#3 GREDEG Apéro Young Seminar

Following the success of the first editions of the “GREDEG Apéro Young” seminar series, we are pleased to announce a new seminar designed for GREDEG doctoral and postdoctoral students.

A quick reminder of how it works:once a month, we meet to share work in progress, exchange feedback in a relaxed setting, and get to know each other better. Each session last one hour and followed by an informal aperitivo at GREDEG - bring your own food and drinks!

We started with this pilot phase from June to September, before officially launching the series in October. 
During this pilot phase, we will host a few extra sessions to get the series started and give more people the chance to present.

3rd session: Marie Sciaccitano

Sessions will take place at GREDEG, in room Picasso.

You can sign up for a presentation slot by scanning the QR code on the poster. 
We hope the GREDEG Apéro Young Seminar Series will become a fun and useful space for scientific exchange, with an apero-friendly spirit.

The organising team
Gabriele, Gregory, Marie, Roberta

Marie Sciaccitano 
23 June, 16:30 
GREDEG Picasso Room

Title: Banned in China, Born in Europe: The waste import ban and Europe’s plastics eco-innovation
Abstract
We study a novel channel of policy-induced innovation operating through global environmental interdependence. In 2018, China abruptly banned most imports of foreign
waste, disrupting global material flows and forcing exporting countries to internalize disposal constraints. Exploiting this policy as an exogenous shock and leveraging cross-country variation in pre-ban exposure, we examine how tightening disposal constraints affect plastics-related innovation in Europe. Using patent data for EU member states and Great Britain from 2009 to 2021, we develop a text-based approach to identify environmentally oriented plastics innovations that standard classifications poorly capture. We find that the shock reallocated inventive effort economy-wide toward plastics-related eco-innovations. Within that category, patenting activity shifted away from the adoption of foreign technologies and toward new domestic inventions, reflecting the increased need for locally adapted solutions, with stronger responses where waste pressures became more binding. This evidence highlights how constraints imposed abroad can reshape not only the level but also the origin and direction of domestic technological change, with implications for countries’ positions in the global technology race.