Marcus Biermann

This paper analyzes the consequences of the change in the presentation mode of seminars in economics triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the technology shock, the number of seminars held decreased by approximately 12 percent as seminars went from in person to online presentations. The composition of seminar speakers changed significantly. Three proxies of speakers’ quality suggest that leading top economists gained shares. The share of seminars held by women increased. The geography of knowledge dissemination shifted significantly as the distance between host and speaker institutions increased on average by 32 percent. The growing inequality in presentations among speakers is correlated with an increase in inequality in terms of citations. The results imply that working from home instead of travelling can decrease gender-specific inequality and increase inequality by productivity.

This paper shows that idiosyncratic shocks to individual firms can affect growth all over the world, even if shocked firms have no direct foreign connections and no operations abroad. We identify an idiosyncratic shock to a German bank, which caused the bank to cut lending to German borrowers. Multinational parent firms located in Germany became financially constrained. In response, international affiliates of affected parents supported their parent by lending through internal capital markets and became constrained themselves. The real growth of affiliates fell sharply and took three years to fully recover. Though the initial shock only hit the domestic activities of a firm in Germany, the impact in other countries was sizable (for instance, around 0.4 percent of aggregate sales in Austria and the Czech Republic). The findings reveal that idiosyncratic shocks to individual firms influence economic outcomes far beyond firms’ direct scope of operation.

Environmental Preferences and Deep Trade Agreements (with Gonzague Vannoorenberghe)

Financing Service Trade (with Peter Eppinger and Karol Paludkiewicz)