Dr. Rainer Widmann

Articles in Refereed Journals

Widmann, Rainer; Rose, Michael; Chugunova, Marina (2025). Sexual Misconduct, Accused Scientists, and Their Research, The Review of Economics and Statistics 2025, 1-29.

• Does the scientific community sanction sexual misconduct? Using a sample of scientists at U.S. universities involved in substantiated cases of sexual misconduct that became public, we find that their prior work is cited less after the allegations become known. The effect weakens with distance in the coauthorship network, suggesting that researchers primarily learn about misconduct through their peers. Among the closest peers, male authors react more strongly. In male-dominated fields, the effects on citations appear muted. Accused scientists are more likely to leave academic research, to move to non-university institutions, and to publish less.
• https://doi.org/10.1162/REST.a.1613
• Also published as: Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 22-18

Heite, Jonas; Hoisl, Karin; Widmann, Rainer (2025). Motives, Gender, and Experience: Performance Effects in Crowdsourcing Contests, Strategy Science 2025, forthcoming. DOI

• Our study examines how individual characteristics—economic versus achievement-based motives, gender, and experience—moderate the “performance revision effect” in tournament-based crowdsourcing competitions. This effect refers to a phenomenon in which contestants reduce their effort when competing against significantly higher-ability opponents. Using data from Topcoder, a leading crowdsourcing platform, we conducted a quasiexperimental study with 1,677 coders in 38 single-round matches. Our regression discontinuity design exploits Topcoder’s skill-based divisions to assess contestants’ responses to differing opponent abilities. The results confirm the performance revision effect, revealing an average performance decline of 20% when contestants face higher-ability opponents. Moreover, female and more experienced participants show a stronger response to the performance revision effect than their male and less-experienced peers. Our findings contribute to the crowdsourcing literature by highlighting the boundary conditions of the performance revision effect and by quantifying the performance implications of contest designs for different contestants, allowing platform operators to make data-driven cost-benefit decisions about contest design to mitigate performance losses.

Widmann, Rainer (2024). The Behavioral Additionality of Government Research Grants, International Journal of Industrial Organization 93. DOI

• There are different forms of public support for industrial R&D. Some attempt to increase innovation by prompting firms to undertake more challenging projects than they otherwise would. Access to a dataset from one such program, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, allows me to examine the effect of research grants on firms' patenting outcomes. My estimates suggest that a government research grant increases the propensity to file a patent application with the European Patent Office by around 12 percentage points. Stronger effects appear for more experienced firms of advanced age. Additional evidence indicates that grants induce experienced firms to develop unconventional patents and patents that draw on knowledge novel to the firm. I interpret the findings in a “exploration vs. exploitation” model, in which grants are targeted at ambitious projects that face internal competition from more conventional projects within firms. The model shows that this mechanism is more salient in experienced firms, leading to a stronger response in behavior for this group of firms.
• Also published as: Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 417

Widmann, Rainer (2023). Immigrant Inventors and Local Income Taxes: Evidence from Swiss Municipalities, Journal of Public Economics, 219 (March). DOI

• This paper studies the relationship between local personal income tax rates and the attractiveness of municipalities as residential locations for immigrant inventors in Switzerland. Exploiting sharp differences in top income tax rates across state borders, I find an elasticity of the probability that an inventor takes residence in a border municipality with respect to the top net-of-tax rate of around 3.2. Additional evidence suggests that inventors’ residential location choices are consequential for the localization of entrepreneurial activity and local knowledge spillovers.
• Also published as: Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 21-17

Discussion Papers

Widmann, Rainer (2023). The Behavioral Additionality of Government Research Grants (Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series, Rationality and Competition, 417 ).

• There are different forms of public support for industrial R&D. Some attempt to increase innovation by prompting firms to undertake more challenging projects than they would otherwise do. Access to a dataset from one such program, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, allows me to examine the effect of research grants on firms’ patenting outcomes. My estimates suggest that a government research grant increases the propensity to file a patent application with the European Patent Office by around 12 percentage points. Stronger effects appear for more experienced firms of advanced age. Additional evidence indicates that grants induce experienced firms to develop unconventional patents and patents that draw on knowledge novel to the firm. I interpret the findings in a exploration vs. exploitation model, in which grants are targeted at ambitious projects that face internal competition from more conventional projects within firms. The model shows that this mechanism is more salient in experienced firms, leading to a stronger response in behavior for this group of firms.
• https://ideas.repec.org/p/rco/dpaper/417.html
• Forthcoming in: International Journal of Industrial Organization Volume 93, March 2024, 103045

Widmann, Rainer; Rose, Michael; Chugunova, Marina (2022). Allegations of Sexual Misconduct, Accused Scientists, and Their Research, Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper, No. 22-18. DOI

• We study academic consequences of non-academic misconduct for accused researchers at US universities. Focusing on allegations of sexual misconduct, we find detrimental effects on scientific impact, productivity and career. Other researchers are less likely to cite the perpetrator’s prior work after allegations surface. The effect is absent in male-dominated fields and weakens with distance in the co-authorship network, indicating that researchers learn about allegations via their peers. Although we find that alleged perpetrators tend to remain active researchers, they are less likely to be affiliated with a university and publish fewer articles following the incident.
• Forthcoming in: The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2025, 1–29

Widmann, Rainer (2021). Immigrant Inventors and Local Income Taxes: Evidence from Swiss Municipalities, Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper, No. 21-17.

• This paper studies the relationship between local personal income tax rates and the attractiveness of municipalities as residential locations for immigrant inventors in Switzerland. Exploiting sharp differences in top income tax rates across state borders, I find an elasticity of the probability that an inventor takes residence in a municipality with respect to the top net-of-tax rate of around 4. Additional evidence suggests that inventors’ residential location choices are consequential for the localization of entrepreneurial activity and local knowledge spillovers.
• Available at SSRN
• Also published in: Journal of Public Economics, 219 (March), 104822