Working Papers
In this paper, new facts are documented on the racial distribution of seminar speakers in economics. From a sample of 270 institutions, I determined that before the COVID-19 pandemic, 81.5% of seminars were given by White speakers, 15% of seminars were given by Asian speakers, and 3.6% by speakers with a Hispanic-Latino or Black background. The racial distribution of speakers did not change globally. However, the share of speakers from underrepresented minorities in the United States doubled with the introduction of virtual seminars during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This paper investigates how firms' international linkages to Russia and Ukraine affected investors' expectations following the escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian war. For this, we perform an event study around the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, finding that firms with significant trade activity with Russia experienced a substantial reduction in cumulative returns. The effect on cumulative returns is especially pronounced for firms that are dependent on Russian commodities. The impact on the aggregate stock market performance of third countries was on average 0.8 percentage points. The highest losses were borne by European countries.
Drawing on the acknowledgements of more than 2,000 publications in the top five economics journals, this article demonstrates that the seminar presentations of these articles are concentrated among 12 top institutions and geographically in the Americas. Second, this study finds robust and significant correlations between presenting at Harvard University and publishing in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE) and between presenting at the University of Chicago and publishing in the Journal of Political Economy (JPE). Articles presented at Harvard and published in the QJE have, on average, a similar impact in terms of citations compared to other QJE articles, while also exhibiting a larger variance in terms of citations. Articles presented at the University of Chicago and published in the JPE have, on average, a similar impact in terms of citations as other articles published in JPE.
Publications
Abstract
We show that multinational firms transmit shocks across countries through their internal capital markets. We study a credit supply shock to parent firms in Germany. International affiliates outside Germany supported their parents through internal lending, became financially constrained themselves, and experienced lower real growth. We find that managers were "Darwinist" with respect to international affiliates but "Socialist" in the home country, that internal capital markets transmitted the credit shock more strongly than a non-financial shock, and that access to developed credit markets attenuated the real effects. The total real impact of shock transmission through multinationals on foreign economies was large.
Abstract
This paper analyzes the consequences of the change in the presentation mode of economics seminars triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The composition of seminar speakers changed significantly. The share of seminars held by women increased. Several indicators of speaker productivity show that speakers at the top of the distribution also gained shares. The geography of knowledge dissemination shifted significantly as the distance between host and speaker institutions increased on average by 32 percent. The results imply that the opportunity to offer virtual presentations instead of traveling to deliver in-person presentations can decrease gender-specific inequality and increase inequality in favor of the "stars" within the profession.
Abstract
Seminars are an important channel through which researchers receive feedback on their work and disseminate it. This paper presents descriptive evidence on the representation of female, male, and mixed teams in economics seminars. I use a balanced panel of 270 institutions in the academic years 2018–2020. I find that before COVID-19, only 7.4 percent of presented projects were authored by female teams, 59.2 percent of projects were authored by male teams, and 33.5 percent of projects were authored by mixed teams. The introduction of virtual seminars during the COVID-19 pandemic led to more balanced distribution across team types.
Abstract
This paper investigates how management practices as intangible transfers are associated with the performance of multinational business groups. Differences in the management level across source countries are predictive for multinationals’ entry patterns for a given destination country. This study uses acquisitions as a means to transplant management practices from parents to affiliates abroad. It finds that better-managed parents decrease employment and increase productivity post-acquisition. The productivity gains are driven by targets with less developed management practices and by targets of larger parents. Better-managed parents are also more likely to install or retain a manager from the parent country post-acquisition.
Abstract
What effect did trade have on the size distribution of firms during the first wave of globalization? Three historical datasets from the German Empire between 1875 and 1907 were collected and harmonized to answer this question. This paper combines industry census and bilateral railway trade data from the same industry and region along with industry-level tariff data. The evidence shows that increases in aggregate trade caused the share of firms to shift from smaller to larger firms. Exogenous decreases in tariffs caused an increase in the share of the largest firms. The regional distributive effects of trade on inequality between firms that are discussed in the contemporaneous literature were already present during the first wave globalization.
Do Public Perceptions Matter for International Trade? The Case of GMOs (with Gonzague Vannoorenberghe)
Financing Service Trade (with Peter Eppinger and Karol Paludkiewicz)
