Marta Korczak will defend her thesis "Essays in Empirical and Theoretical Public Economics"
This thesis comprises two independent essays in empirical and theoret ical Public Economics and one in experimental economics, studying the impact of a government reform on regional development, the consequences of the digital revolution on public scrutiny, and the preferences of young PhD economists for various characteristics of the academic positions.
The first chapter examines the socio-economic consequences in munic ipalities that lost capital status following the 1999 administration reform in Poland. Using micro-econometric methods, I study the impact of a change in the administrative status of Polish municipalities on outcomes in municipal finances, labor market, number of firms, migration, demo graphics, and local public goods. Despite receiving net positive municipal revenues, places that lost capital status experienced a significant drop in female employment rate, followed by a fall in fertility rate, while the effect on migration is negative but not robust.
The second chapter studies the consequences of increased separability of news and entertainment on public scrutiny, and consequently, politi cians’ efforts. I developed a political accountability model with voters, an incumbent, and media producers. I find that when entertainment is favored over news, the increased substitutability leads to less incumbent effort and lower welfare for voters. However, a very high demand for news might motivate a bad incumbent to exert too much effort, boosting her re-election probabilities.
The third chapter, co-authored with Maria Cubel and Christina Hauser, studies the preferences of final-stage PhD students and job market can didates from leading European economics departments to assess whether the characteristics of academic jobs contribute to gender gap in academia. Results from the online hypothetical choice experiment show that respon dents are willing to forgo up to 23% of their annual salary to avoid an additional Top-5 publication requirement. However, we find no statisti cally significant differences between men and women in their willingness topay for less demanding tenure standards.
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