Events

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

Promotions are an important component of a worker’s wage. Yet, traditional theories about the factors driving career progressions typically focus on worker-level characteristics like human capital acquisition, on learning, or on broad market-level factors like labor supply and demand. We study coworker-career spillovers that arise in firms with limited promotion opportunities. We exploit a 2011 Italian pension reform that tightened eligibility criteria for the public pension. We use administrative data on Italian private-sector and leverage cross-firm variation to isolate the effect of retirement delays among soon-to-retire workers on the promotions of their colleagues. We find evidence of career spillovers, and the patterns of these spillovers are consistent with the idea that older workers block the careers of their younger colleagues in firms with limited opportunities. Delays in retirement lead to a decrease in younger workers’ wage growth. Promotions from blue to white-collar positions fall in response to retirement delays among white-collar workers, whereas there is no effect of such delays among blue-collars. The effects are largest in firms with shrinking employment in the years leading up to the policy and negligible among fast-growing firms. We derive in a model the key features necessary to explain our results (with Giulia Bovini, Jin Li, Mateo Paradisi, and Michael Powell).

Contact Person: Dr. Rainer Widmann

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

We show that the historical rollout of public libraries increased the innovation output of recipient towns. Between 1886 and 1919, Andrew Carnegie donated $34.5 million (approximately $1 billion in 2019 dollars) to fund the construction of more than 1,500 public libraries across the United States. Drawing on a new data set based on original historical records, we identify cities that qualified to receive a library grant, applied for the program, received preliminary construction approval, but ultimately rejected Carnegie’s offer. Using the rejecting cities as a control group, we estimate the effects of Carnegie library formation on patenting activity. We provide evidence that the trends in the patenting activity in the two groups are indistinguishable before the construction of the libraries and then diverge. Cities that received grants experienced both short- and long-run gains in patenting activity.

Contact Person: Dr. Rainer Widmann

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

A central tenet of research in the Carnegie School tradition is that organizations learn from performance feedback. Yet an organizational learning-by-doing perspective can overlook the intra-organizational process of information aggregation whereby individuals' beliefs aggregate to an organizational decision. In organizations, individuals receive feedback not on their own choices, but on the choice made by the organization. We call this “learning-by-participating” in organizational decision-making. We examine the implications of learning-by-participating for the efficacy of alternative decision-making structures (e.g., voting, random delegation). Using a computational model, we find that the efficacy of alternative decision-making structures is shaped by learning-by-participating—e.g., structures that are superior in the absence of individual learning may be inferior in situations where individuals learn-by-participating. Learning-by-participating, which occurs at the intersection of individual learning and organizational information aggregation, exposes a key dimension of heterogeneity among decision-making structures not yet considered in prior literature. In particular, whereas some structures generate higher performance primarily through information aggregation, others do so by improving the accuracy of individuals' beliefs. This occurs because learning-by-participating creates substantial heterogeneity across decision-making structures with respect to organizations' ability to: (a) eliminate individuals' false positive beliefs on poor alternatives, (b) generate a more refined understanding of higher value alternatives, and (c) enable the inclusion of individuals in the decision-making process. Our articulation of learning-by-participating has important implications, and identifies critical boundary conditions, for the wisdom-of-crowds when applied to organizations, and speaks to literatures on the myopia of learning and the value of belief diversity in organizational decision-making.

Contact person: Fabian Gaessler

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, Raum E10

Country names represent a particular category of geographical names. On the one hand, they can be considered as an element of a country's sovereignty. On the other hand, they are often associated with a particular reputation and certain qualities, either in general or in relation to a specific product category; Swiss watches, Italian fashion or Jamaican coffee are all wellknown examples of this. Some countries, including Switzerland, have adopted legislation that sets the terms of use and protects their country names so that the name can only be used in connection with products or services originating from that country. However, misuse of country names generally takes place beyond the borders of the nation concerned. The challenge is that, according to the principle of territoriality, national rules do not apply abroad. That is why Switzerland, which is very active in protecting the "Swiss made" designation, has developed various tools and mechanisms to defend its country name in third countries. In order to avoid cumbersome procedures and, at the same time, to guarantee an adequate, harmonized and easily enforceable protection throughout the world, a group of delegations has requested WIPO to discuss and adopt proposals which aim to better protect country names and geographical names of national significance at international level.

This presentation explores, based on Switzerland's experience, the opportunities, benefits and challenges of protecting and enforcing country names at both national and international levels.

Felix Addor serves as the Deputy Director General and General Counsel of the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property. He is responsible for all legal and policy matters regarding all fields of IP at national and international levels. He is also a Professor (‘Titularprofessor’) at the Faculty of Law and a lecturer at the World Trade Institute, University of Bern. He lectures on IP, international negotiations and global governance.

If you plan on attending, we kindly request that you register with Ms. Ulrike Stubenvoll (ulrike.stubenvoll(at)miplc.de) at your earliest convenience. 

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

Coming up with creative ideas is easier when striving for positive outcomes and improvement (approach motivation) rather than striving to avoid negative outcomes and failure (avoidance motivation). Yet, creative ideas and solutions are often particularly needed in the face of potential threats and crises. I will present some recent studies in which we tested potential interventions aimed at reducing the negative effects of avoidance motivation on creativity. Specifically, I will discuss the effects of task structure, mindfulness meditation, and planning.

Contact Person: Dr. Marina Chugunova

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Room E10

Please register by 15 May under elisabeth.amler(at)ip.mpg.de

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Room E10

We look forward to welcoming you and ask you to register for better planning by 13.5.2019 at the latest at delia.zirilli(at)ip.mpg.de.

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

We document persistent gender disparities in economics. The fraction of women in economics has grown significantly over the last forty years but the difference in research output between men and women remains large. There are significant differences in the co-authorship networks of men and women: women have fewer collaborators, collaborate more often with the same co-authors, and a higher fraction of their co-authors are co-authors of each other. Both men and women exhibit homophily in their co-authorship relations. Finally, women collaborate with more senior co-authors. Similar output and collaboration patterns obtain in sociology.

Contact person: Michael Rose, Ph.D.

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Room E10

Moderation: Benedikt Hammerschmid (MPI)
 

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

Public support for industry, either financial or in-kind, is predicated on the existence of unpaid and unrequited benefits flowing from one organisation to another. It follows that public support should be most generous where the outflows of these benefits are greatest. R&D activity is considered one notable source of these external benefits. There is now as strong and consistent body of evidence across the world that shows that firms, which interact or locate near R&D-active firms, receive considerable benefits. However, there is no reason why the magnitude of these benefits should be the same from all industries. Despite the quantity of studies, there has been scant evidence to indicate which sectors and what type of R&D produce the most benefits. This paper takes a step towards addressing this omission with the ultimate goal being the design of more targeted industry policies.

Contact person: Fabian Gaessler