CESifo Network

The purpose of this conference is to facilitate discussion of ongoing research which studies policy relevant questions related to labor economics. Reflecting the breadth of modern labor economics, the scope of relevant topics is broad, ranging from employment and compensation, immigration and migration, family and gender issues, inequality and poverty, and health and crime.

The conference takes place on 29 & 30 May at CESifo.

Gordon B. Dahl is a labor economist whose research focuses on families, public policies and the labor market in both the U.S. and throughout Europe. 

In recent work, Professor Dahl and his coauthors (Helmut Rainer and, Leander Andres, Stefan Bauernschuster, and Simone Schuller) study the impact of birthright citizenship on youth crime. 

Gordon Dahl is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. He is the Area Director for Labor Economics for the CESifo Research Network, a Research Professor at the ifo Institute, and a CESifo Research Fellow.

At CESifo, Philipp-Leo Mengel will work on the financing dimension of Europe’s innovation gap, with a particular focus on venture capital, start-up scale-up, and barriers to cross-border capital allocation. Building on earlier editions of the IEP-CESifo Innovation Report, which diagnosed Europe’s “middle-technology trap,” the 2026 report examines why young innovative firms in Europe scale less successfully than their U.S. counterparts.

Philipp-Leo Mengel is a PhD candidate in Economics at Bocconi University, affiliated with the Institute for European Policymaking, and a contributor to the annual EU Innovation Report led by Daniel Gros and Clemens Fuest.

While at CESifo, Kristian Behrens will present and continue his work on a recent project that documents and tries to understand the drivers in the changes in the distribution of jobs in all major urban areas in the US between 1990 and 2020 (“The evolution of the residential-employment mix within U.S. cities”, joint with Julien Martin, Florian Mayneris, and Farid Toubal).

Kristian’s research mainly focuses on urban economics (spatial sorting, agglomeration economies), regional economics (spatial distribution of economic activity, changes in the spatial structure of cities and regions), international trade (impacts of trade integration, trade frictions, transport costs), and theoretical developments in monopolistic competition.

The CESifo Working Paper Series offers a wide range of economic research across diverse topics. Here are the papers that recently garnered the most attention, based on download figures.

Can artificial intelligence (AI) revive the long-declining productivity of European firms and boost the continent's economic growth? How well are EU economies positioned to leverage AI while mitigating risks such as job displacement and algorithmic collusion? The answers largely depend on the business ecosystem, the speed of adoption, and – ultimately – balanced regulation and policy: Upskilling workers, strengthening digital infrastructure, and deepening the EU single market are some of the priorities discussed in this Forum.