Organization: Stephan Lauermann

Dates: December 13-14, 2018

Venue: University of Bonn, Juridicum, Faculty Room

Professor Mark Armstrong (Oxford) offered a two-day minicourse on “Theory models of advertising and consumer search.” The course was advertised to all graduate students and postdocs. Mark Armstrong is a renowned expert in economic theory and industrial organization with broad expertise who has served on the boards of many journals. The course consisted of a pair of lectures in the morning by Mark Armstrong. Over a joined lunch, the participants were able to ask further questions about the lectures and economics more generally. In the afternoon, advanced graduates students presented their own research projects and Mark Armstrong gave detailed feedback to the presenters (this included research projects in search but also many other areas in economic theory). The course was attended by students with an interest in theory not only from Bonn but also from Mannheim, Jerusalem, and Vienna.
Impact: The course was directly relevant for the research in the CRC, especially for the subproject B4 “Decentralized markets" which uses search theory in applications to decentralized markets such as the markets for housing and labor. Mark Armstrong presented work on the research frontier in “search theory” that would help both students who are already working in the area and provide a “kickstart” to those who think about the topic. Moreover, the course offered many young researchers from the CRC the opportunity to present their work in the afternoon from other subprojects as well.

Organization: Laura Grigolon

Dates: December 12, 2018

Venue: Department of Economics, University of Mannheim (Room 458, 4th floor)

The goal of this workshop was to advance our understanding of peer-to-peer markets, as well as their impact on traditional providers, with a focus on Airbnb and the accommodation industry.The rapid growth of Airbnb is often attributed to a business model which uses technology to create markets for surplus resources. But part of the success of these online platforms may also come from the parallel legal universe they inhabit. Concerns about fair competition have grown with the size of these platforms. While it started as a platform for hosts to make some extra cash on the side by occasionally renting out spare rooms, entrepreneurs spied a more lucrative opportunity: acquiring a portfolio of empty properties and offering them as a direct, often cheaper, competitor to hotels, with consequences on sale prices of properties and long-term rentals. The workshop encouraged a discussion on these themes and a reflection on relevant research questions on the topic.

Organization: Ulrich Wagner, Dana Kassem

Dates: December 06-07, 2018

Venue: ZEW, Mannheim (Room Luxemburg)

Organization: Volker Nocke, Nicolas Schutz

Dates: November 29 - December 01, 2018

Venue: Hardtwald Hotel, Bad Homburg

The workshop, organized by Nicolas Schutz and Volker Nocke (both B03), gathered around twenty researchers to present and discuss empirical and theoretical research on horizontal mergers, common ownership, and other antitrust-related topics. The presenters were Christopher Conlon (NYU), Daniel Ershov (Toulouse), Mitsuru Igami (Yale), Justin Johnson (Cornell), Leslie Marx (Duke), Massimo Motta (Pompeu Fabra), Patrick Rey (Toulouse), Andrew Rhodes (Toulouse), Nicolas Schutz (Mannheim), Kosuke Uetake (Yale), and Xavier Vives (IESE). The discussants were Bernhard Ganglmair (Mannheim), Laura Grigolon (Mannheim), Volker Nocke (Mannheim), Andrew Rhodes (Toulouse), Pasquale Schiraldi (LSE), Philipp Schmidt-Dengler (Vienna), Nicolas Schutz (Mannheim), Anton Sobolev (Mannheim), Yossi Spiegel (Tel Aviv), and Christoph Wolf (Bocconi).

Organization: Volker Nocke

Dates: November 22-23, 2018

Venue: ZEW, Mannheim

The first MaCCI-EPoS-CREST Workshop on Industrial Organization, co-funded by the CRC TR 224, covered empirical and theoretical research on a number of industrial organization issues connection to projects A02, B02, B03, B04, and B05. Presenters from CREST were Marie-Laure Allain, Philippe Choné, Xavier d'Haultfoeuille, Laurent Linnemer and Julien Monardo; presenters from MaCCI were Esteban Cattaneo, Volker Nocke, Nicolas Schutz, Anton Sobolev, and Michelle Sovinsky.

Organization: Andreas Engert

Dates: November 15-16, 2018

Venue: ZEW, Mannheim (Room Brussels)

Starting from market design as a comprehensive approach, the conference explored the practical implementation of theoretical concepts from economics, particularly with a view to the existing legal framework, potential reforms, and legal limitations. To this end, the conference covered four reference areas where enhanced market design can deliver important benefits: online market platforms, private and public procurement, markets for public infrastructure, and the allocation of critical resources in health care. Two keynote lectures provided a thorough analysis of specific market design applications: Kimberly D. Krawiec (Duke University Law School) on “Designing Transactions in the Human Body” and Peter Cramton (Universities of Cologne and Maryland) on “Using Technology to Eliminate Traffic Congestion”.

Organization: Miriam Buiten, Eleftheria Triviza

Dates: November 08-09, 2018

Venue: University of Mannheim, Room O 026-028 Senatssaal (Schloss Ostflügel)

The goal of this interdisciplinary workshop was to bring together economists and legal scholars in order to advance our understanding of platform markets in the big data era, as well as their implications for competition policy and privacy. The rise of large internet players such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, has raised concerns about whether platform markets may produce a “winner takes all” effect. Moreover, the collection and use of personal data has started a debate regarding the need for more privacy protection. This workshop aimed to help us get a deeper understanding of how policy makers should respond to these economic peculiarities of platform markets.

Organization: Matthias Doepke, Minchul Yum, Holger Stichnoth and Michèle Tertilt

Dates: October 18-20, 2018

Venue: ZEW, Mannheim

This conference brought together leading researchers from Europe and the U.S. working on family economics with a macroeconomic perspective.

Organization: Katja Kaufmann, Pia Pinger, Hans-Martin von Gaudecker

Dates: September 27-28, 2018

Venue: University of Bonn, Juridicum

The idea of the workshop was to bring together a group of researchers who are interested in measuring and using quantities that are economically relevant, but have typically been treated as unobservable. Examples are preference parameters such as risk aversion or social preferences, abilities of various kinds, or beliefs about the human capital production process. Take risk preferences as an example: In which situations is a self-assessment more useful, in which situations a measure derived via revealed preference arguments from incentivized lotteries? How could each be used in models of “real-world” behavior, say of portfolio choice? The workshop assembled a great range of presentations of empirical or methodological work on the entire spectrum from pure measurement to the use of such measures in empirical models..

Organization: Klaus Adam, Isabel Schnabel

Dates: August 31 - September 01, 2018

Venue: University of Mannheim, Castle of Mannheim, Fuchs-Petrolub-Festsaal (O138)

The CRC TR 224 contributed funding to the EABCN - CRC TR 224 Conference on "Asset Prices and the Macroeconomy", which took place on August 31 - September 1, 2018 at the University of Mannheim. The program was organized by Klaus Adam (University of Mannheim), Isabel Schnabel (University of Bonn) and Elisa Faraglia (University of Cambridge). It comprised 15 paper presentations from presenters on both sides of the Atlantic, including keynote presentations by Stefan Nagel (University of Chicago) and Nicola Gennaioli (Bocconi University).

Organization: Hendrik Hakenes, Isabel Schnabel

Dates: July 20, 2018

Venue: Faculty Lounge, Juridicum, University of Bonn

On July 20, 2018, the projects C03 and C04 organized a Research Workshop in Financial Economics. The workshop was held in cooperation with the Collaborative Research Center CRC TR224 (Economic Perspectives on Societal Challenges) and was aimed especially at young researchers, that is, doctoral students shortly before their dissertation (especially job market candidates), or postdoctoral researchers. Topics concentrated on banking, financial intermediation in general, financial regulation, supervision, financial stability, central banking, and other related topics. There were discussions for all papers. The participants came partly from the region, but we also had participants from Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid. The participants were happy with the feedback they got, and they also used the dinner for networking. We tried to attract especially women to the workshop, and we had four women on the program in the end. We will hopefully be able to repeat this format in the next year.

Organization: Minchul Yum

Dates: May 18-19, 2018

Venue: Department of Economics, University of Mannheim, L 7, 3-5

The workshop was intended to provide a forum for junior economists based in Europe with a special interest in quantitative macroeconomics. The workshop attracted many young macroeconomists from top European universities such as Bocconi, Cambridge, EUI, IIES, Oxford, and Toulouse (among others) who presented their recent research coupled with critical yet productive discussions.

The workshop was highly successful in providing researchers with opportunities to engage in highly relevant policy debates. A subset of topics targeted some country-specific episodes such as social housing policies in Germany, housing bubbles in Spain, and commuting costs in the U.K. On the other hand, some other papers promoted active discussions on more general policy issues such as exchange rates, monetary policy, labor market mismatches, and fertility.

Organization: Isabel Schnabel

Dates:  April 17, 2018

Venue: University Forum, Center for International Security and Governance, Heussallee 18-24, 53113 Bonn

On Tuesday, April 17th 2018, the Center for International Security and Governance in cooperation with the Reinhard Selten Institute hosted a panel discussion on the topic of Euro area reform at the University Forum. While the event had to compete with best conditions for an evening outdoors as the warm and sunny weather reminded of early summer, the high attendance signaled the significance of the topic.