[Econmaster2012] Research Seminar in Economics

[Frank Stähler]

Dear all,

The presenter in this week's "Research Seminar in Economics" on Tuesday, 
17.12., is Richard Kneller from the University of Nottingham.

The title of his talk will be

"Demand Shocks and Productivity: Evidence from the Ethanol Boom"

http://www.wiwi.uni-tuebingen.de/forschung0/research-seminars/research-seminar-in-economics.html

The seminar starts at 18.00 h in Room E09, Mohlstr. 36. You can find an 
abstract of the paper below.

Everybody is welcome.

Best wishes,

Udo Kreickemeier


Abstract

In this paper we study whether changes in demand can induce producers to 
make investments that raise their productivity using an instrumental 
variable approach. The change in demand that we examine uses the growth 
in the ethanol industry that follow from a series of legislative reform 
in U.S. energy policy. Corn is an important input in the production of 
ethanol, and we study the effects of demand on a measure of physical 
productivity, in our case corn yields. Our instruments exploit 
geographic variation in the demand for corn that follows from the 
opening of new ethanol plants and are based on a measure of distance, as 
well as the market for a by-product of ethanol production (DDGs). We 
find strong evidence that demand shocks, in particular those that are 
viewed as permanent, have a productivity impact. We provide evidence 
that in the corn industry rising yields occurred because of the adoption 
of new types of genetically modified corn. In this regard our results 
support those of Griliches (1957).