WELCOME!

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Vienna. Prior to that, I did my PhD in Economics at the University of Mannheim. I am an applied microeconomist, using quasi-experimental methods to study policy-relevant questions in environmental and labor economics.

I am a co-organizer of the Vienna Applied Micro Economics Network.

Find my CV here or send me an email: 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]

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 (Revise and Resubmit, JAERE)

[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

Teleworking and the Environment (with Omar Bamieh and Lennart Ziegler)

[Abstract | Project Website]

We study the effects of work from home (WFH) on commuting, vehicle registrations and the environment. Using administrative microdata from Austria on the annual number of days workers work from home, we calculate work from home potential for the full population. Exploiting the unexpected shock to WFH adoption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we compare workers with high WFH potential to those with low WFH potential before and after 2020, in a difference-in-differences (DiD) design. We find that WFH increases commuting distances; however, because workers took fewer trips to the office, on net WFH reduced yearly kilometers commuted by the average worker. However, in the absence of the rebound effect on commuting distances the reduction in commuting, and CO2 emissions, would have been larger. Linking regional data on vehicle registrations, we further show that new vehicle registrations decline in regions with a larger share of workers with high WFH potential. Using data on fine particulate matter concentrations (PM2.5) at the municipal level, we find that air quality improved in municipalities with a high share of workers with remote work potential relative to municipalities with a lower share. We also find positive spillover effects of neighboring municipalities’ remote work potential on the focal municipality’s air quality, consistent with less frequent commuting as the main mechanism driving the beneficial effects of WFH on air quality.

The Effect of Takeovers on Knowledge Worker Productivity (with Andras Danis and Evgeny Gushchin)
Winner of the Charles River Associates Award For the Best Paper on Corporate Finance (WFA 2026)

[Abstract]

We study how takeover announcements affect the productivity of knowledge workers employed by target firms. Using data from GitHub to measure individual work output and a stacked event study specification, we find that work output declines by 14% following takeover announcements. We also find suggestive evidence that code quality deteriorates. The effect on quantity is more pronounced for acquisitions associated with a larger risk of layoffs, specifically within-industry takeovers. Also, the results are weaker in states where takeovers are likely to be motivated by the wish to acquire skilled employees. These patterns are consistent with stress and anxiety induced by takeover uncertainty. The findings highlight a previously under-explored channel through which takeovers can be costly for acquirers. More broadly, the welfare effects of takeovers might extend beyond capital and product markets to include non-trivial productivity and mental health costs for affected workers.

Productivity Spillovers in International Teams: Insights from GitHub Activity Data (with Felix Holub and Ingo Isphording)

[Abstract]

Identifying productivity spillovers – peer effects – among high-skilled knowledge workers is notoriously difficult, due to lack of measurement of immediate effort and productivity, selective peer formation and simultaneity issues. Based on time-stamped GitHub activity from professional software developers contributing to collaborative projects, we identify endogenous peer effects in knowledge worker productivity through exogenous productivity shocks to varying shares of co-workers. Transitions into Daylight Saving Time (DST) by North-American co-workers lead to sizable reductions in productivity, measurable in quantity and quality of actions. These productivity shocks spill over to non-affected co-workers, indicating strong complementarities in software production. The spillovers are not uniform but driven by more experienced collaborators, particularly those in managerial or reviewer roles, and primarily borne by inexperienced focal developers.

RESEARCH FIELDS

Environmental Economics
Labor Economics