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Richard Bräuer, PhD

Richard Bräuer, PhD
Current Position

since 5/25

Research Affiliate

Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association

Research Interests
  • applied microeconometrics
  • firm productivity
  • innovation

Richard Bräuer joined the institute as a Research Affiliate in May 2025. His research focuses on innovation and productivity at firm level as well as the aggregate effects.

Richard Bräuer received his bachelor's and master's degree from LMU Munich. He received his PhD from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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Richard Bräuer, PhD
Richard Bräuer, PhD
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Publications

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Trade Shocks, Labour Markets and Migration in the First Globalisation

Richard Bräuer Felix Kersting

in: Economic Journal, No. 657, 2024

Abstract

This paper studies the economic and political effects of a large trade shock in agriculture—the grain invasion from the Americas—in Prussia during the first globalisation (1870–913). We show that this shock led to a decline in the employment rate and overall income. However, we do not observe declining per capita income and political polarisation, which we explain by a strong migration response. Our results suggest that the negative and persistent effects of trade shocks we see today are not a universal feature of globalisation, but depend on labour mobility. For our analysis, we digitise data from Prussian industrial and agricultural censuses on the county level and combine them with national trade data at the product level. We exploit the cross-regional variation in cultivated crops within Prussia and instrument with Italian and United States trade data to isolate exogenous variation.

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Import Competition and Firm Productivity: Evidence from German Manufacturing

Richard Bräuer Matthias Mertens Viktor Slavtchev

in: World Economy, No. 8, 2023

Abstract

Abstract We study how different types of import competition affect firm productivity using firm-product data from German manufacturing (2000-2014). Competition from high-income countries causes affected domestic firms to increase their productivity and lower their prices. Oppositely, import competition from low-wage countries does not lead to firm productivity gains. Instead, domestic firms' sales and input usage decline. Our findings confirm the intuition of ladder models that the effect of competition depends on the "closeness" of competitors. They are in line with widespread X-inefficiencies throughout the economy, which firms reduce in response to competition from high-income countries.

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Working Papers

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