Research projects of the department
Project participants: Prof. Hans Manner (project leader), Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Rauch (University of Heidelberg), Martin Schlesinger
Funding body: FWF
Funding amount and duration: € 168,476, 3 years (2024-2027)
Summary:
Why are some countries rich and others poor? This has been a key question in economics for centuries and one of the motivating questions of the subject. Many factors determining economic development have been described in the literature. This project will add to this debate by studying development in Styria, a region that experienced rapid growth in the 20th century.
In the short period between the mid-19th and the mid-20th century, the state of Styria developed from an agricultural, remote and poor region to an industrial economic powerhouse. This research project will develop a new dataset of historic Styria to describe and quantify this process. A mid-19th century social survey conducted by Georg Goeth under Archduke Johann that gives a rich and disaggregated picture of the economic situation in this part of the world will be digitized. This dataset will be one of the earliest digitized economic censuses in the German speaking world. The project will study the role of the railway and of mining in this process, using the rich variation in both provided in this setting of 19th century Styria. While the economic literature has emphasized that both transport infrastructure and mining help economic development, it appears reasonable to believe that the presence of both leads to particularly successful industrialization. The setting of the economic development of Styria provides useful geographical variation that enables us to test this hypothesis. Insights on the complementarity between natural resources and transport infrastructure are expected to hold useful lessons for understanding economic development and economic growth more generally in today's world. Such findings could be an important contribution in the economic literature and in policy circles related to planning economic development. Furthermore, the historical documents that are planned to be digitize have not yet been studied economically, and thus the data digitization part of this project will provide new information that has not yet been studied in detail. The datasets and scans will be made public, and they may find much interdisciplinary, academic interest, from historians, political scientists or sociologists.
Project management: Prof. Christoph Kuzmics
Staff employed from project funds: Jasmina Karabegovic, Elshan Garashli
Funding body: Austrian National Bank (OeNB)
Funding amount and duration: € 149,000, 3 years (1.10.2023 - 30.9.2026)
Summary:
Communication is key to successful economic and social interaction. Communication allows individuals to share information and to coordinate their activities. Yet, people also sometimes lie, or misrepresent the truth, for personal gain. We propose to explore the (theoretical) limits to (the value of) communication in general strategic environments such as can be found in many areas of economics, such as political lobbying, communication within a firm, or even the communication of a central bank. We are interested in identifying robust communication, that is communication that can arise in strategic situations somewhat independently of how much the two communicating parties know about the exact nature of each other's ultimate goals.
Project participants: Prof. Jörn Kleinert (project leader), Wiltrud Mölzer, Clara Venglarova and two project assistants
Funded by: FWF
Summary:
The project documents market evolution from 1850 to 1950 through the analysis of newspaper job advertisements using advanced NLP techniques. Its aim is to trace the dynamics of employment relations and understand how factors such as regional outreach, sector focus, qualifications requirements, and employment characteristics have changed over time.
Wiltrud Mölzer presented the team's research on the historical Austrian labor market at the 5th International Data Power Conference in Graz (September 4-6, 2024). The presentation entitled "The Emergence of a Differentiated Labor Market in Austria" particularly focused on the role of private job agencies as early data brokers in the 19th century. These agents who, for a fee, connected job seekers with employers, thus gaining a significant position in the labor market, are closely examined. Drawing from over a million pages of historical newspapers from the Austrian National Library archives, information was extracted that illustrates the agencies' operations and explains their impact on the labor market. Their once-dominant role, the increasing criticism of their unfair practices, and the societal pressure to establish public job agencies to address market failures are discussed. Hence, the analysis offers a historical viewpoint on the beginnings of data trade within labor markets and the effects of regulatory interventions on job mediation.
Project participants: Tobias Eibinger and Riccarda Rosenball, University of Graz (project management), Andrea Weber (Central European University Vienna), Jos van Ommeren (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Funding body: Province of Styria and Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics at the University of Graz
Funding amount and duration: € 10,000, 2 years (2024-2026)
Summary:
The research project aims to investigate the effects of the commuting behavior of women and men after the birth of their first child on the gender pay gap in Austria. It is emphasized that the gender pay gap increases significantly, especially after the birth of the first child, as women often move to jobs closer to home in order to better fulfill family responsibilities. These changes in job choice and the associated reduced flexibility can contribute to an increase in pay inequality between the sexes.
It is planned to carry out detailed analyses using microdata from the employment statistics and register census of Statistics Austria in order to investigate gender-specific differences in commuting behavior and their influence on the gender pay gap. The importance of the topic for Styria is particularly emphasized, as Graz, as a major central city, has a large volume of commuter traffic, which is fed by both urban and rural areas.
Comment: Within the scope of this project, registry research is carried out in the sense of and on the basis of the Research Organisation Act (Forschungsorganisationsgesetz FOG).
Project participants: From the University of Graz Birgit Bednar-Friedl.
She will lead Work Package 4 Monitoring and Assessment. The specific tasks are (i) to develop methods and tools for the cost effectiveness analysis of wetland Nature Based Solutions, (ii) to derive methods for and conduct valuation of non-market goods such as ecosystem services (carbon storage, recreational values), and (iii) to design market solutions for the financing of such nature based solutions.
Projectpartners: Aarhus University (lead, DK), TU Eindoven (NL), Helmholtz Zentrum (DE), Brandenburg Technical University (DE), Politechnical University Milan (IT), ICLEI (DE), National Research Council of Italy (IT), Polytechnical University Catalunya (ES), Uni Lublin (PL), Warsaw University of Life Sciences (PL).
Funding agency: Horizon Europe, Innovation Action, Call HORIZON-CL6-2024-BIODIV-02
Funding amount/share of the University of Graz and duration: € 429,750, 3 years (2025-2028)
Summary:
Climate change is exacerbating the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts worldwide. Despite this pressing reality, there exists a widespread underestimation of drought risk among the European population. In this critical context, wetlands emerge as a promising solution for enhancing water management and mitigating the impact of severe droughts. Despite the increasing recognition of wetlands as nature-based solution (NBS), there remains a lack of comprehensive quantitative evidence and understanding regarding their cost-effectiveness under different European conditions. The objective of the NBS4Drought initiative is to systematically demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of NBS in sustainable water management, particularly in alleviating the impacts of extreme droughts. The outcomes will underscore the efficiency, replicability, and sustainability of NBS across diverse regions, furnishing stakeholders with compelling technical, economic, and social evidence to include NBS in climate change adaptation strategies.
Project participants: From the University of Graz Birgit Bednar-Friedl.
She will lead the project. Specific tasks include the overall methodological framework, including scenario development, costing methods, storyline approaches; macroeconomic and distributional assessment of the cost of climate change with and without adaptation.
Projectpartners: University of Life Sciences Vienna, International Institute of Applied System Analysis, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), University of Technology Vienna, Joanneum Research, Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO), Environmental Agency, TRAFFIX, Climate Change Center Austria.
Funding agencies: Klima- und Energiefonds, Bundesministerium für Soziales, Gesundheit, Pflege und Konsumentenschutz, Arbeiterkammer
Funding amount/share of the University of Graz and duration: € 246,741, 2 years (2025-2026)
Summary:
Ten years after the release of the first assessment of the economic cost of climate change for Austria, this project will provide an update on the so-called cost of inaction. Building on the most recent climatic and socio-economic scenarios of the latest Assessment of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), substantially updated sectoral impact assessment models in the fields of agriculture, forestry, water supply, settlements and infrastructure, energy, tourism, ecosystems will be used to assess both the direct and compound risks of climate change for Austria today, 2050 and 2080. The project will contribute three key innovations: (i) consistent adaptation scenarios, comprising different types, intensities and scopes of implementation, will be developed and assessed within the project; (ii) a storyline approach will be used to assess low likelihood but high impact events; (iii) distributional consequences of both climate change impacts and adaptation will be assessed, considering differences in income (influencing the adaptive capacity), age and gender (influencing vulnerability) and location (influencing exposure).
Project participants: Tobias Eibinger und Riccarda Rosenball, Universität Graz (project management)
Project partners (advisory role): Andrea Weber (Central European University Wien), Jos van Ommeren (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Funding agencies: Austrian Academy of Sciences, Call Data:Research:Austria
Funding amount and duration: € 298.380,55, 2 years (2025-2027)
Summary:
The child penalty – the reduction in earnings and career progression that women experience following childbirth – is a persistent issue contributing to gender inequality. A key yet underexplored channel is the gender commuting gap. After childbirth, women often shorten commutes due to childcare responsibilities, necessitating career adjustments that limit long-term earnings potential. We examine Austria’s gender commuting gap using difference-in-differences techniques to analyze post-childbirth commuting decisions, gendered career adjustments, and the impact of childcare availability. We hypothesize that mothers disproportionately choose lowerpaying, flexible jobs closer to home, intensifying wage gaps. Our findings aim to inform policies to reduce commuting constraints.
Comment: Within the scope of this project, registry research is carried out in the sense of and on the basis of the Research Organisation Act (Forschungsorganisationsgesetz FOG).