BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Growth Lab - ECPv6.15.20//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:20210314T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20211107T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20220313T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20221106T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20230312T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20231105T060000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221102T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221102T130000 DTSTAMP:20260426T120634 CREATED:20221021T220800Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175433Z UID:14879-1667390400-1667394000@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu SUMMARY:Development Talk: Political Favoritism and Regime Stability - Why Bad Policy is Almost Always Good Politics DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab’s Development Talks is a series of conversations with policymakers and academics working in international development. The seminar provides a platform for practitioners and researchers to discuss both the practice of development and analytical work centered on policy.  Speakers:Bruce Bueno de Mesquita\, Silver Professor; Professor of Politics\, New York UniversityAlastair Smith\, Bernhardt Denmark Professor of International Relations\, New York University Moderator: José Morales-Arilla\, Research Fellow\, Growth Lab; Postdoctoral Fellow\, Department of Politics\, Princeton University 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. Lunch will be provided. Please arrive at 11:45am to allow for lunch\, seating\, and a prompt start at 12pm. About the speakers \nBruce Bueno de Mesquita is an emeritus senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Silver Professor of Politics at New York University (NYU). An expert on foreign policy and nation building\, his current research focuses on political institutions\, economic growth\, and political change. He is also known for his research on policy forecasting for national security and for business concerns.   \nAlastair Smith is the Bernhardt Denmark Chair of International Relations at New York University and a professor of political science in the Wilf Family Department of Politics. He has a PhD in political science from the University of Rochester and a BA in Chemistry from the University of Oxford. URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/development-talk-political-favoritism-and-regime-stability-why-bad-policy-is-almost-always-good-politics/ LOCATION:T-520 Allison Dining Room\, Zoom (registration information below) CATEGORIES:Development Talks END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221107T111500 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221107T123000 DTSTAMP:20260426T120634 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:20221108T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221108T140000 DTSTAMP:20260426T120634 CREATED:20221101T225300Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175433Z UID:14869-1667912400-1667916000@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu SUMMARY:Development Talk: Culture\, Psychology and Economic Development DESCRIPTION:The Growth Lab’s Development Talks is a series of conversations with policymakers and academics working in international development. The seminar provides a platform for practitioners and researchers to discuss both the practice of development and analytical work centered on policy. Speaker: Joseph Henrich\, Ruth Moore Professor\, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology\, Harvard University Moderator: Eliana La Ferrara\, Professor of Public Policy\, Harvard Kennedy School 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. Lunch will be provided. Please arrive at 11:45 am to allow for lunch\, seating\, and a prompt start at 12 pm. About the speaker: Dr. Henrich is currently the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Before moving to Harvard\, he was a professor of both Economics and Psychology at the University of British Columbia for nearly a decade\, where he held the Canada Research Chair in Culture\, Cognition and Coevolution. His research deploys evolutionary theory to understand how human psychology gives rise to cultural evolution and how this has shaped our species’ genetic evolution. Using insights generated from this approach\, Professor Henrich has explored a variety of topics\, including economic decision-making\, social norms\, fairness\, religion\, marriage\, prestige\, cooperation and innovation. In 2016\, he published The Secret of Our Success (Princeton) and in 2020\, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous (FSG). URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/development-talk-culture-psychology-and-economic-development/ LOCATION:Rubenstein 414 AB / Zoom CATEGORIES:Development Talks END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221114T111500 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221114T123000 DTSTAMP:20260426T120634 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:20221121T111500 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221121T123000 DTSTAMP:20260426T120634 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:20221128T111500 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221128T123000 DTSTAMP:20260426T120634 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 END:VCALENDAR