Staff Seminar

Knowledge Creation and Growth - Dirk Dohse & Eckhardt Bode

07 Mar 2017

From the IFW event series: Research Seminar

14:00

15:00

Institut für Weltwirtschaft

Speaker

Dirk Dohse (Kiel Institute, RA "Knowledge Creation and Growth")

Abstract

The paper studies the impact of a switch from free to charged highway provision on firm numbers and private sector employment in a cross-section of Portuguese municipalities. It exploits the fact that highway tolls in Portugal were unexpectedly raised in reaction to the financial crisis to establish causality. We follow this strategy applying a difference-in-differences analysis on a comprehensive dataset of all mainland Portuguese municipalities for the period 2007-2013. Our findings indicate a significantly negative effect of highway tolls on the number of firms and on employment in treated municipalities vis-à-vis the control group. Comprehensive robustness checks and studies of effect heterogeneity show that the negative effects of highway tolls are also effective in municipalities not directly traversed by the treated highways, and that larger firms and manufacturing sector firms are most strongly affected.

Authors

David B. Audretsch (Indiana University) — Dirk Dohse (Kiel Institute) — João Pereira dos Santos (Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisbon)

Speaker

Eckhardt Bode (Kiel Institute, RA "Knowledge Creation and Growth")

Abstract

We present empirical evidence suggesting that technological progress in the digital age will be biased not only with respect to skills acquired through education but also with respect to noncognitive skills (personality). We measure the direction of technological change by estimated future digitalization probabilities of occupations, and noncognitive skills by the Big Five personality traits from several German worker surveys. Even though we control extensively for education and experience, we find that workers characterized by strong openness and emotional stability tend to be less susceptible to digitalization. Traditional indicators of human capital thus measure workers’ skill endowments only imperfectly.

Authors

Eckhardt Bode (Kiel Institute) — Stephan Brunow (Institute for Employment Research, Nürnberg) — Ingrid Ott (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Kiel Institute) — Alina Sorgner (Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena,
Kiel Institute)

Knowledge Creation and Growth - Dirk Dohse & Eckhardt Bode

Do Toll-free Highways Foster Firm Formation and Employment Growth? Results from a Quasi-natural Experiment

Speaker

Abstract

Authors

Worker Personality: Another Skill Bias Beyond Education in the Digital Age

Speaker

Abstract

Authors

Prof. Dr. Dirk Dohse

Dr. Eckhardt Bode

Institution

Exports and New Products in China – A Modified Matching Model to Include Firm-to-Firm Spillovers — Aoife Hanley

Linking the EU and Chinese ETS — Malte Winkler

Innovation and International Competition

Kiel Institute for
the World Economy