Title: Selecting the Best: The Persistent Effects of Luck
(Mikhail Drugov, Margaret Meyer, Marc Möller)

Abstract: We analyze a model of organizational learning where agents’ performance reflects time-invariant unobservable ability, privately-chosen effort, and noise. Our main result is that, even when performance is almost entirely random, maximizing the probability of identifying the best agent (''selective efficiency'') requires biasing final selection in favor of early winners. Making luck persistent, e.g. through fast-tracks, is thus rationalized by the pursuit of selective efficiency. Agents' strategic efforts amplify the persistence of luck. Organizational learning also affects the persistence of initial advantages stemming from identity. Identity-dependent biases, e.g. gender-specific mentoring, create incentives that make selection both more efficient and more equitable.

Title: The Geoeconomics of Contract Enforcement: Coercion or Backloading
(Elena Paltseva, Gerhard Toews, Marta Troya-Martinez)

Abstract: In late 1960s, Western powers reduced military interventions weakening international contract enforcement and increasing expropriation risk in developing countries. This led to the emergence of self-enforcing agreements characterized by backloading—delays in production and taxation—and higher government rent-shares. Using oil industry data and a novel backloading measure, we find that following this geopolitical shift, production and taxes were delayed by 3-5 years, resulting in annual revenue losses of $1 bln/country. The government’s associated tax income loss was offset by an increased rent-share. U.S. military deployments in the 1980s revived international contract enforcement reducing backloading and government rent-shares.

Title: The Dawn of Civilization: Metal Trade and the Rise of Hierarchy
(Matthias Flückiger, Mario Larch, Markus Ludwig, Luigi Pascali)

Abstract: In the latter half of the fourth millennium BC, our ancestors witnessed a remarkable transformation, progressing from simple agrarian villages to complex urban civilizations. In regions as far apart as the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and the Indus Valley, the first states appeared together with writing, cities with populations exceeding 10,000, and unprecedented socio-economic inequalities. The cause of this “Urban Revolution” remains unclear. We present new empirical evidence suggesting that the discovery of bronze and the ensuing long-distance trade played a crucial role. Using novel panel data and 2SLS techniques, we demonstrate that trade corridors linking metal mines to fertile lands were more likely to experience the Urban Revolution. We propose that transit bottlenecks facilitated the emergence of a new taxing elite. We formally test this appropriability theory and provide several case studies in support. 

Title: Contract Farming Can Bridge Knowledge and Productivity Gender Gaps: Evidence from Benin
(Rosaine N. Yegbemey, Esther B. Ogouniyi Adimi, Habiba Djebbari)

Abstract: Contract farming can improve productivity and the adoption of technology by providing better access to inputs, information, markets, and financial services. Limited evidence exists, however, regarding the role of contract farming in bridging gender disparities in agricultural productivity. Based on an experimental research design and data from soy producers in Benin, we find that contract farming results in statistically significant increases in knowledge of recommended agricultural practices and productivity for men and women in beneficiary households. Contrasting a women-focused targeting approach (requiring farming women to be direct beneficiaries) against a household targeting mechanism (in which the household chooses the direct beneficiary), we also show that contract farming can benefit both producers in the household and reduces within-household gender disparities in knowledge and productivity.

Title: Unveiling Gender Productivity Gaps Throughout the Career Cycle and their Causes - A Longitudinal Analysis of French Academia

Abstract: We investigate gender productivity gaps in science using a unique dataset of over 94 thousand professors and researchers from French higher education and research institutions. This data set spans nearly 60 years and includes detailed information allowing us to observe age, gender, occupations, career spans, potential name variations on the top of detailed publication outputs. Carefully controlling for composition effects and various fixed effects, we find that the gender gap has a specific pattern throughout the career cycle that is consistent across scientific productivity indicators, occupations, cohorts, and fields of science, to the exception of life sciences. The gender gap increases in the first part of the career, reaches a maximum around 42 of age, before slightly decreasing until the end of the career. Using additional observational data sets, we investigate the role of various contributing factors, such as selection bias, childbirth, teaching loads, promotion incentives biases, team leadership, and funding, to understand the underlying mechanisms driving these trends. We discuss which science policies may robustly mitigate the mechanisms that are shown to increase gender gaps.

Title: Social Media and Job Market Success: A Field Experiment on Twitter
(Jingyi Qiu, Yan Chen, Alain Cohn, Alvin Roth)

Abstract: We conducted a field experiment on Twitter to examine the impact of social media promotion on job market outcomes in economics. Half of the 519 job market papers tweeted from our research account were randomly assigned to be quote-tweeted by prominent economists. Papers assigned to be quote-tweeted received 442% more views and 303% more likes. Moreover, candidates in the treatment group received one additional flyout, with women receiving 0.9 more job offers. These findings suggest that social media promotion can improve the visibility and success of job market candidates, especially for underrepresented groups in economics such as women.

Title: Sorting fact from fiction in a complex world under the shadow of motivated reasoning
(Melis Kartal, Edoardo Cefala, Sylvia Kritzinger, Jean-Robert Tyran) 

Abstract: We combine theory and a survey-experimental study in Austria, Germany, and the UK to investigate how sorting fact from fiction and updating from news are influenced by cognitive ability, motivated reasoning, and overconfidence in complex topics, such as climate change and science. We predict and find that cognitive ability (i.e., both IQ and education) improves news discernment. The positive effect of cognitive ability is robust and immune to motivated reasoning. In particular, the ability to give correct answers that counter one’s existing issue opinions and biases increases in IQ and education. These novel results are good news, suggesting the malleability of news discernment. However, when we disaggregate data by news topic, we find that higher cognitive ability may sometimes boost motivated decision making. Our findings suggest that institutions matter. For example, trust in institutions reduces the magnitude of motivated reasoning, which likely helps limit opinion polarization in the longer term.

Title: Carbon Taxation and Firm Behavior in Emerging Economies: Evidence from South Africa
(Johannes Gallé, Rodrigo Oliveira, Daniel Overbeck, Nadine Riedel, Edson Severnini)

Abstract: This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of how firms in emerging economies respond to carbon taxation, leveraging detailed administrative data from South Africa – a potential trailblazer for other developing countries with limited state capacity amid the growing global push for carbon pricing. We examine the dynamic impacts of the carbon tax on firm-level outcomes – such as profits, sales, capital, and labor inputs – across manufacturing and mining firms, which are key sectors in the context of the carbon tax. Contrary to concerns that carbon taxes may hinder economic growth or reduce employment, our findings show no evidence of negative average impacts on firm performance or jobs. However, this overall result masks significant heterogeneity in the tax’s effects across sectors, driven by the sector-specific design elements of the South African carbon tax. Firms expecting higher effective tax rates may have intensified their use of emission-intensive machinery and depreciated capital in anticipation of the tax. This behavior appears to stem from firms resolving regulatory uncertainty or seeking to recover costs from stranded assets.

Title: Corporate Taxation and Cross-Border Trade in the Global Economy
(Martina Magli, Lisandra Flach, Yoto Yotov)

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of corporate tax rates (CTR) on international services trade, focusing on firm heterogeneity and tax differentials beyond tax havens. Leveraging exogenous variations in CTRs across countries, we estimate the semi-elasticity of services trade for both multinational enterprises (MNEs) and non-MNEs. The findings reveal that firms increase imports and decrease exports in response to lower CTRs in partner countries. Notably, non-MNEs exhibit a pronounced decrease in exports, while MNEs adjust their trade flows asymmetrically, increasing trade with low-tax partners and decreasing trade with high-tax partners. These results highlight the dual role of CTR changes in driving profit-shifting behaviour and real economic activity. Decomposition analysis suggests that while competitive effects dominate at higher partner-country CTRs, changes in trade flows reflect a blend of economic activity and profit-shifting dynamics. This research offers new insights into the interplay between corporate taxation and global trade in services, with implications for both tax policy and international trade regulation.

Title: Faith-Based Organizations as Platforms
(Emmanuelle Auriol, Amma Panin, Eva Raiber, Paul Seabright)

Abstract: We propose and develop a new model of faith-based organizations as multi-sided platforms. Platforms are intermediaries that create benefits by putting different users in contact with each other, and they typically appropriate as revenues some share of the benefits they create. We argue that faith-based organisations broadly offer two types of services: (I) A religious service that includes providing a moral narrative, giving moral guidance counselling, and providing a space to access the divine (e.g. through prayer, meditation and ritual), and (II) a networking service that allows members to connect with other members that come primarily for the religious service. These connections can be for a range of reasons including business, finding a spouse, or sharing risk. By offering both services at the same time, religious organisations benefit from the spill-over effect of the religious service which helps to screen for trustworthy network members. They can thus price the services higher than if they were offered separately. The optimal community size depends on the type of network service the organisation provides which can explain the co-existence of small and large religious communities with similar price levels. It can also explain the existence of large religious communities that charge high prices.

Title: Environmental Impacts of Banning Vehicle Advertising
(Christoph Walsh, Jiekai Zhang)

Abstract: This paper evaluates the environmental impacts of vehicle advertising bans. Using rich data on sales and advertising at the age-group and product level from 2012-2021 in France, we estimate a structural model of demand and supply for vehicles incorporating the effects of advertising. We use this model to simulate the impact of various advertising bans, including a carbon-based advertising ban France plans to introduce in 2028. We find that an outright ban on advertising does not necessarily lead to positive environmental effects. Targeted advertising bans, such as the proposed carbon-based ban for 2028, are more efficient in achieving this goal.

Title: A competitive world
(Thomas Buser, Alexander W. Cappelen, Uri Gneezy, Bertil Tungodden)

Abstract: We elicit willingness to compete in large and representative samples in 62 countries covering all continents. We also shed light on the socialization of boys and girls around the globe by eliciting the importance adults attach to boys’ and girls’ willingness to compete. Globally, a majority of people are willing to compete against others and find it important that children are willing to compete. Nevertheless, the shares vary strongly across countries and we show that this variation is related to inequality: people in more unequal countries are more competitive and find it more important that children are willing to compete. We also document some near-universal patterns that replicate the main findings of the competitiveness literature at a global scale: in all but one country, men are more competitive than women, and in the vast majority of countries willingness to compete is positively associated with income and level of education. Despite the near-universal gender gap in competitiveness among adults, people in many – mostly Western – countries place greater importance on girls’ than boys’ willingness to compete.

Title: Two-level lobbying and policy gridlock
(Daniel Cardona, Jenny C. De Freitas, Antoni Rubí-Barceló)

Abstract: In this study, we model a two-stage contest to examine the strategic behavior of two opposing interest groups who may influence a public policy at two different stages, say the formulation of an alternative to the status quo and the approval stage. We characterize the equilibria and study the interest groups’s incentives for the lobbies to invest in one stage or the other. We examine the circumstances under which the status quo is never replaced.

Title: Social Networks, Gender Norms and Labor Supply: Experimental Evidence Using a Job Search Platform
(Nikita Sangwan, Farzana Afridi, Amrita Dhillon, Sanchari Roy)

Abstract: This paper studies the role of job search frictions and gender norms in shaping intrahousehold labor market outcomes in developing countries. We conduct a field experiment in Delhi, India where we randomly offer access to a hyper-local digital job search and matching platform either to married couples only (non-network treatment), or together with the wife's peer network (network treatment), or not at all. Approximately one year later, we find that couples in the non-network treatment group exhibit a degree of substitution in labor supply -- wives reduce their intensive margin of work, driven by withdrawal from casual labor, while husbands increase theirs. In contrast, husbands in the network treatment group increase their labor supply on both extensive and intensive margins but with no impact on their wives' labor supply on either margin. Instead, wives' occupational structure shifts towards self-employment in the network treatment group. Our findings can be explained by a simple conceptual framework that incorporates gender-differentiated job search frictions, conservative social norms against (married) women's market work and home-production constraints.