Economic geography meets psychology - Professor Harry Garretsen

Date: 6 November 2024
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Professor Harry Garretsen 
Talk Title: 'Economic geography meets psychology: Motivation, results, and research agenda'
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine's College

The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Political Economy Society and the Economics and Policy Group at the Cambridge Judge Business School.

Here is copy of the PRESENTATION (please note that presentations should not be quoted or copied without the express permission of the author)

An audio recording of the presentation is here:

Talk Overview:
Economic differences across space are only partially be explained by economic determinants. One reason might be the neglect of the psychological make-up of regions and its citizens. Recent research under the heading of ‘geographical psychology’ highlights the potential of a psychological approach to enhance our understanding of the uneven spatial distribution of economic activity. To assess the value added of incorporating psychological factors, we will use the individuals’ personality traits as a prime example. It turns out that the regional variation in these traits does not only help to explain regional growth differences, but also regional differences in political outcomes and in resilience to shocks. When discussing various promising research results, the importance of a proper research design looms large with notably causality issues and underlying behavioral mechanisms being real concerns. We will also address potential policy implications and draw up a  research agenda.
 

Speaker Overview::
Harry Garretsen is Professor of International Economics & Business at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.  His main research interests are international economics & geography, and leadership and management. He serves on the editorial boards of various international journals, is active as an economic policy adviser, inter alia as a member of the Banking Council of the Dutch central bank. 
He co-directs, together with Janka Stoker, In the LEAD, a centre of expertise on leadership at the University of Groningen (https://www.rug.nl/inthelead/). His research is summarized in An Introduction to Geographical and Urban Economics: A spiky world, Cambridge University Press, 2020 (co-authored with with Steven Brakman and Charles van Marrewijk). Garretsen is a long-time collaborator of Professors Ron Martin and Pete Tyler, a.o. via a joint editorship of the Cambridge Journal of the Regions, Economy, and Society (CJRES), and his visiting positions at the Univ. of  Cambridge at the Dept. of Land Economy as well as St. Catharine’s College.