University of Pavia and Adjunct Professor of Innovation and Sustainability at the Department of Management and Technology\, Bocconi University. He is also research fellow at ICRIOS Bocconi University. He holds a M.A in Development Economics from the University of Sussex and a Ph.D. in Economic Development\, Institutions and Sustainability from the University of Roma Tre. His research interests lie in the areas of evolutionary economics\, innovation studies and economic geography. He has investigated extensively topics like system of innovation\, industrial clusters and knowledge networks\, global value chain\, green innovation\, high skilled migration.		 	 	 	 	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/green-technological-diversification-the-role-of-international-linkages-in-leader-and-follower-countries/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221128T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221128T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221123T201800Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175434Z
UID:15011-1669634100-1669638600@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Electoral Turnovers
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Vincent Pons\, Associate Professor\, Harvard Business School 	Abstract: In most national elections\, voters face a key choice between continuity and change. Electoral turnovers occur when the incumbent candidate or party fails to win reelection. To understand how turnovers affect national outcomes\, we study the universe of residential and parliamentary elections held since 1945. We document the prevalence of turnovers over time and estimate their effects on economic performance\, trade\, human development\, conflict\, and democracy. Using a close-elections regression discontinuity design (RDD) across countries\, we show that turnovers improve country performance. These effects are not driven by differences in the characteristics of challengers\, or by the fact that challengers systematically increase the level of government intervention in the economy. Electing new leaders leads to more policy change\, it improves governance\, and it reduces perceived corruption\, consistent with the expectation that recently elected leaders exert more effort due to stronger reputation concerns. 	Whether attending in-person or virtually\, please register in advance. Room attendance is limited to the Harvard community. Seating availability is based on a first-come\, first-served basis. The Zoom webinar is open to the public. \nAbout the speaker: 	Vincent Pons is an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School\, and affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)\, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)\, and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). ​ 	Across the world\, dissatisfaction with elected governments is at all-time highs. His research aims to understand why representative democracies can fail to deliver leaders\, policies and outcomes aligned with people’s preferences. His work has appeared in journals such as Econometrica\, the American Economic Review\, the Quarterly Journal of Economics\, and the American Political Science Review. It has been covered by The New York Times\, The Economist\, PRI’s The World\, the Huffington Post\, le Monde\, and BFM Business among others.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-electoral-turnovers/
LOCATION:Weil Hall (Belfer L1) / Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221121T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221121T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221115T192500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175433Z
UID:15082-1669029300-1669033800@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Why Follow the Fed? Monetary Policy in Times of US Tightening
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Gonzalo Huertas\, Economist\, International Monetary Fund 	Abstract: I conduct interviews with 32 Central Bankers from Emerging Markets and present five unifying themes that explain their behavior when reacting to a U.S. monetary tightening. I then estimate the impulse response functions of their two main monetary tools\, the policy rate and foreign exchange interventions\, to an increase in the U.S. rate\, using the answers from the interviews as a guide for the best econometric specification. I find that most Central Banks react to a U.S. tightening by raising domestic rates\, regardless of the exchange rate regime\, but their reasons for doing so vary — from controlling inflation to preventing capital outflows. 	Whether attending in-person or virtually\, please register in advance. Room attendance is limited to the Harvard community. Seating availability is based on a first-come\, first-served basis. The Zoom webinar is open to the public. \nAbout the speaker: 	Gonzalo Huertas is an economist at the International Monetary Fund. He specializes in international macroeconomics\, with a focus on monetary policy\, capital flows\, and debt sustainability. Previously\, he conducted research at the Peterson Institute for International Economics\, and has worked in policy at the Ministry of Finance of Mexico and the National Cabinet of Ministers of Argentina.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/why-follow-the-fed-monetary-policy-in-times-of-us-tightening/
LOCATION:Weil Hall (Belfer L1) / Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221114T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221114T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221109T194700Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T001952Z
UID:14921-1668424500-1668429000@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Heterogeneous Trade Agreements: Evidence from Apparel Trade
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Dr. Raymond Robertson\, Director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade\, Economics\, and Public Policy\, Professor\, and Helen and Roy Ryu Chair in Economics and Government\, the Bush School of Government and Public Service\, Texas A&M 	Abstract: In this paper\, we revisit and assess the heterogeneous effects of RTAs on trade flows. Using the Poisson Pseudo maximum likelihood (PPML) estimator with high-dimensional fixed effects\, we account for multiple characteristics of the trading partners\, including their membership in other RTAs\, and the problem of incidental parameters. Our main focus is on apparel trade\, which is politically sensitive and tends to have heterogeneous Rules of Origin (ROOs) within RTAs. Studies show that ROOs can restrict trade if they are either complicated or narrowly specified (Cadot and de Melo 2007\, Angeli et al. 2020) and we show that the variance of the estimated effect of RTAs on apparel trade is significantly higher than the variance for total trade. In addition to contributing to trade agreement heterogeneity\, apparel also plays a pivotal role in economic development and reducing emigration by drawing workers from agriculture and informality because apparel production has lower start-up costs and pays higher wages than other domestic alternatives for similar workers (Robertson et al. 2020 and 2022). Together our results suggest that understanding trade agreement heterogeneity\, especially in the apparel sector\, can have significant policy implications. Focusing on the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR)\, for example\, suggests that updating ROOs could significantly reduce migration from Central America. 	Please register in advance.  	About the speaker: 	Dr. Raymond Robertson is Professor and holder of the Helen and Roy Ryu Chair in Economics and Government in the Departments of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service and the Director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade\, Economics\, and Public Policy. He is a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn\, Germany\, and a senior research fellow at the Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center. He was named a 2018 Presidential Impact Fellow by Texas A&M University. Robertson earned a BA in political science and economics from Trinity University in San Antonio\, Texas\, and an MS and PhD in economics from the University of Texas at Austin. He has taught at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Economics at the Graduate School of Administration\, Monterrey Institute of Technology’s Mexico City campus. Widely published in the field of labor economics and international economics\, Robertson previously chaired the US Department of Labor’s National Advisory Committee for Labor Provisions of the US Free Trade Agreements and served on both the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the Center for Global Development’s advisory board.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/heterogeneous-trade-agreements-evidence-from-apparel-trade/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221107T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221107T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221104T021000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T004259Z
UID:15048-1667819700-1667824200@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Reversing Fortunes of German Regions\, 1926–2019: Boon and Bane of Early Industrialization?
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Sebastian Braun\, Professor of Economics\, University of Bayreuth 	Abstract: This paper shows that 19th-century industrialization is an important determinant of the significant changes in Germany’s economic geography observed in recent decades. Using novel data on economic activity in 163 labor market regions in West Germany\, we establish that nearly half of them experienced a reversal of fortune between 1926 and 2019\, i.e.\, they moved from the lower to the upper median of the income distribution or vice versa. Economic decline is concentrated in North Germany\, economic ascent in the South. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in access to coal\, we show that early industrialization turned from an advantage for economic development to a burden after World War II. The dominant position of heavy industry\, supported by the local political-administrative system\, limited regional adaptability when the old industries fell into crisis. Today\, the early industrialized regions suffer from low innovation and deindustrialization. The (time-varying) effect of industrialization explains most of the decline in regional inequality observed in the 1960s and 1970s and about half of the current north-south gap in economic development. 	Whether attending in-person or virtually\, please register in advance. Room attendance is limited to the Harvard community. Seating availability is based on a first-come\, first-served basis. The Zoom webinar is open to the public. 	About the speaker: 	Sebastian Braun is Professor of Economics at the University of Bayreuth where he holds the chair for Quantitative Economic History. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at IZA – Institute of Labor Economics. Before joining the University of Bayreuth\, he was an Associate Professor at the University of St Andrews and a Senior Researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Sebastian works at the intersection of international and regional economics\, labor economics\, and quantitative economic history. His main current research is on the economic effects of immigration and the causes of regional differences in economic development\, with a focus on Germany in the 19th and 20th century. His current work on the long-term effects of industrialization on regional economic development in Germany is supported by a grant of the German Science Foundation.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/reversing-fortunes-of-german-regions-1926-2019-boon-and-bane-of-early-industrialization/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221031T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221031T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221027T180000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175433Z
UID:15067-1667211300-1667215800@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:The Impact of Automation and the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Labor Market and the Causes of the Great Resignation
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: R. Maria del Rio Chanona\, Postdoctoral Research Fellow\, Complexity Science Hub Vienna 	Abstract: In the first part of this talk\, we present a non-equilibrium and data-driven network model for understanding how workers adapt to changes in labor demand. In this model\, workers move through an empirically derived occupational mobility network in response to automation scenarios. We find that the network structure is essential in determining unemployment levels\, with occupations in particular areas of the network having few job transition opportunities. In the second part\, we discuss how the Covid-19 pandemic affected the economy and how it led to the Great Resignation (i.e.\, the U.S. record high quit rates reached 2021) in the longer term. We use Reddit data and text analysis to show that mental health concerns have increased among the job quitting discourse since the start of the pandemic\, likely contributing to the rise in quits. 	Whether attending in-person or virtually\, please register in advance. Room attendance is limited to the Harvard community. Seating availability is based on a first-come\, first-served basis. The Zoom webinar is open to the public.  \nAbout the speaker: 	Maria del Rio-Chanona has been a JSMF (James S. McDonnell Foundation) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna since June 2021 and affiliate at the Growth Lab at Harvard University’s Center for International Development (CID) for the Fall semester 2022. Maria has a PhD in mathematics from Oxford University\, where she was part of the complexity economics group of the Institute for New Economic Thinking\, Oxford Martin School. She has worked alongside international policy organizations\, including the International Monetary Fund and the International Labour Organisation. Maria did her undergraduate studies in physics at UNAM\, Mexico. Maria’s research draws from network science\, natural language processing\, and agent-based modeling and focuses on the future of work\, green transition\, Great Resignation\, and the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/the-impact-of-automation-and-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-the-labor-market-and-the-causes-of-the-great-resignation/
LOCATION:Weil Hall (Belfer L1) / Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221024T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221024T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221020T191700Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175433Z
UID:14923-1666606500-1666611000@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Hyperspecialization and Hyperscaling: A Resource-based Theory of the Digital Firm
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Gianluigi Giustiziero\, Assistant Professor of Strategy\, IE Business School 	Abstract: Digital firms tend to be both narrow in their vertical scope and large in their scale. We explain this phenomenon through a theory about how attributes of firms’ resource bundles impact their scale and specialization. We posit that highly scalable resource bundles entail significant opportunity costs of integration (versus outsourcing)\, which simultaneously drive “hyperspecialization” and “hyperscaling” in digital firms. Using descriptive theory and a formal model\, we develop several propositions that align with observed features of digital businesses. We offer a parsimonious modeling framework for resource-based theorizing about highly scalable digital firms\, shed light on the phenomenon of digital scaling\, and provide insights into the far-reaching ways that technology-enabled resources are reshaping firms in the digital economy. 	Please register in advance\, and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. \nAbout the speaker:  	Gianluigi Giustiziero is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at IE Business School. He received his PhD in Strategy from the University of Michigan. Inspired by the classical work of Adam Smith and George Stigler\, Gianluigi studies the impact of resource attributes and demand characteristics on the division of labor. At the time of their writing Adam Smith drew insights from butchers\, bakers and brewers in the Highlands of Scotland in 1776\, and George Stigler from the Lancashire textile industry in 1951; nowadays the productive system in developed economies is mainly devoted to the tertiary and quaternary sectors. Moving with the times\, Gianluigi applies and extends the classic theories to service and high-tech industries.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/hyperspecialization-and-hyperscaling-a-resource-based-theory-of-the-digital-firm/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221017T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221017T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20221011T174900Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T004631Z
UID:15072-1666001700-1666006200@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:The Value of Skills: New Evidence From Apprenticeship Plans
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Project on Workforce at Harvard University. 	Speaker: Christina Langer\, PhD candidate at KU Eichstaett-Ingolstadt\, Visiting Research Fellow at HKS\, Associate at the Growth Lab 	Abstract: We construct novel measures of worker skills that are directly relevant on the labor market\, objective\, and highly detailed. To do so\, we exploit the unique setting of the German apprenticeship system\, which mandates that the same skills are developed in a particular apprenticeship regardless of the training location. Skill requirements of apprenticeships are codified in state-approved\, nationally standardized apprenticeship plans. These plans not only provide information on the skill content of apprenticeships\, containing almost 20\,000 different skills\, but also on the exact duration a specific skill is learnt. We link the skill measures to administrative labor market data covering more than 40 years. Following apprenticed workers over their careers\, we find that workers who completed an apprenticeship that provides higher cognitive\, social\, or digital skills earn higher wages over long-run horizons. The returns to an additional month of learning these skills amounts to one-tenth to one-fifth of the return to a full year of schooling. Exploiting the long time coverage of our administrative data\, we document that particularly returns to digital skills have soared since the 1990s. Returns to social skills have also increased strongly over time\, while the increase in returns to cognitive skills is more muted. 	Whether attending in-person or virtually\, please register in advance. Room attendance is limited to the Harvard community. Seating availability is based on a first-come\, first-served basis. The Zoom webinar is open to the public. 	Contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/the-value-of-skills-new-evidence-from-apprenticeship-plans/
LOCATION:Weil Hall (Belfer L1) / Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220607T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220607T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220601T174100Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003916Z
UID:15021-1654596900-1654601400@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Land Quality
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: David N. Weil\, James and Merryl Tisch Professor of Economics at Brown University 	Abstract: We develop a new measure of land quality by estimating weights in a Poisson regression of population in grid cells on a vector of geographic characteristics and country fixed effects. Aggregating to the level of countries\, we construct average land quality (ALQ) and quality-adjusted population density (QAPD). We establish several novel facts. First\, current income per capita is positively correlated with ALQ. Second\, while income today is unrelated to conventional population density\, it is strongly negatively related to QAPD. Third\, this negative relationship was not present in 1820 and emerged because today’s lower income countries have experienced faster population growth since then. Fourth\, countries with higher average land quality began sustained modern economic growth earlier\, and this earlier takeoff largely explains the ALQ-modern income relationship. We posit a framework in which higher land quality led to denser populations in Malthusian equilibrium and\, via agglomeration effects\, an earlier takeoff from that equilibrium. Less dense countries that took off later experienced larger multiplications of their populations over the course of the demographic transition due to the import of health technologies from countries that took off first. 	Paper co-authored with J. Vernon Henderson and Adam Storeygard 	Whether attending in-person or over Zoom\, please register in advance. Room attendance in R-304 is limited to the Harvard community only. Contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. 	About the speaker: 	David N. Weil is James and Merryl Tisch Professor of Economics at Brown University\, director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Wealth and Income Inequality Project at Brown\, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Weil has written widely on various aspects of economic growth\, including the empirical determinants of income variation among countries\, the contribution of health improvements to growth\, the geographic determinants of development\, the measurement of income inequality\, the accumulation of physical capital\, international technology transfer\, population growth\, and the use of satellite observation as a measurement tool. His textbook on growth has been translated into six languages. He has also written on assorted topics in demographic and health economics including the economic impacts of malaria and salt iodization\, population aging\, Social Security\, the gender wage gap\, retirement\, and the relationship between demographics and house prices. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-land-quality/
LOCATION:R-304 & Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220606T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220606T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220602T183300Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003637Z
UID:15007-1654510500-1654515000@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Detection of Artisanal and Small-scale Mines
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Mathieu Couttenier\, Professor\, University of Lyon and Ecole Normale Superieur 	Abstract: Artisanal and small-scale mines (ASM) are on the rise. They represent a crucial source of wealth for numerous communities but are rarely monitored or regulated. The main reason being the unavailability of reliable information on the precise location of the ASM which are mostly operated informally or illegally. We address this issue by developing a strategy to map the ASM locations using a convolutional neural network for image segmentation\, aiming to detect surface mining with satellite data. Our novel dataset is the first comprehensive measure of ASM activity over a vast area: we cover 1.75 million km² across 13 countries in Sub-Tropical West Africa. Our procedure is remarkably robust\, which makes us confident that our method can be applied to other parts of Africa or the World\, thus facilitating research and policy opportunities on this sector. 	Whether attending in-person or over Zoom\, please register in advance. Room attendance in WEX-434 is limited to the Harvard community only. Contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. 	About the speaker:  	Mathieu Couttenier obtained his PhD in Economics in 2011 at the University Paris 1 Sorbonne\, Paris School of Economics. Before joining the University of Lyon and Ecole Normale Superieur (September 2018)\, he was Assistant Professor at the University of Geneva. He was also post-doc at the University of Lausanne\, visiting researcher at the department of political sciences at Stanford and at the economic department at Sciences Po Paris. His research is filled with interactions between economics and political sciences but also cultural\, institutional and geographical issues. He focuses on microeconomic questions\, in particular in the field of applied political economy. His main research interests are in the understanding of violence and civil wars. He has published many academic papers on the role played by income shocks\, natural resources or climate on the diffusion of conflicts over space and time. Some of his present research agenda also studies the political economy aspects of media coverage or of international economics. He has published in many leading peer-refereed journals\, such as the American Economic Review\, Economic Journal\, Review of Economics and Statistics\, Journal of the European Economic Association\, Journal of Development Economics and the Journal of Comparative Economics. 	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-detection-of-artisanal-and-small-scale-mines/
LOCATION:WEX-434 & Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220523T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220523T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220512T174900Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003548Z
UID:15001-1653300900-1653305400@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Closing Regional Economic Divides
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Gordon Hanson\, Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy\, HKS 	Abstract: How to help lagging regions create better jobs for disadvantaged workers? Traditional industrial regions have fallen behind economically across high-income countries due to globalization\, new technology\, and now the energy transition. We need new approaches to diagnose the causes of persistent regional economic distress and the effectiveness of alternative policies in relieving this distress. 	Whether attending in-person or over Zoom\, please register in advance. Room attendance in Weil Town Hall is limited to the Harvard community only. Contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. 	About the speaker: 	Gordon Hanson is the Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research\, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and co-editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Hanson received his Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1992 and his B.A. in economics from Occidental College in 1986. Prior to joining Harvard in 2020\, he held the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at UC San Diego\, where he was founding director of the Center on Global Transformation. Hanson previously served on the economics faculties of the University of Michigan and the University of Texas. In his scholarship\, Hanson specializes in international trade\, international migration and economic geography. He has published extensively in top economics journals\, is widely cited for his research by scholars from across the social sciences and is frequently quoted in major media outlets. Hanson’s current research addresses how globalization in the form of immigration and expanded trade with China have affected U.S. local labor markets. In a new endeavor\, he is working with a multidisciplinary team of scholars to use satellite imagery to assess the impacts of expanding transportation networks\, exposure to extreme weather\, and related events on urban economic activity
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-closing-regional-economic-divides/
LOCATION:Belfer Weil Town Hall / Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220516T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220516T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220511T174200Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003821Z
UID:15014-1652696100-1652700600@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Geographic spillovers and firm exports | Evidence from China
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Lin Tian\, Assistant Professor of Economics at INSEAD 	Abstract: This paper empirically investigates geographic spillovers in the export market. We first embed a knowledge diffusion model into an open-economy heterogeneous firm framework\, to provide a microfounded theory on how access to other exporters affects a firm’s export performance. Motivated by the model\, we leverage the expansion of China’s high-speed rail (HSR) as a quasi-experiment to provide plausibly exogenous variation in the access to other exporters (and their insights) for Chinese firms. We find that with the HSR opening\, the geographical spillovers from connected cities improve firms’ export performance both intensively and extensively. Additionally\, we demonstrate that – consistent with the theory – the geographic spillover effects are heterogeneous along dimensions such as firm size\, product complexity\, and firm location. 	Please register in advance\, and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. The seminar will be hybrid\, with Lin presenting in-person for the Harvard community only in Wexner 434A. 	About the speaker: 	Lin Tian is an Assistant Professor of Economics at INSEAD and a CEPR research affiliate. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon University\, and earned her PhD in Economics at Columbia University. Lin’s research aims at uncovering factors that contribute to the variation of economic activities across space and highlighting the socio-economic impacts of these spatial disparities.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-geographic-spillovers-and-firm-exports-evidence-from-china/
LOCATION:Wexner 434A\, Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220509T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220509T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220504T183900Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003926Z
UID:15023-1652091300-1652095800@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Migration and Cultural Change
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Hillel Rapoport\, Professor of Economics (and Director of International Relations) at the Paris School of Economics 	Abstract: We propose a novel perspective on migration and cultural change by asking both theoretically and empirically – and from a global viewpoint – whether migration is a source of cultural convergence or divergence between home and host countries. Our theoretical model derives distinctive testable predictions as to the sign and direction of convergence for various compositional and cultural diffusion mechanisms. We use the World Value Survey for 1981-2014 to build time-varying measures of cultural similarity for a large number of country pairs and exploit within country-pair variation over time. Our results support migration-based cultural convergence\, with cultural remittances as its main driver. In other words and in contrast to the populist narrative\, we find that while immigrants do act as vectors of cultural diffusion\, this is mostly to export the host country culture back home.  	Please register in advance\, and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. The seminar will be hybrid\, with Hillel presenting in-person for the Harvard community only in Weil Town Hall. 	About the speaker:  	Hillel Rapoport is Professor of Economics (and Director of International Relations) at the Paris School of Economics\, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne\, and Senior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) since 2021. He is also a research fellow at CEPII\, IZA\, CESifo\, Harvard CID\, Kiel Institute for the World Economy\, LISER\, and European Development Network (EUDN). He was a member of Bar-Ilan University until 2013 and held visiting positions at Stanford University (in 2001-03) and at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (in 2009-11). Since 2008 he is the scientific coordinator of the “Migration and Development” annual conferences jointly organized by the World Bank and the French Development Agency. His research focuses on the growth and developmental impact of migration and on the economics of immigration\, diversity\, and refugees’ integration. 	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-migration-and-cultural-change/
LOCATION:Weil Town Hall – Belfer/Zoom (registration info below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220425T221500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220425T233000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220422T223500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003919Z
UID:15022-1650924900-1650929400@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Mechanisms of Hardware and Soft Technology Evolution and the Implications for Low-Carbon Energy Costs
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Magdalena Klemun\, Assistant Professor\, Division of Public Policy\, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Interdisciplinary Program Office; Research Affiliate\, Institute for Data\, Systems\, and Society (IDSS) at MIT. 	Abstract: Technologies typically contain both physical (‘hardware’) and non-physical (‘soft technology’) features\, such as the duration of installation tasks and other services needed to deploy hardware. Both types of features contribute significantly to technology costs and performance\, yet soft technology has been researched less than hardware. 	In this talk\, she will discuss fundamental differences between hardware and soft technology features in how these features contribute to the evolution of hardware and non-hardware (‘soft’) costs\, using examples from the cost evolution of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and nuclear fission plants. Despite divergent overall cost trajectories\, the relative share of soft costs has risen in both technologies\, suggesting a greater role for non-hardware innovation in future cost trends. However\, past changes in soft costs were driven to a large degree by the evolution of hardware rather than soft technology features\, and rising shares of soft costs do not necessarily correspond to a greater cost influence of soft technology features today. These results reveal new insight into how technology costs might be driven down in the future\, through more deliberate\, model-informed approaches to improving soft technology and a continued emphasis on innovation in hardware. 	Please register in advance\, and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. Brief Bio: Magdalena M. Klemun is an Assistant Professor at the Division of Public Policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Interdisciplinary Program Office and a Research Affiliate at the Institute for Data\, Systems\, and Society (IDSS) at MIT. She is also affiliated with the HKUST Energy Institute. Her research examines the dynamics of low-carbon energy innovation\, with a focus on how hardware and non-hardware factors interact and shape performance evolution at the technology- and systems-level. She holds a PhD in Engineering Systems from MIT\, an MS in Earth Resources Engineering from Columbia University\, and a BS in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from Vienna University of Technology. Prior to joining HKUST\, she was a postdoc at IDSS.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-mechanisms-of-hardware-and-soft-technology-evolution-and-the-implications-for-low-carbon-energy-costs/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220411T221500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220411T233000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220401T225200Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003612Z
UID:15004-1649715300-1649719800@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Creative Construction: Knowledge Sharing in Production Networks
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Speaker: Evgenii Fadeev\, Ph.D. Candidate in Economics\, Harvard 	Paper: Creative Construction: Knowledge Sharing in Production Networks 	Abstract: Knowledge flows between firms are often measured using patent citations. I show that even the most cited patents on average receive the majority of citations from one firm only\, and this concentration has significantly increased since 2000. Using the movement of inventors across companies\, I show that the concentration is primarily driven by firms rather than inventors. I develop a theory of knowledge sharing between firms that accounts for these citation patterns. Citations are correlated with the sharing of trade secrets that are complementary to patented technologies. They are concentrated because only a limited set of firms gets access to private knowledge of a patent owner. Firms have incentives to share their secrets with producers of complementary products such as suppliers and customers but to conceal them from competitors. In turn\, competitors can obtain private knowledge from each other through their common suppliers and customers if the latter did not sign confidentiality agreements. The model predicts contractual arrangements and patterns of knowledge sharing (citations) in a production network based on the degree of industry competition and firms’ bargaining positions vis-a-vis their suppliers/customers. Using the network data for the U.S. publicly traded firms and the variation across industries in the exposure to import competition from China\, I provide empirical evidence supporting the predictions of the theory. 	Please register in advance\, and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-creative-construction-knowledge-sharing-in-production-networks/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220328T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220328T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220325T175000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T004004Z
UID:15028-1648462500-1648467000@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Organizational Frictions to Automation\, and Its Effects on Firms\, Workers\, and Labor Markets
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Daniel P. Gross\, Assistant Professor\, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business 	Abstract: AT&T was the largest U.S. firm for most of the 20th century. Telephone operators once comprised over 50% of its workforce\, but in the late 1910s it initiated a decades-long process of automating telephone operation with mechanical call switching—a technology first invented in the 1880s. This talk will cover results from two papers. In one\, we study what drove AT&T to do so\, and why it took one firm nearly a century to automate this one function. In the second\, we study how automation affected the labor market for young women. 	On the firm side\, we find that interdependencies between call switching and nearly every other part of the business were obstacles: the manual switchboard was the fulcrum of a complex production system which had developed around it\, and automation only began after the firm and automatic technology were adapted to work together. Even then\, automatic switching was only profitable for AT&T in larger markets—hence diffusion expanded as costs declined and service areas grew. Automation supported AT&T’s continued growth\, generating a positive feedback loop between scale and automation that reinforced AT&T’s high market share in local markets.On the worker side\, we find that although automation eliminated one of the most common jobs for young American women of this era\, it did not affect future cohorts’ overall employment: the decline in operators was counteracted by reinstating demand in middle-skill clerical jobs and lower-skill service jobs. Incumbent (already-employed) telephone operators were most impacted by automation\, and a decade later were more likely to be in lower-paying occupations or have left the labor force entirely. 	Bio: Daniel P. Gross is an assistant professor at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business\, which he joined in 2020 after several years on the faculty at Harvard Business School. His research has two primary branches: (1) crisis innovation policy and strategy\, including the effects of crisis R&D efforts on post-crisis innovation\, entrepreneurship\, industry dynamics\, and regional economies; and (2) the effects of automation on workers\, firms\, and labor markets. He previously also studied the use of incentives and other tools in managing creative workers within organizations. Professor Gross’ research frequently uses historical examples of industries and eras undergoing significant technological change as a lens into the present and future. 	Please register in advance\, and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. The seminar will be hybrid\, with Daniel presenting in-person for the Harvard community only in WEXNER W-G02.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-organizational-frictions-to-automation-and-its-effects-on-firms-workers-and-labor-markets/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220321T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220321T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220311T204200Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T004135Z
UID:15036-1647857700-1647862200@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Technology Within and Across Firms
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Diego Comin\, Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College 	Paper: Technology Within and Across Firms 	Abstract: This study collects data on the sophistication of technologies used at the business function level for a representative sample of firms in Vietnam\, Senegal\, and the Brazilian state of Ceara. The analysis finds a large variance in technology sophistication across the business functions of a firm. The within-firm variance in technology sophistication is greater than the variance in sophistication across firms\, which in turn is greater than the variance in sophistication across regions or countries. The paper documents a stable cross-firm relationship between technology at the business function and firm levels\, which it calls the technology curve. Significant heterogeneity is uncovered in the slopes of the technology curves across business functions\, a finding that is consistent with non-homotheticities in firm-level technology aggregators. Firm productivity is positively associated with the within-firm variance and the average level of technology sophistication. Development accounting exercises show that cross-firm variation in technology accounts for one-third of cross-firm differences in productivity and one-fifth of the agricultural versus non-agricultural gap in cross-country differences in firm productivity. 	For virtual attendees\, please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.  	About the speaker: 	Diego Comin is a Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is also Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research and Faculty Research Fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Economic Fluctuations and Growth Program. Comin is a fellow for the Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET). Professor Comin has published multiple articles in top economic journals on the topics of business cycles\, technology diffusion\, economic growth and firm volatility. He has also authored cases studies published in the book Drivers of Competitiveness. Comin’s research has been supported by the Gates foundation\, the National Science Foundation\, the C.V. Star Foundation\, the INET foundation and the Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW).
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-technology-within-and-across-firms/
LOCATION:Wexner 434 AB\, Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220314T101500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220314T113000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220311T202300Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003506Z
UID:14996-1647252900-1647257400@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Achieving Power Sector Carbon Neutrality in a Low-cost Renewable Era
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Gang He\, Assistant Professor in the Department of Technology and Society at Stony Brook University 	Abstract: Clean power transition is at the center to achieve mid-century carbon neutrality goals. The cost of solar and wind has plummeted in the past decade\, and solar and wind electricity has been achieving grid parity. Low-cost renewables offer new perspectives for energy system decarbonization that was less visioned before. In this talk\, Dr. He will discuss the pathways of clean power transition and their system impacts using high-resolution models\, to reflect the need for integrating variable renewable energy and phasing out coal to achieve carbon neutrality in the power sector at a low-cost renewables era. 	The talk will be based on the following papers: 			He\, Gang\, Jiang Lin\, Froylan Sifuentes\, Xu Liu\, Nikit Abhyankar\, and Amol Phadke. 2020. “Rapid Cost Decrease of Renewables and Storage Accelerates the Decarbonization of China’s Power System.” Nature Communications 11 (1): 2486. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16184-x.				Zhang\, Chao\, Gang He\, Josiah Johnston\, and Lijin Zhong. 2021. “Long-Term Transition of China’s Power Sector under Carbon Neutrality Target and Water Withdrawal Constraint.” Journal of Cleaner Production 329 (December): 129765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.129765.				He\, Gang\, Jiang Lin\, Ying Zhang\, Wenhua Zhang\, Guilherme Larangeira\, Chao Zhang\, Wei Peng\, Manzhi Liu\, and Fuqiang Yang. 2020. “Enabling a Rapid and Just Transition Away from Coal in China.” One Earth 3 (2): 187–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.07.012.		Please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.  	About the speaker: 	Dr. Gang He is an Assistant Professor on energy policy in the Department of Technology and Society at Stony Brook University. His work focuses on energy modeling\, energy and climate change policy. He also studies other issues related to global climate change and the development of lower-carbon energy sources. He had worked for Stanford University Program on Energy and Sustainable Development from 2008 to 2010 and was a Cynthia Helms Fellow at World Resources Institute in 2008. He received his Ph.D. in Energy and Resources at the University of California\, Berkeley\, He also holds an M.A. from Columbia University on Climate and Society and a B.S. and M.S. from Peking University on Geography.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-achieving-power-sector-carbon-neutrality-in-a-low-cost-renewable-era/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220307T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220307T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220219T005000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T004238Z
UID:15045-1646651700-1646656200@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Vietnam’s role in the US-China trade war
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Karin Mayr-Dorn\, Associate Professor\, Department of Economics\, Johannes Kepler University of Linz 	Paper: Trade diversion and labor market adjustment: Vietnam and the US-China Trade War 	Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of the U.S.-China trade war on trade diversion and the labor market in a third country\, Vietnam. We exploit variation in Vietnamese exports to the U.S. across industries and districts based on the extent of the unexpected and exogenous U.S. tariff hikes on Chinese imports and provide evidence of an indirect effect on labor market outcomes in Vietnam. Vietnamese workers and districts that are more exposed to the trade war display higher employment\, working hours\, and wages as a result of the U.S.-China trade war. Our findings reveal that bilateral trade policy can have substantial offsetting effects on trade flows and labor markets in third countries. 	Bio: Karin Mayr-Dorn is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz\, Austria. Currently\, she is a Visiting Professor at Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research interests are international economics\, labor economics\, and public economics. Before joining JKU Linz\, Karin spent six years at the University of Vienna. She was also a research visitor at the University of Warwick\, Trinity College Dublin\, the University of California at Davis\, and the University College London. 	Please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-vietnams-role-in-the-us-china-trade-war/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220228T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220228T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220122T025800Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T004252Z
UID:15047-1646046900-1646051400@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Which Workers Earn More at Productive Firms? Position Specific Skills and Individual Hold-up Power
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Justin Bloesch\, Ph.D. Candidate in Economics\, Harvard University 	Paper: Which Workers Earn More at Productive Firms? Position Specific Skills and Individual Hold-up Power 	Abstract: We argue that productive firms share rents with workers only in occupations where workers have individual hold-up power. We present a model of wage determination where firms produce using a novel generalization of Kremer (1993)’s O-ring production function. Workers have individual hold-up power if (i) labor is organized into distinct\, differentiated positions (ii) the output of positions is individually complementary or “critical” in the production process\, and (iii) skills are position-specific\, i.e.\, skills are acquired on the job and are not transferable across positions or firms. If output losses from an unfilled position are larger at productive firms\, incomplete contracts and on-the-job search incentivize productive firms to pay differentially high wages. We estimate individual worker hold-up power by occupation using the effect of worker deaths on firm profits in Danish administrative data and using a measure of within-firm\, across-position task differentiation from US job posting data. High hold-up occupations exhibit both higher wage levels and higher long-run passthrough of permanent firm productivity innovations to wages\, supporting the main model predictions. Accounting for heterogeneity in hold-up power across occupations has numerous implications for wage inequality: (1) greater employment of men in high hold-up occupations can account for one fifth of the Danish gender wage gap; (2) rising “superstar firms” increase wage inequality; (3) hold-up power decreases the responsiveness of wages to labor market slack. 	Please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.  	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-which-workers-earn-more-at-productive-firms-position-specific-skills-and-individual-hold-up-power/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220214T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220214T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220122T025400Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003844Z
UID:15017-1644837300-1644841800@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: How Immigration Grease is Affected by Economic\, Institutional\, and Policy Contexts: Evidence from EU Labor Markets
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Martin Kahanec\, Professor and Head of the Department of Public Policy at the Central European University (CEU) in Vienna. 	Abstract: (Paper)Theoretical arguments and previous country-level evidence indicate that immigrants are more fluid than natives in responding to changing skill shortages across countries\, occupation groups and industries. The diversity across EU member states enables us to test this hypothesis across various institutional\, economic and policy contexts. Drawing on the EU LFS and EU SILC datasets\, we study the relationship between residual wage premia as a measure of skill shortages in different occupation-industry-country cells and the shares of immigrants and natives working in these cells. We find that immigrants’ responsiveness to skill shortages exceeds that of natives in the EU15\, in particular in member states with low GDP\, higher levels of immigration from outside EU\, and more open immigration and integration policies; but also those with barriers to citizenship acquisition or family reunification. While higher welfare spending seems to exert a lock-in effect\, a comparison across different types of welfare states indicates that institutional complementarities alleviate the effect. 	Please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.  	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-how-immigration-grease-is-affected-by-economic-institutional-and-policy-contexts-evidence-from-eu-labor-markets/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220207T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220207T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220122T024500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003556Z
UID:15002-1644232500-1644237000@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Colombia’s Structural Challenges for the Creation of New\, Better and More Inclusive Jobs
DESCRIPTION:Please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.  	Speakers: Laura Pabón\, Eliana Carranza\, and Andreas Eberhard-Ruiz  	Abstract:In mid-2020\, the Government of Colombia launched a labor reform consultation process (Misión de Empleo) in response to a deterioration in pre-Covid19 employment indicators and changing economic and labor market conditions. Based on a comprehensive review of Colombia’s labor market performance for the 2009-2019 period\, this report seeks to provide analytical underpinnings to this process. At the macro level\, the report shows that employment in Colombia is insufficiently diversified relying almost exclusively on job creation in the services sectors. This exposes the labor market to cyclical changes in internal demand that are typical for commodity rich economies like Colombia. At the worker level\, the report shows that the economy generates too few formal employment opportunities for those with fewer skills and those living in rural areas\, implying low earnings\, high rates of self-employment\, and high levels of informality. At the firm level\, the report shows that the labor regulatory regime has contributed to strong increases in labor costs with important effects on entry and exit dynamics of firms contributing to a compositional shift towards larger\, more capitalized\, and more skill-intensive firms. 	World Bank report citation:Carranza\, Eliana; Wiseman\, William; Eberhard-Ruiz\, Andreas; Cardenas\, Ana Lucia. 2021. “Colombia Jobs Diagnostic : Structural Challenges for the Creation of New\, Better and More Inclusive Jobs (Spanish).” Jobs Series; Issue No. 30 Washington\, D.C. : World Bank Group. 	Speaker bios: 	Laura Pabón is the Director of Social Development of the National Planning Department of Colombia\, and member of the Technical Secretary of Colombia’s Mision de Empleo. In 2020\, she was recognized by the Presidency of the Republic and Civil Service as the best public servant in the country. Laura is an economist with a master’s degree in Economics from the Universidad de los Andes and a master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. 	Eliana Carranza is a Senior Economist at the World Bank Social Protection and Jobs Practice. She is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School\, in the Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) Program. Eliana works with national governments in the formulation of diagnoses\, strategies and solutions to labor force and employment challenges. She holds an MPA in International Development and a PhD in Political Economy and Government (Economics) from Harvard University. 	Andreas Eberhard-Ruiz is an Economist at the World Bank Jobs Group\, where he works on jobs\, growth\, and structural change. Prior to joining the World Bank\, he worked for the European Commission and for the Ugandan Finance Ministry as a Fellow of the UK’s Overseas Development Institute. His research focuses on trade and competitiveness\, and regional market integration. He holds a PhD from the University of Sussex.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-colombias-structural-challenges-for-the-creation-of-new-better-and-more-inclusive-jobs/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220131T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220131T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20220122T023700Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003900Z
UID:15019-1643627700-1643632200@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Innovation Networks and Innovation Policy
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Ernest Liu\, Assistant Professor of Economics at the Bendheim Center for Finance in Princeton’s Department of Economics 	Paper: Innovation Networks and Innovation Policy 	Abstract: We study the optimal allocation of R&D resources in an endogenous growth model with an innovation network\, through which one sector’s past innovations may benefit other sectors’ future innovations. First\, we provide closed-form sufficient statistics for the optimal path of R&D resource allocation\, and we show that planners valuing long-term growth should allocate more R&D toward key sectors that are upstream in the innovation network. Second\, we extend to an open-economy setting and illustrate an incentive for countries to free-ride on fundamental technologies: an economy more reliant on foreign knowledge spillovers has less incentive to direct resources toward innovation-upstream sectors\, leading to cross-country differences in unilaterally optimal R&D allocations across sectors. Third\, we build the global innovation network based on over 30 million global patents and establish its empirical importance for knowledge spillovers. Fourth\, we apply the model to evaluate R&D allocations across countries and time. Adopting optimal R&D allocations can generate substantial welfare improvements across the globe. For the United States\, R&D misallocation accounts for about 0.68 percentage points of missing annual growth since the 2000s. 	Please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.  	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-innovation-networks-and-innovation-policy/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20211220T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20211220T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20211217T181500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T004142Z
UID:15037-1639998900-1640003400@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: The Cushioning Effect of Immigrant Mobility
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Cem Özgüzel\, Economist\, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 	Abstract: During the Great Recession\, immigrants reacted to the drop in labour demand in Spain through internal migration or leaving the country. Consequently\, provinces lost 13.5% of their immigrants or -3% of the total labour supply\, on average. Using municipal registers and longitudinal administrative data\, I find that immigrant outflows slowed the decline in employment and wage of natives. I use a modified shift-share instrument based on past settlements to claim causality. Employment effects were driven by increased entries to employment\, while wage effects were limited to natives that were already employed. These effects also persisted in the medium-term. 	Speaker bio: Cem is an Economist at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and a Research Fellow at the Institut Convergences Migrations. He is an applied economist with a PhD in economics from the Paris School of Economics\, and has research interests in international migration\, labor markets and regional economics. Before joining the OECD\, he worked as a Teaching and Research Fellow at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and as a Lecturer at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po). He was also a visiting scholar at Center for International Development at Harvard University\, and the German Institute for Employment Research (IAB). 	Please register in advance. Contact Chuck McKenney with any questions. 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-the-cushioning-effect-of-immigrant-mobility/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20211213T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20211213T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20211208T004700Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175431Z
UID:14983-1639394100-1639398600@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar - Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live
DESCRIPTION:Apollo’s Arrow offers a broad account of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic as it swept through American society in 2020 and of how the pandemic will unfold\, and ultimately end\, in the coming years. Using up-to-the-moment information\, and drawing on epidemiology\, sociology\, medicine\, public health\, history\, virology\, and other fields\, it explores what it means to live in a time of plague — an experience that is paradoxically uncommon to the vast majority of humans who are alive\, yet deeply fundamental to our species. Unleashing new divisions in our society as well as new opportunities for cooperation\, this 21st-century pandemic has upended our lives in ways that test our frayed collective culture. Apollo’s Arrow envisions what happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature. 	Nicholas A. Christakis\, MD\, PhD\, MPH\, is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University. His work is in the fields of network science\, biosocial science\, and behavior genetics. He directs the Human Nature Lab and is the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2006; the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017. 	Please register in advance and contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.  	  	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-apollos-arrow-the-profound-and-enduring-impact-of-coronavirus-on-the-way-we-live/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20211130T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20211130T141500
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20211129T191500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003828Z
UID:15015-1638277200-1638281700@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Globalization and the Ladder of Development: Pushed to the Top or Held at the Bottom?
DESCRIPTION:Title: Globalization and the Ladder of Development: Pushed to the Top or Held at the Bottom?Please register in advance. Contact Chuck McKenney with any questions.Abstract: We study the relationship between international trade and development in a model where countries differ in their capability\, goods differ in their complexity\, and capability growth is a function of a country’s pattern of specialization. Theoretically\, we show that it is possible for international trade to increase capability growth in all countries and\, in turn\, to push all countries up the development ladder. This occurs because: (i) the average complexity of a country’s industry mix raises its capability growth\, and (ii) foreign competition is tougher in less complex sectors for all countries. Empirically\, we provide causal evidence consistent with (i) using the entry of countries into the World Trade Organization as an instrumental variable for other countries’ patterns of specialization. The opposite of (ii)\, however\, appears to hold in the data. Through the lens of our model\, these two empirical observations imply dynamic welfare losses from trade that are small for the median country\, but pervasive and large among a number of African countries.Bio: Arnaud Costinot is Professor of Economics at MIT. He received his B.S. from Ecole Polytechnique in 2000\, his M.A. from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in 2001\, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2005. Professor Costinot has received numerous awards including the Prix Edmond Malinvaud\, the Kiel Excellence Award in Global Economic Affairs\, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research fellowship. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society\, a Faculty Research Associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow for the Center for Economic Policy Research. He also serves on the editorial boards of the American Economic Review and the Journal of International Economics. Specializing in international trade\, he has published the American Economic Review\, Econometrica\, the Journal of Political Economy\, the Quarterly Journal of Economics\, and the Review of Economic Studies. His current research focuses on trade policy and the measurement of the welfare gains from trade.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-globalization-and-the-ladder-of-development-pushed-to-the-top-or-held-at-the-bottom/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars,Growth Lab
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20211122T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20211122T121500
DTSTAMP:20260403T151613
CREATED:20211119T222300Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T003515Z
UID:14997-1637578800-1637583300@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Research Seminar: Anthropogenic Material Cycles and Sustainable Development
DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. 	Anthropogenic Material Cycles and Sustainable Development 	Abstract: Modern society relies on the use of more diverse materials and the growing amount of each material\, and results in several relevant sustainability challenges including exhaustion of natural resources\, over-generation and emissions of solid wastes\, and carbon emissions from materials industries. In this talk\, I will use some cases to demonstrate how human activities\, from urbanization\, industrialization\, trade\, to the pursue for carbon-neutral society\, rely on the use of materials and drive the cycles of materials in the anthroposphere. I argue that our sustainable future will heavily rely on the close-loop cycles of materials\, and more attentions should be paid to the challenges in sustainability of physical materials and resources.Dr. Wei-Qiang Chen is a professor of Resources and Urban Sustainability at the Institute of Urban Environment\, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He obtained his bachelor and PhD degrees in Environmental Science and Engineering from the School of Environment at Tsinghua University\, Beijing\, and worked at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies during 2010-2015. His research focuses on material-energy nexus\, sustainable management of materials and urban sustainability. His studies have appeared in PNAS\, Nature Communications\, Environmental science and Technology\, and other first-level journals. He served in the board of the International Society for Industrial Ecology during 2018/01-2020/21\, and was the founding president of the Chinese Society for Industrial Ecology built in 2015. He is now serving as associate editor for the journals Resources\, Conservation\, and Recycling and Journal of Industrial Ecology. 	Please register in advance. 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/research-seminar-anthropogenic-material-cycles-and-sustainable-development/
LOCATION:Zoom (registration information below)
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars,Growth Lab
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