Society of Economic Dynamics (SED) Seoul, South Korea; Conference on Industrial Organization, Tokyo, Japan

At SED Thurk is presenting a solo work entitled "Market Effects of Patent Reform in the US Semiconductor Industry” where he study the effects of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) – an important topic in international studies. Specifically, Thurk is interested in quantifying the effects of outsourcing on firm competition, innovation rates, and consumer welfare. Thurk finds that outsourcing in the semiconductor industry requires firms to dedicate resources to protecting their intellectual property. In a world without outsourcing, firms redirect these resources towards research and development, increasing firm innovation rates, output quality, and consumer welfare. Thurk believes this is a paper that makes a solid contribution to the discipline and will likely end up in a top field journal such as RAND.

At the Conference on Industrial Organization, Tokyo Japan, Thurk is presenting work with Eugenio Miravete (Texas) and Katja Seim (Penn) in which they evaluate the welfare effects of one-size-fits-all government policy when consumers have heterogeneous tastes – an important topic when considering the welfare effects of development and growth policies.