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Public School Options and Equity of Access: Marc-Antoine Châtelain

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Portrait of Marc-Antoine Châtelain
Marc-Antoine Châtelain Photo: A. Macedo

In the past, society championed public schools for their ability to bring together students of different socio-economic backgrounds. Do specialty programs like French Immersion threaten the social cohesion that resulted from this mixing?

In his job market paper, The Provision of Public Choice Options in Mixed Public-Private Education Systems: Evidence from British Columbia, Marc-Antoine Châtelain, a PhD candidate with the Department of Economics explored these questions while investigating the impact of French Immersion programs on both students who opted into the programs, and those who didn’t.

“In North America, there’s been an increase in choice alternatives to traditional public schools,” he explained. “For example, in Canada, French Immersion programs have become increasingly popular, and in the United States, charter schools and magnet schools have seen similar growth. This increase in school choice within the public sector comes with some positive aspects, such as improved school quality and tailored programs that help students learn new skills, but inequality is a great concern in our societies today, and education systems have a role in addressing it and in trying to foster a more equitable society.” [Read more…]

Research, Development, and the Paths to Innovation: Álvaro Pinzón

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Portrait of Álvaro Pinzón
Álvaro Pinzón Photo: A. Macedo

If Colombia wants to increase productivity in the country, then it needs policies that help high-productivity companies invest in research and development to innovate. According to research conducted by Álvaro Pinzón, a PhD candidate with the Department of Economics, there is a place for government to support innovation by removing barriers to investment in R&D, especially in high-productivity firms.

“The main finding of my paper is that in Colombia’s manufacturing industry, firms are not allocating R&D resources efficiently. There are ways to allocate those resources better, and by doing so, the aggregate productivity in the country and the aggregate output will increase by a huge percentage,” said Pinzón. “We have resources. Why are we not catching up? One answer is allocation. We need to reduce the distortions that prevent that efficient allocation from happening.” [Read more…]

Measuring the Impact of Mentoring for Entrepreneurs: Mohaddeseh Heydari Nejad

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Portrait of Mohaddeseh Heydari Nejad
Mohaddeseh Heydari Nejad Photo: A. Macedo

Entrepreneurship is a key driver of economic growth, as it boosts innovation, creates jobs, and improves productivity. Mentorship is crucial to entrepreneurial success, providing valuable guidance and support. To commercialize their ideas, entrepreneurs must navigate multiple potential strategies, and mentors help refine these choices. The Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is a global mentorship-driven startup accelerator. The mission of the CDL is to advance the commercialization of scientific innovations to benefit humanity. Its core idea is that the obstacle to transforming excellent science and innovation into successful businesses is a failure in the market for high quality judgment.

Mohaddeseh Heydari Nejad, a PhD candidate with the Department of Economics, examined this unique focus on mentorship within the CDL’s program. Her job market paper, A Structural Model of Mentorship in Startup Accelerators: Matching, learning, and value creation (JMP), examines how mentorship improves entrepreneurial outcomes.

“Mentorship provided by experienced entrepreneurs, potential investors, industry experts, and scientists is crucial for entrepreneurial success,” Heydari Nejad explained. “Using data from the Creative Destruction Lab, I developed a novel structural model of mentorship to study the mechanisms through which mentorship generates value: the direct effect of improving startup quality and the screening effect of identifying high-quality startups. In this model, mentorship improves startup quality while also enabling mentors to learn about the underlying quality of startups through interactions, helping them allocate resources more effectively.” [Read more…]

Policies that Created an Industrialized and Growing Vietnam: Duc Nguyen

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Portrait of Duc Nguyen
Duc Nguyen Photo: A. Macedo

Vietnam has grown significantly over the last three decades. Since 1990 its GDP has doubled. Macro development economist Duc Nguyen, a PhD candidate with the Department of Economics, investigated what policies the country has pursued to achieve this growth, and what lessons other countries learn from Vietnam’s reforms. His investigations, captured in the job market paper Openness to Foreign Firms, Industrialization and Aggregate Growth, were deeply rooted in an understanding of the role of market reforms in economic development.

“Before 1990 Vietnam was a totally Communist centrally planned economy with no market,” Nguyen explained. “People were very poor, there wasn’t enough food for example. You can’t even say that food was very expensive because there was no market there, there wasn’t even enough supply. After 1990, when they opened the economy, opportunities increased significantly. Many of my relatives benefited and everyone, regardless of their socioeconomic status, saw opportunities and gained a lot from that early period of reform.” [Read more…]

Understanding China’s 5G Standardization: Myeongwan Kim

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Portrait of PhD candidate Myeongwan Kim
Myeongwan Kim Photo: A. Macedo

Standardization ensures technologies work together. As innovations continue, standardization continues to ensure the integration of hardware and software and, since the advent of smartphones, it has become easier and easier to take for granted the synchronous use of mobile networks, operating systems, and apps. Myeongwan Kim, a PhD candidate with the Department of Economics, has been researching how the Chinese government has been advancing specific homegrown technologies toward the international standard-setting organization (SSO) that sets these standards for compatibility in mobile communications. His findings are described in the paper Exporting State-Promoted Technologies and the Direction of Global Innovation: Evidence from 5G Standardization.

“The Chinese government provides guidance on which specific technologies to promote by publishing policy documents, essentially white papers, and ensures all Chinese firms participating in standard setting comply with this guidance,” Kim explained. “They meet all Chinese firms before each standardization meeting to share their political priorities and ensure compliance. If firms don’t comply, they face punishment, as seen with Lenovo in 2016. This shows that regardless of whether firms are private or state-owned, they must follow the government’s political objectives in the area of 5G standardization.” [Read more…]

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