KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020

The purpose of the seminar is to provide a platform for presenting and discussing ongoing research on determinants and consequences of globalisation in general and global value chains in particular. The seminar will take place on an irregular basis at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy or at the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel. Both are scientific partners of KCG. Information about upcoming presentations will be provided here in advance.

If you have any questions about the KCG Research Seminar, please contact Dr. Wan-Hsin Liu (KCG Coordinator).

KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020-9 (Online):

Topic: Companies’ Stock Market Response to Industrial Disasters

Elisa Navarra (Université Libre de Bruxelles – ECARES)

Abstract: With the escalation of labor rights’ violations and tangible environmental challenges, society is paying increasing attention to the dramatic consequences of firms’ malpractices. Using a novel dataset on 720 industrial disasters worldwide over the period 1990-2019, I first examine media coverage of these accidents and identify the companies allegedly involved in them. Even though disasters in developing countries are much more frequent and deadly, they receive much less worldwide media attention than disasters that occur in developed countries. I then exploit industrial accidents as exogenous shocks to society’s awareness of firms’ malpractices to study their effects on stock market returns. I estimate an average drop in shareholders’ wealth of 1.70% on the day after the disaster and of 4.39% over the week after. Consistently with the bias in media coverage, the loss is 10 times larger when disasters occur in developed countries. Results suggest that, despite the alarming number of industrial disasters, there is no sufficient market-based incentive to change behavior for firms that exploit lax regulation in developing countries, as they do not suffer reputation losses for their malpractices in these countries.

Date: Friday, October 23, 2020, 12:00 – 13:00

Venue: Virtually via Gotomeeting

If interested, please send an Email to kcg-conference@ifw-kiel.de to receive a Gotomeeting-Link to the seminar.

KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020-8 (Online):

Topic: Discussants

Michael E. Rose, Ph.D. (Max-Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition)

Abstract: We study the role of informal collaboration in academic knowledge production. Comparing published articles presented at the NBER Summer Institutes with and without discussants, we find that having a discussant increases a paper’s probability of publication in prestigious journals, but not its citation count. Conditional on having a discussant, a paper’s citation count and probability of publication in a prestigious journal increase in the discussant’s prolificness. Though not random, our setting is conducive to studying the role of informal collaboration in academic knowledge production. Our findings support the existence of a quality-improving channel through which discussants improve the inherent quality of a paper. Conversely, we do not find evidence for the existence of a diffusion channel through which papers garner more citations because discussants diffuse information about the paper within their social network.

Date: Friday, August 21, 2020, 12:00 – 13:00

Venue: Virtually via Gotomeeting

If interested, please send an Email to kcg-conference@ifw-kiel.de to receive a Gotomeeting-Link to the seminar.

KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020-7 (Online):

Topic: Skill-Biased Imports, Human Capital Accumulation, and the Allocation of Talent

Prof. Lei Li, Ph.D. (University of Mannheim)

Abstract: This paper proposes that imported capital goods, which embody skill-complementary technologies, can lead to an increase in the supply of skill in developing countries like China. By exploiting the cross-prefecture variation in capital goods imports, I show that the surge in capital goods imports encourages human capital accumulation and migration in China. To tackle causality, I instrument the capital goods import growth of a prefecture in a certain province with the capital goods import growth in other provinces. There are three main findings. Firstly, the regional difference in capital goods imports can explain 27 percent of the regional difference in college share between 2000 and 2010. A prefecture with a $100 increase in capital goods imports per capita had a 1.4 percentage points increase in college share. Secondly, this paper quantifies the importance of the three channels, namely skill acquisition of local stayers, immigration of skilled workers, and emigration of skilled workers, through which capital goods imports increase college share. I find that the first channel is the most important. Thirdly, I trace out the responses of skill supply to the demand shift. I find that capital goods imports increase college wage premium and the effect attenuates over time with the increase in skill supply.

Date: Friday, June 26, 2020, 12:00 – 13:00

Venue: Virtually via Gotomeeting

If interested, please send an Email to kcg-conference@ifw-kiel.de to receive a Gotomeeting-Link to the seminar.

*It is also an Erich-Schneider Seminar of the Kiel University.

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KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020-6 (Online):

Topic: Local Labour Market Effects of FDI Regulation in Indonesia

Robert Genthner (University of Goettingen)

Abstract: Using yearly Indonesian labour market data for 2000 to 2015, we investigate the impact of a protectionist foreign direct investment (FDI) policy reform on employment and wages. The so-called negative investment list regulates FDI at the highly granular product level and has been repeatedly revised throughout time. We construct spatial measures of regulatory penetration based on firm-level data and thereby exploit the exposure of local manufacturing industry employment to the negative investment list. Controlling for time and locality fixed effects as well as trends in initial district conditions, our findings suggest an overall positive effect of local regulatory penetration on employment, which is especially pronounced among young, females and low-skilled workers and mostly driven by job creation in the manufacturing sector. We also present evidence in support of positive wage effects.

Date: Friday, June 12, 2020, 12.00 – 13.00

Venue: Virtually via Gotomeeting

If interested, please send an Email to kcg-conference@ifw-kiel.de to receive a Gotomeeting-Link to the seminar.

Date: Friday, April 24, 2020, 12.00 – 13.00

Venue: Virtually via Gotomeeting

If interested, please send an Email to kcg-conference@ifw-kiel.de to receive a Gotomeeting-Link to the seminar.

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KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020-4: (Cancelled)

Topic: Ride-Sharing and the Geography of Consumption Industries

Prof. Jordan James Norris, Ph.D. (Aarhus University)

Abstract: Exploiting sharp geographic and temporal variation in the entry of Uber across US cities, we find that ride-sharing availability causes a significant increase in sales, employment, and entry primarily in two industries: gyms and sports centers (NAICS 713), and restaurants and bars (NAICS 722). Using consumption microdata, we show this is driven by a demand-side response to a reduction in transportation costs caused by Uber: millenial consumers substitute from home to away-from-home consumption of food, alcohol and fitness. Ride-sharing attenuates spatial frictions, reducing the relative economic price of away-from-home consumption. These effects are polarized between core and peripheral neighborhoods, yet opposite for each industry: Uber causes greater agglomeration in 713, but dispersion in 722. We show this is theoretically consistent with demand substitution across products within 713 being greater than within 722: agglomeration forces are maximal at lower transportation costs when substitutability is higher. We provide empirical evidence supporting this demand heterogeneity by verifying theoretical implications on the distance traveled for consumption and the extent of initial agglomeration.

Date: Friday, March 13, 2020, 12.00 – 13.00

Venue: Medienraum (A211), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Kiellinie 66, 24105 Kiel)

KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020-3:

Topic: Exporters, Multinationals and Residual Wage Inequality: Evidence and Theory

Prof. Sarah Schroeder, Ph.D. (Aarhus University)

Abstract: This paper studies the implications for wage inequality of two distinct forms of globalisation, namely trade and foreign direct investment.  I use German linked employer-employee data to (1) jointly estimate the exporter and the multinational wage premium and (2) to further distinguish between wage premia of multinational firms that are foreign owned (inward FDI) and domestically owned (outward FDI). My findings exhibit a clear hierarchy of firms’ international  activities  with  regard  to  wage  premia  and  workforce  ability.  I  interpret  these patterns  using  a  theoretical  framework,  which  incorporates  ex-ante  homogeneous  workers, heterogeneous  firms  and  search  and  matching  frictions  into  a  multi-region  model  of  trade and FDI with monopolistic competition. The model allows me to account for the observed empirical patterns, and delivers novel insights about the interplay between trade, FDI and labour market institutions.

Date: Thursday, February 27, 2020, 12.00 – 13.00

Venue: Medienraum (A211), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Kiellinie 66, 24105 Kiel)

KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020-2:

Why are Africa’s Female Entrepreneurs Unable to Play the Export Game?  Evidence from Ghana

Prof. Aoife Hanley, Ph.D. (CAU, IfW & KCG) & Cecília Hornok, Ph.D. (IfW & KCG)

Abstract: Using the Ghanaian ISSER-IGC panel, a survey of micro, small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises for 2011-2015, we explore how the underperformance of Africa’s female entrepreneurs can be explained by a male-female export gap, together with nine key business constraints. We find that female entrepreneurs are less likely to export and optimize their exports than their male peers. Importantly, we find that although access to finance is ranked more highly as a constraint by female entrepreneurs, this does not explain the difficulties they experience in optimizing exports. Consistent with related work (Field et al, 2010; Swamy et al, 2001), we find that constraints related to social and cultural norms, in particular concerning bribes and security, are especially important for females. This may hint at the exclusion of female entrepreneurs (voluntarily or involuntarily) from business networks or practices favored by their male peers.

Date: Friday, February 14, 2020, 12.00 – 13.00

Venue: Medienraum (A211), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Kiellinie 66, 24105 Kiel)

KCG Lunch-Time Seminar 2020-1:

Death to the Cobb-Douglas Production Function

Prof. Tomas Havranek, Ph.D. (Charles University, Prague)

Abstract: We show that the large elasticity of substitution between capital and labour estimated in the literature on average, 0.9, can be explained by three factors: publication bias, use of aggregated data, and omission of the first-order condition for capital. The mean elasticity conditional on the absence of publication bias, disaggregated data, and inclusion of information from the first-order condition for capital is 0.3. To obtain this result, we collect 3,186 estimates of the elasticity reported in 121 studies, codify 71 variables that reflect the context in which researchers produce their estimates, and address model uncertainty by Bayesian and frequentist model averaging. We employ nonlinear techniques to correct for publication bias, which is responsible for at least half of the overall reduction in the mean elasticity from 0.9 to 0.3. The weight of evidence accumulated in the empirical literature emphatically rejects the Cobb-Douglas specification.

Date: Friday, January 17, 2020, 12.00 – 13.00

Venue: Medienraum (A211), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Kiellinie 66, 24105 Kiel)