Presentations at the summer seminar of the Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR)

At the GfR summer seminar in Nuremberg, Damiaan Persyn presented his work on "Regional Inequality under Capital-Skill Complementarity: a numerical general equilibrium analysis" and "Transportation costs and local economic activity - Evidence from the German truck toll".

The 2023 GfR Summer Conference took place on June 29 and 30 in Nuremberg at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). Damiaan Persyn presented his work on "Regional Inequality under Capital-Skill Complementarity: a numerical general equilibrium analysis" and "Transportation costs and local economic activity - Evidence from the German truck toll". Jan Cornelius Peters presented a paper entitled "Graduate location choice and the (un-)attractiveness of rural regions in Germany".

In "Regional Inequality under Capital-Skill Complementarity: a numerical general equilibrium analysis", he and his co-authors Stelianos Sakkas and Patrizio Lecca use a numerical general equilibrium model to analyse the impact of technical progress on local labour markets. The central result of the study is that under the assumption of complementarity of capital and skilled labour, technological progress increases the demand for highly skilled workers and thus their wages, whereas the demand for average and low-skilled workers and their wages fall. Moreover, there is a stronger effect in regions that are more capital-intensive and more interconnected with other regions, as well as in regions with low unemployment rates.

In "Transportation costs and local economic activity - Evidence from the German truck toll" he and his colleague Martin Simmler research the influence of transport costs on local economic activity. Using microeconometric estimation methods, they analyse the effects of changes in the design of the truck toll in Germany on truck traffic, the number of trucks and regional employment. First results indicate that the truck toll in Germany increases transport costs, and this increase in turn reduces employment in transport-intensive industries.

The article "Graduate location choice and the (un-)attractiveness of rural regions in Germany" is joint work by Jan Cornelius Peters and Johannes Stiller. They investigate the regions in Germany in which graduates are most likely to live after their transition to working life. They look at both graduates with a university degree and those who have completed vocational training. They are particularly interested in the characteristics of rural regions that attract young professionals or encourage them to stay. Amongst others, findings indicate that the choice of rural regions in particular depends on regional labor market conditions in the labor market segment relevant to a person, while other location factors tend to play a role with regard to urban regions.