Colloquium: On the Relationsships between Institutions, Innovation and Regional Development

Abstract:
This dissertation comprises four essays exploring how structural factors shape political and economic outcomes. The first essay examines the role of innovative assets that lack physical form –intangibles –on the wage inequality. A cross-country analysis shows that the intangible intensity positively affects between-firm wage inequality, due to their distinctive characteristics, such as scalability and the competitive advantages they confer on R&D intensive firms. The second essay investigates the most widely used form of intangible capital: patents. Specifically, it assesses the impact of knowledge complementarities in collaborative patents between East and West German inventors from 1980 to 1989 on the innovative and economic development in West Germany before and after reunification. Departing from the realm of economic analysis, the third essay explores the political implications of knowledge. Precisely, underground press activities in East Germany serve as a proxy for (political) opposition to assess its effects on collective mobilization during the 1989 revolution and on individual political views in the first democratic elections of 1990. The fourth essay analyzes how deep-rooted historical determinants of population diversity shape contemporary self-entrepreneurship among second-generation Americans. Together, these essays highlight the interplay between institutions, knowledge, and innovation across regions and time.