Research Projects
Here you can find information about our current projects as well as a selection of projects we have already completed. The projects range from the dissertations of doctoral students to those with cooperation partners from science and industry.
Political Preferences and International Trade
Policy preferences and resulting regulations influence economic activity - especially political activity across borders. This project studies the impact of policy preferences on trade relations in the European Union. To measure policy preferences and convergence processes we use roll-call votes of the European Parliament. The aim of the project is to identify the influence of different policy preferences on trade flows and emissions included in these trade flows.
Team: Christiane Hellmanzik, Maren Kaliske
Political Convergence and the EU Single Market | Christiane Hellmanzik, Maren Kaliske, Jens Wrona | work in progress |
Agglomeration and regional disparities in the digital economy
With the rise of the Internet and the rapid growth of the ICT sector, as well as the shift to a more service-based economy, cities seem to be increasingly shaped by their innovation capacities and the presence of a highly skilled workforce. This project examines the impact of the digital economy on the shape and structure of cities and the factors that are conducive to the development of a city's digital economy. The project uses a firm-level dataset based on legal publications of German companies (announcements in the commercial register), as well as novel indicators of local knowledge infrastructure, such as connections and collaborations between universities and research institutions. Thus, this project aims to shed more light on frictions that can amplify spatial disparities not only between regions but also within cities.
Team: Christiane Hellmanzik, Vanessa Hellwig
Agglomeration economies and the internet: Mapping the digital economy in German Cities | Vanessa Hellwig | work in progress |
Beruflicher Erfolg in der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
Dieses Forschungsprojekt untersucht das Leben von modernen und historischen Wissenschaftlern, um die Kontexte zu verstehen, die wissenschaftliche Produktion und Innovation fördern. In den letzten 30 Jahren ist die Zahl der Co-Autoren in Wirtschaftszeitschriftenartikeln deutlich gestiegen und die Zahl der "einsamen Sterne" gesunken. Dieses Projekt zielt darauf ab, die Entwicklung der Ökonomie als Disziplin zu verstehen, indem es die Laufbahn und den Erfolg moderner und historischer Ökonomen untersucht, sowie den Einfluss der zunehmenden Spezialisierung und Arbeitsteilung, sinkende Kommunikations- und Reisekosten, sich entwickelnde Anreize durch die Forschungsgemeinschaft, persönliche und thematische Nähe und Heimvorurteile bei der Verbreitung von Artikeln der Wirtschaftsforschung. Dieses Projekt zielt auch darauf ab, den Erfolg von historischen Wissenschaftlern und Erfindern zu verstehen, indem es die wissenschaftliche Produktion über den Lebenszyklus, den Einfluss von wissenschaftlichen Netzwerken und den Einfluss von Standort/Agglomeration bewertet. Darüber hinaus versucht dieses Forschungsprojekt, die Auswirkungen wissenschaftlicher und innovativer Aktivitäten auf die lokale und regionale Entwicklung zu verstehen.
Team: Christiane Hellmanzik, Lukas Kuld
No place like home - home bias in the dissemination of economic research articles | Christiane Hellmanzik and Lukas Kuld | work in progress |
A local idea space: the value of personal and thematic proximity in academic research | Christiane Hellmanzik and Lukas Kuld | work in progress |
Peer effects in Economics | Lukas Kuld | work in progress |
The gravity of economics – migration and citation flows in Economics | Christiane Hellmanzik and Lukas Kuld | work in progress |
Rise of mulit-authored papers in economics: Demise of the 'lone star' and why? (RePeC, voxeu.org, LSE Impact Blog) | Lukas Kuld and John O'Hagan | Scientometrics , 114(3), 1207-1225, 2018. |
Literary History
For most industries, creative production is highly influenced by the availability, quality, and quantity of colleagues and infrastructure in a given location. However, their role in literary production is less clear. This project aims to identify the circumstances and contexts that foster literary production, including whether location, peer effects, and infrastructure are relevant to an industry in which the most influential producers are often referred to as lone geniuses.
Team: Christiane Hellmanzik, Lukas Kuld
A New York State of Mind | Christiane Hellmanzik and Lukas Kuld | work in progress |
The Goethe Effect | Christiane Hellmanzik, Lukas Kuld, and John O'Hagan | work in progress |
Virtual Proximity and International Trade
International finance literature has shown – both empirically and theoretically – that distance and proxies for informational asymmetries between countries, such as common language, colonial ties, and currency unions, are crucial in explaining bilateral asset holdings and flows. However, over the past two decades, the ICT revolution has changed the meaning of distance. Therefore, this project seeks to understand the impact of the internet on economic activity such as international transactions by studying "virtual proximity" - i.e., the volume of bilateral, inter-domain hyperlinks that connect webpages across countries.
Team: Chrstiane Hellmanzik
Trade in services and its determinants – a disaggregated approach | Christiane Hellmanzik and Martin Schmitz | work in progress |
Taking gravity online: the role of virtual proximity in international finance (VoxEU.org) | Christiane Hellmanzik and Martin Schmitz | ECB Working Paper No. 1879 |
Virtual proximity and audiovisual services trade | Christiane Hellmanzik and Martin Schmitz | European Economic Review, Vol. 77, pp. 82-101, July 2015 |
Taking gravity online: the role of virtual proximity in international finance | Christiane Hellmanzik and Martin Schmitz | Journal of International Money and Finance, forthcoming |
Digitalisation of cultural goods and services
Over the past decade, the consumption and trade of audiovisual services such as music and movies in digital formats has increased significantly. In response, several countries have adopted policies to curb inflows of foreign cultural services, making this one of the sectors with the lowest number of commitments among WTO members. Therefore, this project focuses on the digitization of cultural goods and services, the increase in trade restrictions on these services, the impact of these restrictions on bilateral trade, and how virtual proximity can affect both trade policy and trade in cultural goods and services in digital form.
Team: Christiane Hellmanzik
The impact of the internet on the international art market | Christiane Hellmanzik | work in progress |
The impact of cultural exceptions: audiovisual services trade and trade policy | Christiane Hellmanzik and Martin Schmitz | Applied Economics Letters, forthcoming |
Visual Artists and Arts Markets
This project focuses on the careers of prominent modern visual artists and the factors influencing their creativity. This research included analyses of the quality of production over the life cycle, the importance of location and colleagues to creative production, the role of an artist's stylistic affiliation, the institutional context in which creativity takes place, the importance of travel as a source of inspiration, the importance of living and working in major art clusters (such as Paris and New York), and how these factors affect the market valuation of the artists' works.
Team: Christiane Hellmanzik
Relationships between artistic movements and careers of modern artists: evidence from hedonic regressions with auction data | Christiane Hellmanzik and Douglas Hodgson | Journal of Cultural Economics |
Demography and the Art Market | Christiane Hellmanzik and James Goodwin | submitted |
Creative production and peer effects: evidence from the exodus of superstar painters from Paris | Christiane Hellmanzik | submitted |
Prominent modern artists: determinants of creativity | Christiane Hellmanzik | In The Wiley Handbook of Genius (Ed. D. K. Simonton), June 2014. |
Clustering and migration of important visual artists: Broad historical evidence | Christiane Hellmanzik and John O'Hagan | Historical Methods, 40(3):121-136, 2008 |
Artistic Styles: revisiting the analysis of modern artists’ careers | Christiane Hellmanzik | Journal of Cultural Economics, 33(3):201-32, August 2009 |
Location matters: Estimating cluster premiums for prominent modern artists | Christiane Hellmanzik | Economic Review, 54(2):199-218, February 2010 |
Democracy and economic outcomes: evidence from the superstars of modern art (The Boston Globe) | Christiane Hellmanzik | European Journal of Political Economy, 30: 58-69, June 2013 |
Does travel inspire? Evidence from the superstars of modern art (The Boston Globe) | Christiane Hellmanzik | Empirical Economics, 45(1):281-303. August 2013 |
Historic art exhibitions and modern day auction results | Christiane Hellmanzik | Research in Economics, 70 (3) 2016 |
On the estimation of age-valuation profiles | Christiane Hellmanzik, Douglas Hodgson, and John Galbraith | work in progress |
Search & People Search
Location & approach
The campus of TU Dortmund University is located close to interstate junction Dortmund West, where the Sauerlandlinie A 45 (Frankfurt-Dortmund) crosses the Ruhrschnellweg B 1 / A 40. The best interstate exit to take from A 45 is "Dortmund-Eichlinghofen" (closer to Campus Süd), and from B 1 / A 40 "Dortmund-Dorstfeld" (closer to Campus Nord). Signs for the university are located at both exits. Also, there is a new exit before you pass over the B 1-bridge leading into Dortmund.
To get from Campus North to Campus South by car, there is the connection via Vogelpothsweg/Baroper Straße. We recommend you leave your car on one of the parking lots at Campus North and use the H-Bahn (suspended monorail system), which conveniently connects the two campuses.
TU Dortmund University has its own train station ("Dortmund Universität"). From there, suburban trains (S-Bahn) leave for Dortmund main station ("Dortmund Hauptbahnhof") and Düsseldorf main station via the "Düsseldorf Airport Train Station" (take S-Bahn number 1, which leaves every 20 or 30 minutes). The university is easily reached from Bochum, Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr and Duisburg.
You can also take the bus or subway train from Dortmund city to the university: From Dortmund main station, you can take any train bound for the Station "Stadtgarten", usually lines U41, U45, U 47 and U49. At "Stadtgarten" you switch trains and get on line U42 towards "Hombruch". Look out for the Station "An der Palmweide". From the bus stop just across the road, busses bound for TU Dortmund University leave every ten minutes (445, 447 and 462). Another option is to take the subway routes U41, U45, U47 and U49 from Dortmund main station to the stop "Dortmund Kampstraße". From there, take U43 or U44 to the stop "Dortmund Wittener Straße". Switch to bus line 447 and get off at "Dortmund Universität S".
The H-Bahn is one of the hallmarks of TU Dortmund University. There are two stations on Campus Nord. One ("Dortmund Universität S") is directly located at the suburban train stop, which connects the university directly with the city of Dortmund and the rest of the Ruhr Area. Also from this station, there are connections to the "Technologiepark" and (via Campus Süd) Eichlinghofen. The other station is located at the dining hall at Campus Nord and offers a direct connection to Campus Süd every five minutes.
The AirportExpress is a fast and convenient means of transport from Dortmund Airport (DTM) to Dortmund Central Station, taking you there in little more than 20 minutes. From Dortmund Central Station, you can continue to the university campus by interurban railway (S-Bahn). A larger range of international flight connections is offered at Düsseldorf Airport (DUS), which is about 60 kilometres away and can be directly reached by S-Bahn from the university station.
The facilities of TU Dortmund University are spread over two campuses, the larger Campus North and the smaller Campus South. Additionally, some areas of the university are located in the adjacent "Technologiepark".
Street navigation from and to the TU Dortmund University:
The document and the graphic represent the motorways and federal highways around the TU Dortmund University in a very simplified way:
This interactive map helps you find and navigate between facilities and buildings on campus:
This document contains a simple campus map in German and English: