Research

A substantial portion of the recent increase in wage inequality in advanced economies is attributed to the rise in between-firm wage inequality. At the same time, growing empirical evidence shows a rising reliance on intangible assets in the production process. We demonstrate that these two trends are related. Using industry-level data for European countries for the period 2000-2020, we show that intangible intensity positively affects between-firm wage inequality. When decomposing overall intangible capital into subcategories, we find that the effect is mainly driven by innovative property assets, such as R&D, licenses, and designs. Robustness checks and an instrumental variable strategy provide further support to these results. We interpret these findings as the outcome of technology-based effects arising from the distinctive characteristics of intangible assets and R&D, including their scalability and critical role in competitive advantage, which favour large and frontier firms.

VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin, Germany), 36th EALE Conference (Bergen, Norway), 10th ERMAS Annual Conference (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), 13th CompNet Annual Conference (Malta), 11th PhD Workshop in Economics of Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge (Turin, Italy),  CEPIE Brown Bag Seminar (Dresden, Germany)

We estimate the impact of technological innovation on regional labor market outcomes.  Our identification strategy exploits pre-reunification complementarities in innovation between East and West Germany, drawing upon patent applications from PATSTAT. We rely on individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) to analyze labor market outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we find that individuals' income in West German counties with strong pre-reunification complementarities increased by 1.3%-1.5% on average after reunification. The effect is amplified when disentangling the results for different occupations, where income increases by 27%-29%. Self-employment increases significantly, while unemployment remains unaffected. The use of East German know-how in West German patents after reunification is primarily driven by the migration of East German inventors to West German counties after reunification, facilitated by pre-existing complementarities.

SSRN Working Paper

2024 RSA Student and Early Career Conference (Cambridge, UK), 15th International SOEP Conference (Berlin, Germany), DRUID2024 Conference (Nice, Florence), 2024 RSA Annual Conference (Florence, Italy), 2nd Workshop on the Economics of Science and Innovation (Bordeaux, France), University of Portsmouth Research Seminar (Portsmouth, UK), 7th Geography of Innovation Conference (Manchester, UK), 1st REGIS Summer School (Pisa, Italy), CEPIE Brown Bag Seminar (Dresden, Germany)

This study explores a novel dataset documenting the regional release of underground publications - known as samizdat - and analyzing their impact on shaping political change in the German Democratic Republic during 1989–1990. Survival analysis reveals that regions with greater underground press activity were significantly more likely to experience protests only following the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. This delay is attributed to increased repression and stigmatization of dissident behavior in these regions. However, support for regime change did not necessarily translate into support for the rapid German reunification, as evidenced by the voting results of the 1990 democratic elections. Finally, in addition to its informational function, underground press activities were instrumental in forming networks that fostered actions challenging the non-democratic regime, thereby determining the onset of democratization.

VfS Annual Conference 2025 (Cologne, Germany)*, 11th ERMAS Annual Conference 2025 (Iasi, Romania), 2025 Scottish Economic Society Conference (Glasgow, UK), CEPIE Brown Bag Seminar (Dresden, Germany), University of Portsmouth Research Seminar (Portsmouth, UK)

This article examines how within-population diversity, proxied by the migratory distance from East Africa of the ancestral populations, shapes contemporary entrepreneurial spirit. We propose that greater diversity within an ethnic group can foster stronger social comparison effects, motivating individuals to pursue entrepreneurial activities. By adopting an epidemiological approach, we examine this channel among US second-generation immigrants and use the corresponding migratory distance from East Africa of the parents' country of origin as a proxy for the variation in ancestral population diversity. Our empirical results indicate a positive relationship between population diversity and entrepreneurial disposition: individuals whose ancestral origins are geographically closer to East Africa, and thus more diverse, exhibit a higher likelihood of engaging in entrepreneurship. Consistent with our conceptual framework, we further document that ancestral groups geographically closer to East Africa are characterized by greater income dispersion and a wider distribution of productive traits, both of which are positively associated with entrepreneurial entry.

14th ifo Dresden Workshop on Labor Economics and Social Policy (Dresden, Germany), BeNA Winter Workshop 2024 (Berlin, Germany)