Research projects of the department

Project participants: Prof. Hans Manner (project leader), Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Rauch (University of Heidelberg), Martin Schlesinger

Funding body: FWF

Funding amount and duration: € 168,476, 3 years (2024-2027)

Summary:

Why are some countries rich and others poor? This has been a key question in economics for centuries and one of the motivating questions of the subject. Many factors determining economic development have been described in the literature. This project will add to this debate by studying development in Styria, a region that experienced rapid growth in the 20th century.

In the short period between the mid-19th and the mid-20th century, the state of Styria developed from an agricultural, remote and poor region to an industrial economic powerhouse. This research project will develop a new dataset of historic Styria to describe and quantify this process. A mid-19th century social survey conducted by Georg Goeth under Archduke Johann that gives a rich and disaggregated picture of the economic situation in this part of the world will be digitized. This dataset will be one of the earliest digitized economic censuses in the German speaking world. The project will study the role of the railway and of mining in this process, using the rich variation in both provided in this setting of 19th century Styria. While the economic literature has emphasized that both transport infrastructure and mining help economic development, it appears reasonable to believe that the presence of both leads to particularly successful industrialization. The setting of the economic development of Styria provides useful geographical variation that enables us to test this hypothesis. Insights on the complementarity between natural resources and transport infrastructure are expected to hold useful lessons for understanding economic development and economic growth more generally in today's world. Such findings could be an important contribution in the economic literature and in policy circles related to planning economic development. Furthermore, the historical documents that are planned to be digitize have not yet been studied economically, and thus the data digitization part of this project will provide new information that has not yet been studied in detail. The datasets and scans will be made public, and they may find much interdisciplinary, academic interest, from historians, political scientists or sociologists.

Project management: Prof. Christoph Kuzmics

Staff employed from project funds: Jasmina Karabegovic, Elshan Garashli

Funding body: Austrian National Bank (OeNB)

Funding amount and duration: € 149,000, 3 years (1.10.2023 - 30.9.2026)

Summary:

Communication is key to successful economic and social interaction. Communication allows individuals to share information and to coordinate their activities. Yet, people also sometimes lie, or misrepresent the truth, for personal gain. We propose to explore the (theoretical) limits to (the value of) communication in general strategic environments such as can be found in many areas of economics, such as political lobbying, communication within a firm, or even the communication of a central bank. We are interested in identifying robust communication, that is communication that can arise in strategic situations somewhat independently of how much the two communicating parties know about the exact nature of each other's ultimate goals.

Project participants: Prof. Jörn Kleinert (project leader), Wiltrud Mölzer, Clara Venglarova and two project assistants

Funded by: FWF

Summary:
The project documents market evolution from 1850 to 1950 through the analysis of newspaper job advertisements using advanced NLP techniques. Its aim is to trace the dynamics of employment relations and understand how factors such as regional outreach, sector focus, qualifications requirements, and employment characteristics have changed over time.

Wiltrud Mölzer presented the team's research on the historical Austrian labor market at the 5th International Data Power Conference in Graz (September 4-6, 2024). The presentation entitled "The Emergence of a Differentiated Labor Market in Austria" particularly focused on the role of private job agencies as early data brokers in the 19th century. These agents who, for a fee, connected job seekers with employers, thus gaining a significant position in the labor market, are closely examined. Drawing from over a million pages of historical newspapers from the Austrian National Library archives, information was extracted that illustrates the agencies' operations and explains their impact on the labor market. Their once-dominant role, the increasing criticism of their unfair practices, and the societal pressure to establish public job agencies to address market failures are discussed. Hence, the analysis offers a historical viewpoint on the beginnings of data trade within labor markets and the effects of regulatory interventions on job mediation.

Project participants: Tobias Eibinger and Riccarda Rosenball, University of Graz (project management), Andrea Weber (Central European University Vienna), Jos van Ommeren (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Funding body: Province of Styria and Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics at the University of Graz

Funding amount and duration: € 10,000, 2 years (2024-2026)

Summary:
The research project aims to investigate the effects of the commuting behavior of women and men after the birth of their first child on the gender pay gap in Austria. It is emphasized that the gender pay gap increases significantly, especially after the birth of the first child, as women often move to jobs closer to home in order to better fulfill family responsibilities. These changes in job choice and the associated reduced flexibility can contribute to an increase in pay inequality between the sexes.
It is planned to carry out detailed analyses using microdata from the employment statistics and register census of Statistics Austria in order to investigate gender-specific differences in commuting behavior and their influence on the gender pay gap. The importance of the topic for Styria is particularly emphasized, as Graz, as a major central city, has a large volume of commuter traffic, which is fed by both urban and rural areas.