BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Growth Lab - ECPv6.18.0//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Growth Lab
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Growth Lab
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20250309T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20251102T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20260308T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20261101T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20270314T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20271107T060000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260924T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260924T130000
DTSTAMP:20260918T201533Z
CREATED:20260918T130647Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260918T201533Z
UID:19077-1790251200-1790254800@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Revitalizing City Centers: the Case of Rio de Janeiro
DESCRIPTION:Development Talks Hybrid\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRio de Janeiro’s historic center tells a story familiar to many cities across Latin America and the developing world: decades of outward expansion have hollowed out urban cores\, leaving behind degraded buildings\, strained public services\, and neighborhoods that once defined the city’s civic life. Washington Fajardo has spent over a decade designing urban revitalization policies to address this decay. As the Director of the IDB Cities’ Lab he works on cutting-edge solutions to address urban challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously as the Mayor’s Special Advisor for Urban Issues and President of the Rio World Heritage Institute (2009–2016)\, he designed policies and financing mechanisms to preserve heritage\, regenerate buildings\, and improve public services in the city center. He joins the Growth Lab to discuss what it takes to bring city centers back to life: which policy tools actually work to regenerate buildings and public spaces\, how to finance preservation at scale\, and what Rio’s experience offers other cities grappling with urban decay at their core. \n\n\n\nSpeaker: Washington Fajardo\, Director of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Cities Lab \n\n\n\nModerator: Andres Fortunato\, Growth Lab Research Manager \n\n\n\nWhether attending in person or virtually\, please register in advance. Room attendance is permitted for the Harvard community. Lunch will be served. The Zoom session is open to the public. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Bio: Washington Fajardo is an architect and urbanist. He coordinates Cities LAB at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)\, in the Housing and Urban Development Division\, where he works on institutional innovation\, urban regeneration\, and digital transformation and AI adoption in Latin American and Caribbean cities. From 2009 to 2016\, throughout Rio de Janeiro’s preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games\, he served as the Mayor’s special advisor for urban issues and head of historic preservation\, working on Porto Maravilha\, the UNESCO World Heritage designation of Rio’s Carioca Landscapes\, and the protection of Cais do Valongo. He returned to City Hall as Chief of Urban Planning and President of the Instituto Pereira Passos (2021–2022)\, where he created Reviver Centro\, the downtown housing and regeneration program. He curated the Brazilian Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale and was a Harvard Loeb Fellow (2019). \n\n\n\nThe Growth Lab’s “Development Talks” is a series of conversations with policymakers and academics working on economic growth and development in countries\, regions\, states\, and cities in the US and around the world. The seminar provides a platform for practitioners and researchers to discuss both economic growth and development and analytical work centered on policy. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Share
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/revitalizing-city-centers-the-case-of-rio-de-janeiro/
LOCATION:Allison Dining Room – Taubman Building 5th floor
CATEGORIES:Development Talks,Hybrid
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-18-at-4.14.58-PM.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260929T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260929T104500
DTSTAMP:20260914T210513Z
CREATED:20260914T210044Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260914T210513Z
UID:19021-1790674200-1790678700@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:The Indian Innovation Puzzle
DESCRIPTION:Development Talks Hybrid\n\n\n \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Share\n	\n  \n  \n    \n  \n  \n  \n  \n    \n  \n  \n  \n    \n  \n  \n  \n  \n    \n  \n  \n  \n  \n    \n  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  \n\n  \n  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this Academic Research Seminar\, Josh Lerner will present his paper\, co-authored by Namrata Kala and Junxi Liu “The Indian Innovation Puzzle.” \n\n\n\nSpeaker: Josh Lerner\, Jacob H. Schiff Professor at Harvard Business School and Co-Director of the HBS Private Capital Project.  \n\n\n\nCo-Authors: Namrata Kala (MIT Sloan School of Management) and Junxi Liu (University of Warwick) \n\n\n\nPaper Abstract: Despite recent increases in some measures of innovation\, India continues to have very modest levels of domestic patenting\, contradicting standard views of the importance of property rights in economic development. Using a novel\, newly constructed dataset of Indian patent grants\, we explore why Indian patenting has been so low. We examine whether an absence of non-patented innovation\, differences in industry composition and public attitudes\, and a lack of public market reactions to patent awards can explain these differences\, and find only modest support for these explanations. We then show evidence of an institutional quality mechanism\, i.e.\, long delays in patent examination. We estimate the causal effects of reduced delays using a natural experiment. Specifically\, we show that a 2016 reform by IP India (the patent office) increased examination speeds for technology-office pairs that gained access to more same-field examiner capacity. In response\, the mixture of applicants shifted away from applicants with very low success rates and towards high-quality filers. This improved institutional capacity also enhanced other innovation outcomes\, boosting the financing of venture capital-backed firms. But the magnitude of these effects was modest\, closing just over one-tenth the patenting gap between India and other leading nations. This modest effect may reflect the implementation of the reform (a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that high-quality patenting could have been increased by an additional 9 to 31 percent)\, as well as the uncertainty surrounding patent litigation. These results underscore the importance of institutional quality in facilitating innovation. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Bio: Josh Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor at Harvard Business School and Co-Director of the HBS Private Capital Project. Much of his research focuses on venture capital and private equity organizations and innovation policy. He has been recently recognized as among the forty most influential economists worldwide by ScholarGPS and research.com. \n\n\n\nHe has co-directed the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Productivity\, Innovation\, and Entrepreneurship Program since 2010 and serves as co-editor of their publication\, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy. He founded and runs the Private Capital Research Institute\, a nonprofit devoted to encouraging access to data and research and has been a frequent leader of and participant in the World Economic Forum projects and events. \n\n\n\nWhether attending in person or virtually\, please register in advance. \n\n\n\nThe Growth Lab’s Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/19021/
LOCATION:Perkins Room – R-429 Rubenstein 4th floor
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars,Hybrid
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/josh_lerner_360.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260929T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260929T170000
DTSTAMP:20260930T184342Z
CREATED:20260925T173113Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260930T184342Z
UID:19116-1790697600-1790701200@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Why Europe’s AI Talent Strategy Needs a Local Layer
DESCRIPTION:Development Talks Hybrid\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this Academic Research Seminar\, Casey Weston will present his paper “The Talent Will Not Be Centralized: Why Europe’s AI Talent Strategy Needs a Local Layer.” \n\n\n\nSpeaker: Casey Weston\, Senior Manager\, Public Policy and Economic Graph at LinkedIn \n\n\n\nPaper Abstract: Europe’s AI competitiveness debate is conducted largely at the national and EU level\, yet the AI engineering talent it depends upon develops and moves locally. Using LinkedIn data on AI Engineering Talent concentration\, growth\, and migration across 202 European market areas\, this note assesses where and how local AI talent ecosystems form across the EU\, and the extent to which that clustering may align with national AI talent strategies. At the local level\, we observe three methods through which cities accumulate AI talent: cultivating it through research infrastructure (e.g. Braga)\, attracting it through favorable national migration policy and dense employment opportunities (e.g. Munich\, Barcelona)\, and/or retaining it against wage and tax competition from higher-cost neighbors (e.g. Brno\, Wrocław). We find that the resulting AI ecosystems may or may not align with national strategic intentions: Poland’s domestic capacity-building strategy successfully generated broad-based local momentum\, but France’s research strength has not translated into comparable local growth\, and Czechia’s struggles to convert local demand into compounding hubs for its robust talent pipeline. We conclude that while EU and national AI infrastructure investments may be necessary for AI sovereignty\, they are insufficient to realize the desired economic returns from the AI transition; converting these investments into durable economic benefit requires deliberately paired localized talent strategies. \n\n\n\nWhether attending in person or virtually\, please register in advance. \n\n\n\nThe Growth Lab’s Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Share
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/why-europes-ai-talent-strategy-needs-a-local-layer/
LOCATION:HYBRID WEXNER W-102\, HKS / Zoom
CATEGORIES:Academic Research Seminars,Hybrid
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Casey-Weston-LinkedIn-EnergyNow-SDG7-24Sep2025-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR