Research seminar summer 23

Research

The Department of Econonomics of the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS) invites researchers to present and discuss their latest research in economics and management.

Our research seminar is Tuesdays from 18:00–19:30. On-site talks take place in room HS 302 (FRA1OG4.420). Online talks take place on Zoom. Please contact Jörg Paetzold if you want to attend the seminar online or subscribe to our seminar’s newsletter.

14.03.2023 (on-site)	Title: Duration Dependence in Finding a Job: Applications, Interviews, Job Offers Speaker: Josef Zweimüller (University of Zurich) Abstract: The job finding rate decreases with the duration of unemployment. While this is a well-established fact, we know little about the underlying reasons. We use longitudinal monthly data from job search diaries for a larger number of job seekers, which record all applications they send, along with employer callbacks and job offers. Accounting for heterogeneity, we document a decline in the number of applications and a decline in the chances of a callback over time, whereas the chances of receiving a job offer after being interviewed are found to be slightly increasing. Individual heterogeneity plays a role mostly before the interview stage. Our empirical findings can be rationalized in a job search model with statistical discrimination. Firms use elapsed unemployment duration as a signal of applicants’ productivity when making callbacks decisions and make job offer decisions based on new information revealed during the job interview. As duration negatively impacts job seekers’ chances of getting a job, those react endogenously by lowering their search effort over time.
18.04.2023 (on-site)	Title: F.A. Hayeks Weg zum Liberalismus Speaker: Hansjörg Klausinger ( Vienna University of Economics and Business) Abstract: Friedrich A. Hayek gilt den einen als Vorkämpfer für eine freiheitliche Ordnung, den anderen als Apologet des Neoliberalismus und aller diesem zugeschriebener Übel – unbestritten ist seine Stellung als eine prägende Figur für das politische Denken des 20. Jahrhunderts. Auf der Grundlage des eben erschienenen ersten Teils seiner Biographie wird hier Hayeks Weg zur Begründung eines neuen Liberalismus dargestellt: Die Emanzipation von den prägenden Vorurteilen der familiären Herkunft in den Wiener wissenschaftlichen „Kreisen“, die Auseinandersetzung mit Keynes, die wegweisenden Beiträge zur Verwertung des Wissens in der Gesellschaft und die Warnung vor Totalitarismus in The Road to Serfdom führen ihn zur Ablehnung des Laissez Faire und zur Begründung eines neuen regelbasierten Liberalismus.
02.05.2023 (on-site)	Title: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About EU Membership Trade Effects But Were Afraid to Ask Speaker: Harald Oberhofer ( Vienna University of Economics and Business) Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of the selection of particular trade data for the estimated EU membership trade effects in gravity models. We obtain 543 estimates for EU membership trade effects from a standard specification of the gravity model using eleven different data sources and sample periods. These are used to perform a meta-regression analysis aiming to explore the sources for heterogeneity in the obtained estimates. The findings from the meta study highlight the crucial role of domestic trade flows for the magnitude of the EU membership trade effect. The estimated EU trade effect is between 33.6% and 55.3% larger in datasets that also account for trade diversion from domestic trade. Furthermore, the estimated EU membership trade effects also vary with the time period, country coverage, and the level of disaggregation available in the data sources. Alternative estimation packages, the use of interval data and the replacement of exports by import data as the outcome of interest do not significantly affect the estimated magnitudes of the EU membership trade effects.
09.05.2023 (on-site)	Title: Investment Ecosystem of a National Economy: Concept and Practice Speaker: Oksana Bulkot (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) Abstract: Starting from 2019, the global investment architecture was under significant changes, caused first by the COVID-19 pandemic, and then by Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine. So, not only the conditions of functioning of the global investment environment and, obviously, the vectors of investments are changing – the mechanisms and tools of their implementation, the investment strategies of transnational corporations, and the models of organization of investment architectonics are changing as well. Russia’s military aggression led to drastic changes in the organization of economic processes and the interaction of business entities within the national economic systems, models and principles of doing business, interaction between external markets and systems in all the global economy. It is obvious that the investment processes were also particularly affected. All the outlined issues have led to changes in the modes of organization of investment flows, factors of investment environments, and investment policies. This paper proposes the new approach to organization of investments in a national economy through building the model of investment ecosystem of a national economy.
23.05.2023 (on-site)	Title: Investor-State Dispute Settlement and Trade in Value Speaker: Maximilian Fleig (University of Erlangen–Nuremberg) Abstract: Governments aim at increasing global value chain participation of local firms by ratifying bilateral investment treaties that comprise protections against direct or indirect expropriation. Importantly, trade in value added depends on the governments’ ex post compliance with their treaty commitments. This paper estimates the costs of violations of foreign firms’ property rights using a sample that encompasses 5 sectors, 189 countries and 26 years. I find that losing investor-state dispute settlement cases decreases value added exports to the host government’s economy. Particularly value added trade flows from the primary and low tech services industry are affected by bilateral investment disputes. My results also indicate that effects are not restricted to the claimant’s sector but spill over to other industries which are not directly involved in the dispute. Title: Why Granting Unilateral Trade Preferences Speaker: Christoph Moser/ Stefan Suttner (University of Erlangen–Nuremberg) Abstract: The US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is one of the most important unilateral trade preference programs. Its alleged main goal is to encourage economic development in poorer countries by providing these beneficiary countries with non-reciprocal preferential market access. However, the empirical evidence on donor countries’ incentives to grant these unilateral trade preferences is very scarce. We shed light on the US business side. We study the stock market reactions to news about the sudden withdrawal of US GSP preferences for listed US firms with disclosed offshoring exposure to at least one of the affected beneficiary countries. We find negative abnormal returns for US offshoring firms in the donor country, indicating vested business interests in the United States.
06.06.2023 (on-site)	Title: Search Costs and Context Effects Speaker: Heiner Schumacher (University of Innsbruck & KU Leuven) Abstract: Empirical search cost estimates are often large and increasing in the size of the transaction, even if search can be done conveniently online. To assess this pattern systematically, we conduct an online search experiment in which we manipulate the price scale while keeping the physical search effort for each price quote constant. We also record the time subjects need to obtain a price quote in order to derive a direct measure of subjects’ time and hassle costs of search. Based on a standard search model, we confirm that search cost estimates are large relative to directly elicited search costs and increasing in the price scale. We then modify the search model to allow for context effects, i.e., the tendency that people become less sensitive to price variations of fixed size when the price scale or range of outcomes increases. With the modified model, we find scale-independent search cost estimates that correspond well to subjects’ directly elicited search costs. We show that the consumer welfare losses from context effects can be quite substantial and discuss how empirical work could deal with scale-effects.

Previous research seminars: Winter 2022, Summer 2022, Winter 2021