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Seminar Series

The seminar series takes place on Zoom from 12:00pm - 1:30pm EST. To attend a session, email Ulrich Schetter, Yang Li, or Matte Hartog.

The Growth Lab at the Harvard Center for International Development (CID) focuses on empirical and theoretical research, as well as on policy analysis, related to economic growth and development. The lab's research draws from several different disciplines, using a variety of models and perspectives to study socioeconomic systems at many levels, from individuals and teams to cities and countries. The Growth Lab Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development. The seminar emphasizes interdisciplinary exchanges between the social and natural sciences, and speakers are welcome to present early-stage or mature work on a wide range of topics, including migration, local markets, structural change, innovation and the dynamics of technology, models of combinatorial growth, economic history, social and cultural evolution, the environmental impacts of growth, and trade. We also welcome methodological contributions in areas such as causal identification or machine learning. The seminar is open to all interested individuals who wish to attend.

Organizers: Ulrich Schetter, Yang Li, Matte Hartog, Ljubica Nedelkoska, Frank Neffke, and Ricardo Hausmann.

Seminar Schedule

Spring 2021

January 12, 2021
Africa’s Manufacturing Puzzle: Evidence from Tanzanian and Ethiopian Firms
Speaker: Dani Rodrik, Harvard Kennedy School

January 21, 2021
Fake News and Cultural Identity Evidence from South Tyrol in 1939
Speaker: Alexia Lochmann, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

January 28
Unbundling the Process of Agricultural Technology Adoption: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
Speaker: Joeri Smits, Harvard Kennedy School, CID

February 4
Closing the Democratic Window of Opportunity: Shocks, Regime Strength and Democratization
Speaker: Jose-Ramon Morales-Arrilla, Harvard University, CID

February 11
Tasks, Occupations, and Wage Inequality in an Open Economy
Speaker: Marc Muendler, UC San Diego

February 25
Strong relationship between resource efficiency and economic complexity
Speaker: Heming Wang

March 4
An Elementary Humanomics Approach to Boundedly Rational Potential Games
Speaker: Michael Campbell, SAS (Eureka)

March 11
The new dualism and the quality hurdle: Towards a development model that is no longer industry-centric
Speaker: Charles Sabel, Columbia Law School

March 18
The Emigration Life Cycle
Speaker:  Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development

March 25
Protectionism and the education-fertility tradeoff in 19th century France
Speaker: Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa, Aix-Marseille School of Economics

April 1
Whiteshift: Ethnic change, populism and polarization
Speaker:  Eric Kaufmann, University of London

April 8
Technological Revolutions and Inter-regional Inequality: the US case in the 20th century
Speaker: Michael Storper, London School of Economics

April 15
Origins and skill composition of new work between 1980 and 2018
Speaker: David Autor, MIT Economics

April 22
The Value Structure of Technologies
Speaker: Carliss Y. Baldwin, Harvard Business School

April 29
Firm Technology Upgrading Through Emerging Work
Speaker:  Enghin Atalay, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

May 13
Air Pollution, Extreme Weather and Infectious Disease: How Health Hazards Threaten Urbanites’ Happiness and the Value of Consumer Cities
Speaker: Siqi Zheng, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

May 20
The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
Speaker: Joseph Henrich, Harvard University, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology

June 3
The Power of Creative Destruction
Philippe Aghion, Harvard University

June 10
Wage employment, unemployment and self-employment across countries
Markus Poschke, Department of Economics, McGill University

June 17
From Micro to Macro: Land Institutions, Agricultural Productivity, and Structural Transformation
Diego Restuccia, University of Toronto

Fall 2020

September 17
Speaker: Swapnil Singh
September 24
Speaker: Kai Gehring
October 1
Speaker: Stefan Bauernschuster
October 8
Speakers: Matti Mitrunen
October 15, 9:00am - 10:30am
Speaker: Yang Yu
October 22
Speaker: Philipp Koch
October 29
Speaker: Romain Wacziarg
November 5
Speaker: Carsten Eckel
November 10, 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Speaker: Laurent Hebert-Dufresne
November 12
Speaker: Pol Antras
November 19, 9:00am - 10:30am
Speaker: Junming Zhu
November 24
Speaker: Muhammed A. Yıldırım 
"Sorting, Matching and Economic Complexity"
December 3
Speakers: Chad Jones
December 10
Speaker: Ljubica Nedelkoska
"Lessons from 80 years of change in occupational tasks in the US (1939-2018)"
December 17
Speakers: James McNerney, Yang Li

Spring 2020

January 28
Speaker: Louis Hyman
February 3
Speakers: Marco Guerzoni, Meijun Liu, Shuo Li
February 10
Speakers: Ulrich Schetter, Willem Thorbecke
February 24
Speakers: Chris MacGee, Neil Thompson
March 2
Speakers: Sultan Orazbayev, Dina Pomeranz
March 9
Speaker: Carliss Baldwin
March 23
Speakers: Swapnil Singh, Hyejin Youn
March 30
Speaker: TBD
April 6
Speaker: Andrew Bernard
April 13
Speaker: Katharina Erhardt
April 20
Speakers: Anina Schwarzenbach, Francisco Arroyo Marioli
April 27
Speaker: TBD
May 4
Speakers: Albana Shehaj, Anna Stansbury
May 11
Speaker: TBD
May 18
Speakers: Maria Del Rio Chanona, Esteban Moro
May 25
Speaker: TBD
June 1
Speakers:  Bledi Taska, Victor M. Yakovenko
 

Fall 2019

September 9
Speaker: Robert Manduca
September 23
Speakers: Thomas Fink & Morgan Frank
September 30
Speakers: Neave O'Clery & Carliss Baldwin
October 7
Speakers: Fabian Waldinger & Sari Kerr
October 21
Speakers: Guilio Bottazzi & Megan MacGarvie
October 28
Speakers: Ran Song & Christian Jara
November 4
Speakers: Mary Kaltenberg & Cesare Righi
November 18
Speakers: Stephanie Cheng & Sebastian Bustos
November 25
Speakers: Namrata Kala & James McNerney
December 2
Speakers: Mike Andrews & Rute Martins Caeiro
December 9
Speakers: Ulrich Schetter & Ljubica Nedelkoska
December 16
Speaker: Matte Hartog & TBD

Spring 2019

January 22
Speaker: Frank Neffke
January 28
Speaker: Dario Diodato
February 4
Speaker: Dani Stock
February 11
Speaker: Yarden Katz
February 25
First Speaker: Andres Gomez
Second Speaker: Ben Li
March 4
First Speakers: Ljubica Nedelkoska & Sehar Noor
Second Speaker: José Morales
March 11
First Speaker: Ran Song
Second Speaker: Sultan Orazbayev
March 18
First Speaker: Alexia Lochmann
Second Speaker: Carolina Mattsson
March 25
First Speaker: Chris Esposito
Second Speaker: Fernando Yu
April 1
First Speaker: Fabiana Visentin
Second Speaker: Michele Pezzoni
April 8
First Speaker: Mercedes Delgado
Second Speaker: Titipat Achakulvisut
April 15
First Speaker: Claudia Steinwender
Second Speaker: James McNerney
April 22
First Speaker: Elisabeth Perlman
Second Speaker: Matte Hartog
April 29
First Speaker: Misha Teplitskiy
Second Speaker: Nick Obradovich
May 6
First Speaker: Mathias Czaika
Second Speaker: Joeri Smits
May 13
First Speaker: Sergiy Verstyuk
Second Speaker: Andre Ribeiro
May 20
First Speaker: Po Yin Wong
Second Speaker: Paolo Barucca

2018

January 16
Speaker: Tue Anh Nguyen
Title: Does Public Ownership Provide Affordable and Reliable Electricity to Household Customers? Case Studies of Electricity Sector Reforms in the UK, France, Germany, and Italy
January 22
Speaker: Michele Coscia
Title: Economic Inclusion and Human Mobility in Bogota
Speaker: Dario Diodato
Title: Why do industries coagglomerate? How the relevance of Marshallian externality channels differs by industry and has evolved over time
January 29
Speaker: Willem Thorbecke
Title:The Exposure of U.S. Manufacturing Industries to Exchange Rates
February 5
Speaker: Sultan Orazbayev
Title: The role of social networks in production and diffusion of knowledge
February 12
Speaker: Alfredo Morales
Title: Social Segregation and Polarization in Urban Areas
February 26
Speaker: Penny Mealy
Title: Adventures in economic complexity: How structural change in the US gave rise to a new interpretation of the Economic Complexity Index
March 5
Speaker: Mercedes Delgado (MIT)
Title: Clusters and the Great Recession
March 12
Speaker: Andrew Zeitlin (Georgetown University)
Title: Benchmarking a Child Nutrition Program against Cash: Experimental Evidence from Rwanda
March 19
Speaker: Ulrich Schetter
Title: Globalization and the Concentration of Talent
March 26
Speaker: Alex Jaax
Title: Threat or opportunity? Sino-Vietnamese trade and firm-level dynamics in Vietnam
April 2
Speaker: Riccardo Crescenzi (LSE)
Title: FDI and Local Financial Development: City-Level Evidence From Ethiopia
April 9
Speaker: Henrique Pacini (UNCTAD)
Title: Product space for sustainable development: Insights from 9 countries subject to the UN National Green Export Reviews
April 16
Speaker: Sergio Petralia
Title: Toward a Characterization of General Purpose Technologies
Aprll 20
Speaker: Alessio Terzi
Title: Growth Accelerations Strategies
April 23
Speaker: Johannes Boehm
Title: Input Capabilities and the Direction of Product Adoption

Speaker: Mariapia Mendola (University of Milano)
Title: Human Smuggling and Intentions to Migrate: Global Evidence from a Supply Shock along Africa-to-Europe Migration Routes
April 30
Speaker: Julian Hinz (Kiel)
Title: TBD
May 7
Speaker: Andre Ribeiro
Title: TBD
May 14
Speaker: Matte Hartog
Title: Structural Transformation and Historical Inventor Activity in the American Economy
Speaker: Martina Hengge
Title: Fear Thy Neighbor: Spillovers from Economic Policy Uncertainty
May 21
Speaker: Ljubica Nedelkoska
Title: TBD
May 29
Speaker: Joeri Smits (Yale)
Title: TBD
June 4
Speaker: Jasmina Chauvin
Title: TBD
September 10
Speaker: Andres Gomez
September 17
Speakers: Carlo Bottai & Jose Ramon Morales Arilla
September 24
Speakers: Maria Concepción Latorre & Alje van Dam
October 1
Speakers: Michael Schaub & Matias Iglesias
October 15
Speaker: Max Winkler 
October 22
Speakers: Martina Hengge & Jeremy Burke/Ramon Gras
October 29
Speakers: Nikolaus Robalino & Dario Diodato/Ulrich Schetter
November 5
Speaker: Mingzhi Xu
November 19
Speakers: James Evans & Lingfei Wu
November 26
Speakers: Sultan Orazbayev & Fernando Yu
December 3
Speakers: Ina Ganguli & Jonathan Shulz
December 10
Speaker: Yarden Katz
December 17
Speaker: Frank Neffke

2017

July 18
Speaker: Christopher R. Esposito (UCLA)
Title: Premature Deagglomeration
July 26
Speaker: Michael Szell (Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
Title: Visual exploration or Urban Mobility Space Inequality with "What the Street!?
Aug 9
Speaker: Clio Andris (PSU)
Title: Measuring Relationships as Spatial Interaction

Speaker: Phil Chodrow (MIT)
Title: The Structure of Spatial Segregation
Aug 28
Speaker: Willem Thorbecke (RIETI, Japan)
Title: Economic Complexity and Trade Elasticities
September 11
Speaker: Michele Coscia
Title: How Do We Measure Diversification, anyway? The Node Vector Distance Problem in Complex Networks

Speaker: Jose Dominguez Abascal
Title: The Clean Energy Transition
September 18
Speaker: James McNerney
Title: How Production Networks Amplify Economic Growth
Speaker: Sid Ravinutala
Title: Understanding Product and Industry Linkages, and Rural Complexities in Colombia
September 25
Speaker: Dario Diodato
Title: Structural Accounting: An Empirical Assessment of Cross-country Differences in Productivity
October 2
Speaker: Alessio Terzi
Title: Structural Change and Growth Accelerations
October 10
Speaker: Jim Bessen (Boston University)
Title: Automation and Jobs: When Technology Boosts Employment
October 16
Speaker: Andres Gomez
Title: Invention as Collective Learning
Speaker: Juan Pablo Chauvin
Title: Gender-Segmented Labor Markets and the Effects of Local Demand Shocks
October 23
Speaker: Sebastian Bustos
Title: A Tale of Two Asian Shocks: Employment Reallocation in the US after Trade Shocks
October 30
Speaker: Jie Bai
Title: Collective Reputation in Trade: Evidence from the Chinese Dairy Industry
November 6
Speaker: Ulrich Schetter (University of St. Gallen)
Title: Basic Research, Complexity, and Growth
November 13
Speaker: HyeJin Youn (Northwestern University)
Title: From Analysis to Forecasting Evolution of Technology Space
Speaker: Michael Rose (University of Cape Town)
Title: Informal Contracts in Hiring: The Economics Job Market
November 20
Speaker: Carolina Ines Pan
Title: Trade Costs: A Natural Experiment in South America
November 27
Speaker: Matte Hartog
Title: TBD
Speaker: Jann Spiess
Title: TBD
December 4
Speaker: Paasha Mahdavi (Georgetown University)
Title: Do Cash Transfers Decrease Political Participation? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Alaska
December 11
Speaker: Andre Ribeiro
Title: TBD
December 18
Speaker: N/A
Title: N/A