BIGPROD’s official kick-off meeting took place at the Maastricht University Brussels Campus on 22 January 2020. The goal of the BIGPROD project is to extend existing econometric approaches to productivity, such as the Crepon-Duguet-Mairesse (CDM) model, with theoretically sound ‘Big data’ measures that are operationalised, validated through pilots and communicated to relevant stakeholders. This is achieved by uncovering the origins of the productivity slowdown in most Western economies. Ba...
Technology has been blamed for a lot recently. Automation and artificial intelligence have supposedly led to substantial job losses, reduced bargaining power for workers and increased discrimination. It is even blamed for growing income and wealth inequality and, as a result, the presidency of Donald Trump, Brexit, the rise of far-right populism in Europe and the spectre of climate change....
“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not the winning but the taking part.” So goes the famous saying by Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympic Games. But does the same apply for competitive research grants? UNU-MERIT’s Fabiana Visentin joins co-authors Charles Ayoubi and Michele Pezzoni to report on their study, which finds that simply taking part in an application process has a positive effect on researchers’ publication rates and on the average impact factor of th...