Starting at 3 pm, you are welcome to register and pick up your badge. Additionally, some refreshment and snacks will be served.

Join us for a dedicated lecture on economic complexity.

Keynote:

Johannes Wachs

Software in the age of Generative AI

Software is a useful sector to understand the adoption and consequences of generative AI. In this talk I will demonstrate how we can measure the use of AI in software, show its geographic distribution, and relate use of AI to productivity. The evidence suggests that AI will first benefit leading regions and individuals first, because they are more likely to use it and because experienced individuals gain more by using it.

1. Philipp Koch (EcoAustria)
   Estimating a temporally consistent measure of Economic Complexity

2. SeungHwan Kim, Elton Freitas (Toulouse School of Economics)
   Multi-scale Economic Complexity: Topology, Measurement, and Fragility Across Levels of Aggregation

3. Bhatraju Jithin Sree (Centre For Development Studies (CDS, JNU, India)
   Micro-foundations for Economic Complexity: Firm Complexity and Productivity

4. Petar Jolakoski (Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
   Occupation-Industry Complexity as a New Dimension of Economic Complexity

1. Fabian Braesemann, Marc-Antoine Willy (University of Oxford)
   Has AI killed online outsourcing? A large-scale data analysis of how AI is reshaping the global geography of digital service outsourcing

2. Jonathan Zöllinger, Paul Povel (University of Oxford)
   Generative agent-based modelling of minimum wage

3. Mohammed Ashraf Mian (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
   Diagnosing Innovation Constraints in Economic Complexity: Capability Deficits and Conversion Deficits Across Countries

4. Abhishek Krishnan (The University of British Columbia)
   Industrial Policy Portfolios, Economic Complexity, And Diversification: Evidence from a Cross-Country Analysis)

5. Thomas Bennett (University of Oxford)
   AI and the Collective Adaptation of Legal Systems: Evidence from Statutory Citation Networks

1. Sachin Varghese Titty (Centre for Development Studies Trivandrum)
   Capability Formation in India’s Electronics Manufacturing: Insights from Economic Complexity and Competitive Federalism

2. Fabian Braesemann, Franziskus Schorr (University of Oxford)
   Who Gets Funded and Who Succeeds? The Relationship Between Founder Age and Startup Success

3. Ozgur Keles (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
   Capability Compression and Combinatorial Creativity: How Software-Defined Manufacturing Bypasses the Network Dependence of Complex Innovation

Keynote:

İbrahim Tuğrul Çınar

From Technological Potential to Implementation Capacity: Institutions in the Complexity-Relatedness Framework

While technological complexity and relatedness have shown to be robust predictors of regional diversification, existing frameworks treat institutional quality as an external contextual factor. We address this limitation by integrating institutional capacity into the analytical core of the complexity-relatedness approach. Specifically, we develop an institution-conditioned composite index that constructs; a synthetic technological capability from complexity and relatedness via an arithmetic mean, and then, aggregates this component with institutional quality using a geometric mean, thereby penalising imbalances across technological capabilities and governance. Our aim is to test whether institutional capacity jointly shapes where and how regions enter new technological domains and whether it magnifies the economic returns to capability. Using OECD REGPAT patent applications data at NUTS-2 (IPC 4-digit) combined with the European Quality of Government Index, we benchmark our index against the two-dimensional complexity-relatedness framework in predictive models of technological entry and in assessments of medium-term GDP, GVA, and employment rate growth across 235 EU regions. The proposed index consistently outperforms the two-dimensional baseline in predicting entry and economic performance. Substantively, regions with higher complexity, stronger relatedness, and better institutions are more likely to develop new technological specialisations, with nearly a fivefold increase in entry odds. Regions scoring higher on this tripartite capability also experience faster medium-term growth in GDP, GVA, and employment rate. Findings demonstrate that institutional capacity is not merely contextual. It amplifies the returns to complexity and relatedness, providing a methodological upgrade to the literature and a practical tool for Smart Specialisation and regional innovation policy.

1. Manuel Gómez Zaldívar (Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico)
   Diffusion of Municipal Manufacturing Specialization: Evidence from Mexico’s municipalities, 2004–2024

2. Vieri Calogero (Università degli Studi Milano Bicocca)
   Up the Smile Curve: What Advantages for European Regions?

3. Angelo Vozzella (IMT Lucca) Relatedness Drives Divergence: Competitive Relatedness and the Core-Periphery Dynamics of Technological Innovation in U.S. Cities

4. Alex Gusev (CEMI RAS)
   Investment projects and regional structural complexity

5. Amin Khiali-Miab (IUST, Iran)
   An Interactive Planning Tool for Coordinated Sustainable Development

1. Umut Yilmaz Cetinkaya (TOBB University of Economics and Technology (TOBB ETU))
   European research collaboration networks and regional entry into related tech

2. Nurten Kaynarca (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)Exploring Sources of Dynamism in Production Networks

3. Taylan Yenilmez (Istanbul University)
   Destination-Specific Complexity and Structural Transformation

4. Camilo Pena-Ramirez (Universidad de Playa Ancha (UPLA), Chile)
   Detecting Innovation Regimes in the Global South: A Clustering and Multigroup Structural Equation Modeling Approach to the Inverted Funnel Framework

5. Nader Alkathiri (KAPSARC)
   Economic Complexity and Global Income Convergence

1. María Guadalupe Montiel-Hernandez (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo)
   Sustainable Exports in Mexico: Green diversification and economic complexity

2. Quinten de Wettinck (KU Leuven)
   Estimating Product-Level Sustainability Impacts from International Trade Data Using Double Machine Learning

3. Fernando Gomez Zaldívar (Tecnológico de Monterrey) Nearshoring and the Green Transition: Industrial Diversification Opportunities for Mexico

4. Demet Topal Koc (Kirklareli University), Şükrü Can Demirtaş (Yildiz Technical University)
   Structure and Evolution of the Global Critical Minerals Trade Network