October 1, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
October 1, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Embedded Files
Astrid Ulv Thomsen (Copenhagen Business School) - will present "From the Ivory Tower to Capitol Hill: Which Academics Get a Voice in Congress?" (with Yotam Sofer)
Abstract: Examining economic academics’ engagement with public policymakers, this paper investigates the impact of technological changes on the composition of expert witnesses, in the context of testimony before the U.S. Congress. Utilizing a COVID-19 related policy change in Congress we show that technological tools reducing the opportunity costs for certain demographic groups changed the com-position of witnesses significantly. We document that female economists have historically been un-derrepresented in this form of academic engagement but have seen an upward trend as their represen-tation in the broader field increased. After the implementation of online hearings, women were sig-nificantly more likely to give testimony, compared to men. The results also show that while overall, the geography and institutional status of expert witnesses did not change, an increase in the probabil-ity of female economists from these groups is documented. Our results imply that digital tools pro-moting flexibility can alleviate disparities in high-impact dissemination by academics, which in turn can increase policymakers’ access to high-quality researchers with a diverse pool of ideas, perspec-tives, and knowledge.
October 8, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
October 8, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Emily Cox Pahnke (University of Washington) - will present ""Strategic Positioning and Accelerating Regulatory Clearance for New Ventures"
Abstract: How do new ventures strategically position their products to accelerate regulatory clearance? We investigate this question in the medical device industry, where regulatory clearance is a prerequisite for market entry. We examine 239 new firms' 510(k) clearances between 2001-2019. Our mixed-methods approach combines quantitative analysis of firms' claims of similarity with extensive field research. We find that strategic positioning significantly impacts time to clearance, and that effective strategies evolve over time. For first products, firms accelerate clearance by citing fewer references while strategically positioning relative to same-category products, and to category exemplars; for second products, firms accelerate clearance by referencing their own products. These findings extend positioning theory beyond market-based audiences into regulatory contexts and reveal how a firm’s optimal strategic positioning evolves over time.
October 23, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
October 23, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Matt Marx (Cornell University) - will present "Connecting Fundamental Science to Commercial Innovation: A Public Dataset of Patent-Paper Pairs"
Abstract: We provide a dataset of Patent-Paper Pairs (PPPs) across all fields of science, linking articles from the Microsoft Academic Graph to patents granted by the USPTO. We train a random forest based on a combination of hand-checked PPPs and those containing extensive “self-plagiarism”, incorporating variables such as temporal distance, title/abstract similarity, inventor/author overlap, similarity of assignee and institution(s), overlap of backward citations, and being supported by the same grant. We employ this dataset to revisit the perennial question of whether the patent system fulfills its original objective to “promote the progress of science” by comparing citations to PPPs vs potential PPPs where the patent was not granted, instrumenting via examiner leniency.
November 5, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
November 5, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Nikhil Kalathil (Carnegie Mellon University) - will present “The Realized Returns from Varieties of Agglomeration for New Manufacturing Firms” (with Lauren Lanahan)
Abstract: We estimate the returns from varieties of agglomeration for new manufacturing firms. Within each industry, we leverage marginal variation across similarly highly agglomerated counties that the industry operates in, highlighting differences in rates of horizontal and vertical agglomeration. The former identifies geographies with greater co-location of own-industry or peer establishments, and the latter identifies geographies with greater co-location of industry suppliers. Drawing from the population of US manufacturing firms founded between 2012 – 2015 and tracing their performance activity over their first five years of operations, we report differential results for firms operating in horizontally agglomerated counties relative to firms operating in vertically agglomerated counties. We document persistent trends that the appropriability from horizontal agglomeration increases sales by approximately 14 percent for new manufacturing firms. This trend is amplified for ventures located proximate to large, headquartered anchor firms. We report differential performance returns from horizontal agglomeration in manufacturing industries with greater upstream activity, whereas we document contrasting performance benefits for vertical agglomeration for industries operating at later stages of production. Lastly, new manufacturing firms positioned in an outlying manner to the dominant form of their industry’s agglomeration report disproportionately greater performance benefits. Our results support the theory that regional and industrial characteristics mediate the exact type of market failures (i.e., transaction costs, information asymmetries, and frictions in network formation) that influence the appropriability of agglomeration assets. This study offers several contributions by providing a framework to understand variation in agglomeration, disentangling the strategic returns from various features of agglomeration, and quantifying the returns from agglomeration on firm performance.
November 19, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
November 19, 2025: 11:00 am - 12:15 pm ET
Jing Deng (Arizona State University) - will present “Should I Stay or Should I Go: Why High-Tech Firms Leave Agglomerations” (with Maryann Feldman and Janet Bercovitz)
Abstract: Agglomeration economies confer well-documented advantages to high-tech firms, raising important questions about why some firms relocate to less concentrated regions. Using longitudinal microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau, we investigate the drivers of firm exit from agglomerations, focusing on three hypothesized push factors: knowledge leakage, competition for skilled labor, and interstate tax differentials. Our analysis reveals that labor market pressures and tax burdens are the most salient drivers of relocation, while effects vary systematically by firm age. Established firms tend to relocate to contain operational costs, whereas younger firms are more likely to exit agglomerations due to challenges in attracting and retaining skilled talent. These findings highlight heightened competition for talent as an overlooked push factor and challenge the conventional assumption that agglomeration effects are uniformly beneficial, demonstrating that their impact is contingent on firm characteristics and organizational maturity. We conceptualize relocation as a strategic response to life-cycle dynamics and labor market constraints, contributing to research on firm strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic geography by highlighting the spatial interdependencies that shape regional development and firm growth trajectories.
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