WELCOME!

I am an applied microeconomist with main research interests in environmental and labor economics. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Vienna. I received my PhD in Economics from the University of Mannheim in June 2023.

Find my CV here and feel free to contact me at beate[dot]thies[at]univie.ac.at.

WORKING PAPERS

Air Quality, Knowledge Worker Performance and Adaptation: Evidence from GitHub (with Felix Holub)

[Abstract | Paper | Podcast The Visible Hand]

Highly skilled knowledge workers are important drivers of innovation and long-run growth. We study how air quality affects productivity and work patterns among these workers, using data from GitHub, the world's largest coding platform. We combine panel data on daily output, working hours, and task choices for a sample of 27,000 software developers across four continents during the period 2014-2019 with information on concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). An increase in air pollution reduces output, measured by the number of total actions performed on GitHub per day, and induces developers to adapt by working on easier tasks and by ending work activity earlier. To compensate, they work more on weekends following high-pollution days, which suggests adverse impacts on their work-life-balance. The decline in output arises even at concentrations in line with current regulatory standards in the EU and US. Exposure to unusually high PM2.5 levels relative to the city-by-season-by-day-of-week specific mean reduces daily output quantity by 4%, which translates into a loss in output value by approximately $8 per developer.

Prenatal Exposure to Air Pollution and the Development of Socio-Emotional Skills (Updated!)

[Abstract | Paper]

Socio-emotional skills are important predictors for life outcomes like education, health and earnings. This paper provides causal evidence on the effect of in-utero exposure to air pollution on socio-emotional ability in childhood. Using thermal inversions to address endogeneity in pollution exposure and data from a representative household survey in Germany, I find that an increase in fine particulate matter concentration by 1 μg/m3 during the prenatal period increases neuroticism and internalizing behavior at age 5-10 by 13% and 18% of a standard deviation, respectively. This implies that affected children are less emotionally stable and suggests adverse impacts on mental health. The effects on emotional stability are more pronounced than impacts on measures of cognitive ability. Back-of-the-envelope computations indicate that a standard deviation increase in air pollution reduces adult earnings by 0.23%-0.74% through its impact on socio-emotional ability. These results provide a better understanding of how in-utero exposure to air pollution generates adverse long-run effects and what type of interventions might be effective in mitigating them.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Disrupted Rhythms, Disrupted Code? Daylight Savings Time, Circadian Rhythm, and Knowledge Worker Performance (with Felix Holub and Ingo Isphording)

[Abstract]

We study how circadian rhythm disruptions affect the performance of highly skilled knowledge workers. Using data from GitHub, we build a panel of daily output and work patterns of almost 50,000 professional software developers. We exploit transitions into and out of daylight saving time (DST) as exogenous shocks to the circadian rhythms. Despite flexible schedules allowing partial adjustment, developers’ output declines by 5.4% immediately after the DST spring transition. This shock also generates spillover effects within developer teams: Developers outside North America who collaborate with North American peers experience a 3.9% drop in output after the U.S. spring transition. To explore the impact of chronic circadian misalignments, we classify developers into morning and evening types, based on their temporal activity profiles. Morning types outperform evening types by 14% in output quantity and 2% in quality. Because prevailing social schedules are more aligned with natural rhythms of morning-types, this performance gap points to adverse impacts of a chronic circadian misalignment. Our findings highlight substantial economic costs of circadian rhythm disruptions in the knowledge economy and underscore the need for policy and workplace strategies that mitigate their effects.

Spillover Effects of Local Environmental Shocks in Global Networks of Knowledge Workers (with Felix Holub)

RESEARCH FIELDS

Environmental Economics
Labor Economics