Are subsidies to business R&D effective? Regression discontinuity evidence from the TA CR ALFA programme
Bajgar, Matěj; Srholec, Martin
2023 - English Governments subsidise business research and experimental development (R&D) to promote development of the economy, because externalities and information asymmetries inherent to the innovation process make private funding of these activities fall short of what is socially desirable. Nevertheless, how effective such subsidies are and whether they achieve their goals is an open question that needs to be studied empirically. This study leverages the state-of-the-art method of regression discontinuity (RD) that allows us to come very close to making causal inferences about the effects of subsidies, to find out whether the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic’s (TA CR) ALFA programme stimulated new business R&D inputs, outputs, and positive economic impacts that would not have happened otherwise. Keywords: government subsidies; innovations; economic development Fulltext is available at external website. Are subsidies to business R&D effective? Regression discontinuity evidence from the TA CR ALFA programme

Governments subsidise business research and experimental development (R&D) to promote development of the economy, because externalities and information asymmetries inherent to the innovation process ...

Bajgar, Matěj; Srholec, Martin
Národohospodářský ústav, 2023

“Crime and punishment”? How banks anticipate and propagate global financial sanctions
Mamonov, Mikhail; Pestova, Anna; Ongena, S.
2023 - English We study the impacts of global financial sanctions on banks and their corporate borrowers in Russia. Financial sanctions were imposed consecutively between 2014 and 2019, allowing targeted (but not-yet-sanctioned) banks to adapt their international and domestic exposures in advance. Using a staggered difference-in-differences approach with in-advance adaptation to anticipated treatment, we establish that targeted banks immediately reduced their foreign assets and actually increased their international borrowings after the first sanction announcement compared to other similar banks. We reveal that the added value of the next sanction announcements was rather limited. Despite considerable outflow of domestic private deposits, the government support prevented disorderly bank failures and resulted in credit reshuffling: the banks contracted corporate lending by 4% of GDP and increased household lending by almost the same magnitude, which mostly offset the total economic loss. Further, we introduce a two-stage treatment diffusion approach that flexibly addresses potential spillovers of the sanctions to private banks with political connections. Employing unique hand-collected board membership and bank location data, our approach shows that throughout this period, politically-connected banks were not all equally recognized as potential sanction targets. Finally, using syndicated loan data, we establish that the real negative effects of sanctions materialized only when sanctioned firms were borrowing from sanctioned banks. When borrowing from unsanctioned banks, sanctioned firms even gained in terms of employment and investment but still lost in terms of market sales pointing to a misallocation of government support. Keywords: staggered policy implementation; anticipation effects; treatment diffusion Fulltext is available at external website. “Crime and punishment”? How banks anticipate and propagate global financial sanctions

We study the impacts of global financial sanctions on banks and their corporate borrowers in Russia. Financial sanctions were imposed consecutively between 2014 and 2019, allowing targeted (but ...

Mamonov, Mikhail; Pestova, Anna; Ongena, S.
Národohospodářský ústav, 2023

The effects of government spending in segmented labor and financial markets
Stojanović, Dušan
2023 - English This paper develops a model with high-skilled and low-skilled workers to show the expansionary effects of government spending despite large training costs for new hires. The main idea is that a fiscal stimulus induces changes in the composition of the labor force conditional on the extent of aggregate demand pressure. A period of high aggregate demand pressure is followed by a high value of forgone output as training activity causes production disruption. In this period firms decide to hire more low-skilled workers, who constitute a cheaper part of the labor force. When aggregate demand pressure is diminished, firms switch to hiring more high-skilled workers. However, the current literature considers only high-skilled workers, who tend to increase saving in government bonds to protect against poor employment prospects. In this case, the combination of weak employment prospects and the crowding-out effects of higher lump-sum taxes and government debt on private consumption and capital investment gives rise to recessionary effects. In contrast, this paper provides a model with a more realistic labor and financial market structure and suggests that countercyclical government spending in the form of government consumption and especially government investment can be used to deal with recessions.\n Keywords: government spending; training cost; search and match frictions Fulltext is available at external website. The effects of government spending in segmented labor and financial markets

This paper develops a model with high-skilled and low-skilled workers to show the expansionary effects of government spending despite large training costs for new hires. The main idea is that a fiscal ...

Stojanović, Dušan
Národohospodářský ústav, 2023

Sexual-orientation discrimination and biological attributions: experimental evidence from Russia
Baghumyan, Gayane
2023 - English Understanding what drives discriminatory behavior is important in order to identify the best strategy to combat it. In this study, I exogenously manipulate participants’ beliefs about the origins of sexual orientation by providing evidence that supports biological causes of homosexuality. I employ money allocation tasks to measure discrimination. This allows me to causally identify the impact of information on discriminatory behavior. I first document the prevalence of discrimination against individuals with same-sex partners in Russia. On average, roughly 54% of participants exhibit discriminatory behavior against profiles with same-sex partners by allocating 16 percentage points less money to them. Further, the results suggest that exposure to evidence on the biological causes of homosexuality negatively affects discriminatory behavior. Participants in the treatment group allocate less money to profiles with same-sex partners, relative to participants in the baseline group. Potential rationales for this behavior could include the following: (i) the provision of information that contradicts existing beliefs might cause cognitive dissonance, triggering irritation and intensifying discriminatory tendencies, (ii) the information might foster beliefs that individuals in same-sex partnerships are fundamentally ’other’ - even at a biological level - thereby widening the perceived social gap between participants and these sexual minority groups and fostering discrimination further. Keywords: discrimination; information; sexual minorities Fulltext is available at external website. Sexual-orientation discrimination and biological attributions: experimental evidence from Russia

Understanding what drives discriminatory behavior is important in order to identify the best strategy to combat it. In this study, I exogenously manipulate participants’ beliefs about the origins of ...

Baghumyan, Gayane
Národohospodářský ústav, 2023

Hostility, population sorting, and backwardness: quasi-experimental evidence from the Red Army after WWII
Ochsner, Christian
2023 - English Does a short episode of conflict or exposure to hostile troops cause regional economic backwardness, and if so, why and how does it persist? I answer these questions by exploiting economic differences across the idiosyncratic and short-lived line of contact between the Red Army and the Western Allies in South Austria at the end of WWII. Spatial regression discontinuity estimates show that hostile presence of the Red Army for 74 days caused an immediate relative population decline of around 12%, amplified to 25% by today. Age-specific migration patterns and subsequent fertility differences explain the multiplying effects. Sector development and measures of local labor productivity in 2011 also lag behind in regions briefly seized by the Red Army, likely driven by skill-specific migration and hampered investment patterns after WWII. The findings provide novel insights into the long-run effects of wars and conflicts, and point to the isolated role of the Red Army’s hostile actions after WWII to understand the European economic East-West divide.\n Keywords: conflict; hostility; population shock Fulltext is available at external website. Hostility, population sorting, and backwardness: quasi-experimental evidence from the Red Army after WWII

Does a short episode of conflict or exposure to hostile troops cause regional economic backwardness, and if so, why and how does it persist? I answer these questions by exploiting economic differences ...

Ochsner, Christian
Národohospodářský ústav, 2023

Facts and figures on gender in entrepreneurship and innovation
Křížková, Alena; Marková Volejníčková, Romana; Pospíšilová, Marie; Vohlídalová, Marta
2023 - English Keywords: gender equality; gender in entrepreneurship; gender in science; gender in innovation; gender stereotypes; good practices Available in digital repository of the ASCR Facts and figures on gender in entrepreneurship and innovation

Křížková, Alena; Marková Volejníčková, Romana; Pospíšilová, Marie; Vohlídalová, Marta
Sociologický ústav, 2023

Vowel length in infant-directed speech: the realisation of short-long contrasts in Czech IDS
Svoboda, Michaela; Chládková, Kateřina; Kocjančič Antolík, T.; Paillereau, Nikola; Slížková, P.
2023 - English When interacting with young children, talkers across many languages use a speech style that reflects positive affect, draws infants' attention, and supposedly facilitates language acquisition. As for the latter, a well-documented feature of infant-directed speech is an exaggeration of spectrally-cued vowel contrasts. Here we tested whether talkers exaggerate also durationally cued contrasts. Sixty-three mothers, native speakers of Czech, were recorded while playing with their infant (4- to 10-month-olds, IDS) and while speaking to an adult (ADS). The durations of the five Czech phonemically short vowels were compared to their long counterparts. Vowel duration (normalised for word duration) was longer in IDS than in ADS more for phonemically long vowels at the younger infant ages, indicating a developmentally specific early exaggeration of length contrasts in Czech infant-directed speech. The present finding suggests that in a language with phonemic length, caregivers' realisation of speech sounds may go beyond merely being longer and slower overall. Keywords: infant-directed speech; vowel length; development of early input; Czech Available on request at various institutes of the ASCR Vowel length in infant-directed speech: the realisation of short-long contrasts in Czech IDS

When interacting with young children, talkers across many languages use a speech style that reflects positive affect, draws infants' attention, and supposedly facilitates language acquisition. As for ...

Svoboda, Michaela; Chládková, Kateřina; Kocjančič Antolík, T.; Paillereau, Nikola; Slížková, P.
Psychologický ústav, 2023

Disclosure discrimination: an experiment focusing on communication in the hiring process
Badalyan, S.; Korlyakova, Darya; Rehák, Rastislav
2023 - English We focus on communication among hiring team members and document the existence of discrimination in the disclosure of information about candidates. In particular, we conduct an online experiment with a nationally representative sample of Czech individuals who act as human resource assistants and hiring managers in our online labor market. The main novel feature of our experiment is the monitoring of information flow between human resource assistants and hiring managers. We exogenously manipulate candidates’ names to explore the causal effects of their gender and nationality on information that assistants select for managers. Our findings reveal that assistants disclose more information about family and less information about work for female candidates relative to male candidates. An in-depth analysis of the disclosed information suggests that gender stereotypes play an important role in this disclosure discrimination. Furthermore, assistants disclose less information about foreigners overall. This effect appears to be driven by the less attention assistants are willing to devote to the CVs of foreigners, measured by the extra effort to learn more about the candidates. Keywords: information; disclosure; hiring Fulltext is available at external website. Disclosure discrimination: an experiment focusing on communication in the hiring process

We focus on communication among hiring team members and document the existence of discrimination in the disclosure of information about candidates. In particular, we conduct an online experiment with ...

Badalyan, S.; Korlyakova, Darya; Rehák, Rastislav
Národohospodářský ústav, 2023

Racial discrimination and lost innovation: evidence from US inventors, 1895–1925
Coluccia, D. M.; Dossi, G.; Ottinger, Sebastian
2023 - English How can racial discrimination harm innovation? We study this question using data on US inventors linked to population censuses in 1895-1925. Our novel identification strategy leverages plausibly exogenous variation in the timing of lynchings and the name of the victims. We find an immediate and persistent decrease in patents granted to inventors who share their names with the victims of lynchings, but only when victims are Black. We hypothesize that lynchings accentuate the racial content of the victim’s name to patent examiners, who do not observe inventor race from patent applications. We interpret these findings as evidence of discrimination by patent examiners and provide evidence against alternative mechanisms. Keywords: discrimination; innovation; lynchings Fulltext is available at external website. Racial discrimination and lost innovation: evidence from US inventors, 1895–1925

How can racial discrimination harm innovation? We study this question using data on US inventors linked to population censuses in 1895-1925. Our novel identification strategy leverages plausibly ...

Coluccia, D. M.; Dossi, G.; Ottinger, Sebastian
Národohospodářský ústav, 2023

Quo vadis? Evidence on new firm-bank matching and firm performance following “sin” bank closures
Goncharenko, R.; Mamonov, Mikhail; Ongena, S.; Popova, S.; Turdyeva, N.
2023 - English In this paper, we analyze how firms search for new lenders after a financial regulator forcibly closes their prior banks, and what happens to the firms’ performance during this transition period. In 2013, the Central Bank of Russia launched a large-scale bank closure policy and started detecting fraudulent (sin) banks and revoking their licenses. By 2020, two-thirds of all operating banks had been shuttered. We analyze this unique period in history using credit register data. First, we establish that before sin bank closures, there was no informational leakage and the borrowing firms remain unaffected. After the closures, there is a clear sorting pattern: poorly-performing firms rush to other (not-yet-detected) sin banks, while profitable firms transfer to financially solid banks. We find that the coupling of poorly-performing firms and not-yet-detected sin banks occurs more frequently when the two sin banks (the prior and the next lender) are commonly owned or when the local banking market is unconcentrated. Finally, we show that during the transition period (i.e., after the sin bank closures and before matching to new banks), poorly-performing firms shrink in size and experience a sharp decline in borrowings and market sales, whereas profitable firms strengthen in terms of employment, investment, and market sales. A potential mechanism involves credit risk underpricing by sin banks: we find that poorly-performing firms (especially commonly owned) received loans at lower interest rates than profitable firms prior to sin bank closures. Keywords: credit register; bank clean-up; regulatory forbearance Fulltext is available at external website. Quo vadis? Evidence on new firm-bank matching and firm performance following “sin” bank closures

In this paper, we analyze how firms search for new lenders after a financial regulator forcibly closes their prior banks, and what happens to the firms’ performance during this transition period. In ...

Goncharenko, R.; Mamonov, Mikhail; Ongena, S.; Popova, S.; Turdyeva, N.
Národohospodářský ústav, 2023