Export Quality Upgrading under Credit Constraints
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On February 12th, ISET hosted Dr. Andrea Ciani from Bocconi University, who presented his job market paper "Export Quality Upgrading under Credit Constraints".
The speaker began his presentation with a simple example that he used to explain his research paper. The Italian furniture company Kartell is famous for the production of plastic chairs. However, for export purposes, the firm decided to improve the quality of its product and started to produce chairs made from a mix of plastic and expensive materials, such as as silver, gold and even platinum. However, quality upgrades require investment. In many cases, companies have to take credits from local banks for this purposes.
Earmarks: “driver of legislature” or a “gateway to corruption”?
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On February 11th, ISET hosted Olivier Harlem, Ph.D. of the Erasmus School of Economics, Rotterdam. Dr. Harlem presented his job market paper, “Earmarks”. Earmarks were U.S. federal funds that are designated for local projects and were easy for local representatives to obtain for their electoral districts. Some of the reasons why earmarks are interesting is that they are seen as: (i)”[a] symbol of broken spending”, (ii)”[a] gateway to corruption” and (iii) a “political carrot for speeding up [the] legislative process”. From an academic point of view, studying earmarks is interesting, as they reflect the aspects of both politicians’ behavior and the impact of public funds on the electoral process.
Dr. Harlem used specifications from Grossman and Helpman’s model to build the essence of his empirical approach.
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