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on Business Economics |
| By: | Damásio, Bruno; Silva, Eduardo; Mendonça, Sandro |
| Abstract: | Recent years have recorded a growth in the number of patent applications filed by digital platforms. This paper argues that by profiling these patent portfolios, we can obtain insightful patterns on platforms' business and innovation strategies. For this purpose, we build a dataset of over 380, 000 patent applications filed at least by one of ten large US and Chinese digital platforms between 1986 and 2024. A significant rise in patent activity has taken shape since 2012, largely due to an impressive number of applications filed by Chinese platforms. Platforms tend to patent alone and concentrate their patenting activity on computer technology and electric communication, with machine learning being an overarching theme. However, some platforms like Apple pursue the development of a diversified patent portfolio, while others build one more specialized and aligned with their core business. Additionally, platform applications receive a significant number of citations, despite a skewed distribution which is only slightly challenged by Apple. Finally, applications by Chinese platforms have a more limited international protection when compared to their American counterparts, as attested by their patent family sizes. |
| Keywords: | patents, digital platforms, portfolio, China |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse25:331264 |
| By: | Giuseppe Ciccarone; Giovanni Di Bartolomeo; Valentina Peruzzi; Maria Luigia Signore |
| Abstract: | We model creativity as capital built by costly cognitive effort that complements social capital and is often accompanied by routines that economize attention and time. Higher effort costs deter entry into the creative state, while openness and trust increase the productivity of cognitive effort mainly through creative capital. Using lab-in-the-field data from an Italian music festival and a recursive bivariate probit, we find that costs depress creativity, whereas creativity strongly boosts festival collaboration, volunteering, and territorial cooperation. Consistent with a routinization perspective, the creativity–engagement link is stronger when participation occurs in more socially "structured" environments. To encourage creativity, policies should reduce cognitive frictions and improve the productivity of cognitive effort. |
| Keywords: | Creativity; cognitive effort; social capital; routinization; field experiment |
| JEL: | C93 C35 D01 Z13 O31 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp267 |
| By: | Stanislav Avdeev |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first evidence on the impact of exposure to international students on the long-term outcomes of native students. I combine unique survey and administrative data from the Netherlands covering one million students across three decades and employ an across-cohort design. I find that exposure to international students leads natives to (i) form social ties with non-natives, (ii) hold more positive attitudes towards migration and learning about other cultures, and (iii) seek opportunities abroad. Notably, I find precisely estimated zero effects on employment, income, entrepreneurship, and the share of international co-workers up to 25 years after university entry. |
| Keywords: | contact hypothesis, domestic students, foreign students, higher education, labor market, mobility, networks, peer effects, emigration |
| JEL: | F22 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12283 |
| By: | Gustavo de Souza; Haishi Li; Ziho Park; Yulin Wang |
| Abstract: | On April 2, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the "Liberation Day" tariffs, creating an unexpected, precisely timed, and country-specific episode of trade policy uncertainty. The proposal threatened U.S. trade partners with additional tariffs ranging from 10% to 50%, depending on the outcome of bilateral negotiations. Using transaction-level U.S. import data, we find that firms rapidly shifted sourcing from countries facing high tariff risk to those facing low tariff risk. Firms didn't change their total import values but this reallocation came at the cost of higher import prices. Firms with stickier or contract-dependent trade relationships and greater reliance on trade finance drove this preemptive reallocation, which is consistent with them being hit hardest had tariffs been implemented before they could adjust. Our findings demonstrate that even brief periods of trade policy uncertainty can significantly disrupt supply chains. |
| Keywords: | global supply chains, trade war, trade adjustment |
| JEL: | F14 F63 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12285 |
| By: | Georges Dionne (HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management); Denise Desjardins (HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of inflation on P&C insurers with individual data. We use observed and forecasted measures of inflation. We compute forecasted rates of inflation from the Bayesian Vector Autoregression (BVAR) model under two different assumptions, the Gaussian distribution and the Student-t distribution. For the econometric estimations, we proceed with the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). Overall, the findings indicate that insurers are responsive to forecasted inflation as well to realized inflation. Proactive strategies—particularly those based on long-term forecasts—appear to enhance profitability and stabilize operations, while short-term reactions to realized inflation are more defensive. |
| Keywords: | Inflation rate; US P&C insurance industry; forecasted inflation; observed inflation; reinsurance demand; liquidity creation; ROA; GMM estimation model; BVAR model |
| JEL: | B22 E3 E4 G20 G22 G32 G38 G52 |
| Date: | 2025–12–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:crcrmw:021827 |
| By: | Márta Bisztray (Hungarian Academy of Science, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies); Gábor Békés (Central European University); Alexandros Charos (WIFO); Klaus Friesenbichler; Miklós Koren (Central European University); Agnes Kügler; Balázs Lengyel (HUN-REN CERS – Institute of Economics); Amanda De Pirro (HUN-REN CERS – Institute of Economics); Birgit Meyer (WIFO) |
| Abstract: | Recent events have posed considerable challenges to supply chain, as demonstrated by trade data. Yet, firm-level information on the recent challenges remains scarce. The Supply Chain Disruption Survey addresses this gap by generating insights into firms' experiences and expectations regarding their supplier relationships, with a special focus on the role of intangibles and changes over time. Conducted as part of the RETHINK-GSC Horizon research project, the survey was carried out in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Hungary between mid-2023 and spring 2024. The survey focused on medium-sized and large firms operating in various manufacturing industries. This paper has two main objectives: first, it provides information about the survey's background, design, questionnaire, and implementation; and second, it presents the key patterns visible in the survey. The results indicate that sourcing remains anchored in Europe but is diversified. Experiencing disruption was nearly universal between 2020 and 2023, mostly due to COVID-19, but also due to the war in Ukraine and trade policy changes. Despite the perception of the disruptions being of temporary nature, the anticipation of risk increased. Firms adopted different risk mitigation strategies, including diversifying their supplier portfolio and information sharing with suppliers. |
| Date: | 2025–11–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2025:i:716 |
| By: | Laura Alfaro; Davin Chor |
| Abstract: | This paper documents stylized facts about the "Great Reallocation" in US supply chain trade following the 2018–2019 tariff shocks and the April 2025 Liberation Day announcements. We find that: (i) The US has decoupled from China but not from the world overall. (ii) US imports diversified mainly among its top-20 partners, rather than expanding to new source countries. (iii) Local linear projections confirm ongoing declines in China's import shares, with compensating increases from Vietnam, Mexico, and Taiwan. (iv) Most of this shift occurred along the product-level intensive margin, though extensive margin adjustments became more pronounced for Vietnam and India from 2021-2024. (v) After a period of "wait and see", the decline in import shares from China spread to contract-intensive and relationship-sticky goods by 2021-2024. (vi) Early 2025 data suggest that trade reallocation has already accelerated after Liberation Day, in favor of trade partners facing lower additional tariffs and with geographically proximate supply networks. Together, these findings show that the US-China tariff shocks have unwound the US' sourcing from China back to where it stood at the time of China's WTO accession. |
| JEL: | F01 F10 F13 F14 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34490 |
| By: | Inga Laß (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research); Mark Wooden (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a significant and long-lasting increase in the proportion of employees working from home (WFH). However, relatively little is known about the specific groups of workers that are most likely to work from home post-pandemic. This paper investigates the characteristics of employees and their employers who are WFH in post-pandemic Australia. We run logistic regression analyses based on the 2023 round of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, which contains novel information on the number of full workdays worked from home. Sixteen hypotheses are proposed and tested. The results confirm strong and powerful associations between WFH full days and both occupation and industry. However, contrary to expectations, WFH is not positively associated with caring responsibilities or the presence of long-term health conditions or disabilities, and nor is WFH more common among the oldest workers. This latter set of findings is striking given the National Employment Standards identify these employee characteristics as deserving priority when employers consider requests to work from home. Overall, while worker preferences are relevant, the results suggest that it is the nature of jobs that is the main factor determining who has the option to work from home. |
| Keywords: | Working from home, flexible work, hybrid work, remote work, HILDA Survey |
| JEL: | J21 M54 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2025n18 |
| By: | Eran B. Hoffmann; Monika Piazzesi; Martin Schneider |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the connection between regional growth trends and labor market dynamics. New data on manufacturing worker flows for U.S. cities 1969-1981 show more new hires and more voluntary quits in growing cities, but more forced layoffs in shrinking cities. Recessions are special in growing cities in that hires and quits drop, whereas in shrinking cities layoffs rise. A quantitative business cycle model with migration and on-the-job search accounts for a large share of variation in growth and worker flows both over time and across space. Growing cities in the South and West had low job creation costs and only gradual in-migration, so tight labor markets encouraged more on-the-job search. In those cities, aggregate job destruction shocks generated recessions with lower labor market churn. In the shrinking cities of the Rust Belt, in contrast, churn was always low and responded little in recessions. |
| JEL: | E30 E32 J62 J63 J64 R11 R12 R13 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34515 |