Research Projects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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