Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Luuk Schmitz

Joshua Cova @joshcova.bsky.social · 15d

🚨 Introducing CommonsCorpus: a comprehensive, annotated and machine-readable database of UK House of Commons' speeches, containing speakers' party-political ID and socio-demographic information. Joint work w/ ➡️ @irenegermani.bsky.social Available here: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...

dataverse.harvard.edu

3 9

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · 16d

This comes on top of a longstanding move among big tech firms to vertically (re)integrate by bankrolling custom sillicon. CapEx and vertical integration as the end game of erecting ever-higher walls around the garden? www.fabricatedknowledge.com/p/the-tech-m...

The Tech Monopolies Go Vertical

Some classic (non-aggregation) monopolization!

www.fabricatedknowledge.com

3

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · 16d

The emerging cross-shareholding and concentration in the U.S. chipmaking/AI stack is a big open question in polecon. Today's announcement comes on top of Nvidia's $5bn investment in Intel. www.ft.com/content/d3ca...

Nvidia to invest up to $100bn in OpenAI

Partnership will support huge build-out of data centres for artificial intelligence

www.ft.com

1 1 4

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Aug 1

In H1 2025, AI CapEx added more to US GDP growth than consumer spending (the job market meanwhile is slowing down). At what point should we label this as overaccumulation? sherwood.news/markets/the-...

The AI spending boom is eating the US economy

AI-linked spending has fueled more growth in the first half of 2025 on average than US consumer spending....

sherwood.news

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Jul 28

I'm not normally one for doomposting, but today's politics feel like the 1890s (robber barons), 1930s (rising fascism, appeasing autocrats), and 1970s (stagflation, new general purpose technologies) are merging into one ugly timelime.

1 2

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · May 30

Very thrilled and more than a little humbled with this! Thank you to the jury and the editors, and to my co-author☺️

JEPP Journal @jeppjournal.bsky.social · May 30

🥁 And the JEPP Best Paper Prize 2024 goes to... 🥁

@timoseidl.bsky.social‬ and @luukschmitz.bsky.social for their paper 'Moving on to not fall behind? Technological sovereignty and the ‘geo-dirigiste’ turn in EU industrial policy' 🎉

Read the jury statement 👇
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

3 15

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Apr 3

Thank you! Glad you found it useful.

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Apr 3

Wow, thanks for sharing! The fascinating thing for Europe is that its predicament (stuck in diversified quality production, lack of scale in platforms) is now turning out to be its strength: a strong manufacturing base and coercion power over U.S. tech platforms.

1 2

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Apr 2

The really important fine print in today's tariff announcement: if companies can prove that the material origin of their goods
is within the value chain definitions of the USMCA, their trade is exempt from tariffs. Make Mexico and Canada great again?

Exceptions to the Trump tariffs announced today.

1

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Apr 2

But even here the story is complex. In response to Covid and Russia's invasion, supply chains have increasingly regionalized to cushion (geo)political shocks. Companies have developed all sorts of strateiges to circumvent sanctions and export restrictions - no doubt they will try the same now.

1 3

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Apr 2

Meanwhile, most firms will suffer from either paying the tariffs or switching to domestic suppliers. But these are not the companies in Trump's orbit. Even if they manage to coordinate, it's questionable whether they'd be heard.

1 2

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Apr 2

For why business hasn't (yet) pushed back, I think it's important to note that the pains and gains aren't equally dispersed. Big tech's 'asset-light' model feeds on cross-sectoral control more than high profits. Their extraction of information-rents makes them less vulnerable to tariffs.

2 1 6

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Apr 2

Super interesting thread! Trump's strategy seems to favor unilateral instruments (tariffs, withholding funding) that create a patrimonial relationship between business and the state. It empowers his whims, and he seems set on pushing this through even at the cost of economic ruination.

1 6

Reposted by Luuk Schmitz

Joshua Cova @joshcova.bsky.social · Mar 14

Happy to introduce ItaParlCorpus: a large, annotated, machine-readable dataset of Italian parliamentary speeches 🇮🇹📊. Covering 1948-2022, it includes 2.4M speeches, 470M words from 5830 speakers across 77 parties.

Ideal for studying political discourse, party rhetoric and parliamentary behavior! 🔍📖

www.cambridge.org

19 39

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Mar 6

Planning the green transition is not only about creating new industries, but also about phasing-out old ones.

If you want to know how political backlash against impending economic decline and regional inequalities led to new policies and institutions for transition planning in the EU, have a look👇

Regulation & Governance @reggovjournal.bsky.social · Mar 6

#Earlyview #Openaccess

'Picking Losers: Climate Change and Managed Decline in the European Union'
by @trgn.bsky.social & @luukschmitz.bsky.social
#Climatechange #industrialpolicy #RegGov #EU

Abstract below 👇

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

ABSTRACT
Decarbonization forces societies to cope with the restructuring and outright unwinding of assets, firms, workers, industries, and regions. We argue that this problem has created legitimacy for industrial policies managing the reallocation of resources. We illustrate this dynamic by documenting incremental state-building in the European Union, an administration institutionally tilted toward regulatory statehood and the making of the Single Market in energy since the 1990s. European greening policies, we argue, have incrementally lessened the primacy of regulatory tools and have introduced a plethora of instruments to accelerate green restructuring and carbon unwinding. Best understood as a process of multi-sited institutional layering, the European Union increasingly appears to complement financial and regulatory instruments to effect green energy transitions with the management of decline in targeted regions and sectors, based on targeted funds and targeted transition planning.

2 9 28

Reposted by Luuk Schmitz

Kate McNamara @katemcnamara.bsky.social · Feb 27

Terrific & much needed deep empirical analysis of new EU industrial policy state aid tool by @timoseidl.bsky.social & @luukschmitz.bsky.social. The key goldilocks punch line? Critical policy goals best achieved with ‘just the right’ amount of EU conditionality rules.

Timo Seidl @timoseidl.bsky.social · Feb 27

IPCEIs have recently emerged as a key tool in the EU's fast-growing industrial policy toolbox.

In a new paper in Competition & Change, @luukschmitz.bsky.social, @tobiaswuttke.bsky.social and I take a closer look at how this instrument works on the ground.

A short thread (link to the paper below)👇

5 6

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Feb 27

If you want to understand how EU industrial policy works on the ground, have a look at this thread and the new paper it links to.

Timo Seidl @timoseidl.bsky.social · Feb 27

IPCEIs have recently emerged as a key tool in the EU's fast-growing industrial policy toolbox.

In a new paper in Competition & Change, @luukschmitz.bsky.social, @tobiaswuttke.bsky.social and I take a closer look at how this instrument works on the ground.

A short thread (link to the paper below)👇

1 7

Reposted by Luuk Schmitz

Carola Westermeier @c-westermeier.bsky.social · Feb 9

Do you want to explore what’s happening?

I am recruitung doctoral researchers for my Lise Meitner Research Group on Technology and Sovereignty @mpifg.bsky.social

Find more information in the link below

Apply by February 28, 2025
Starting date is October 1, 2025

career.mpifg.de/jobposting/e...

Link to CfA for research group on technology and sovereignty

1 27 28

Reposted by Luuk Schmitz

Palma Polyak @palmapolyak.bsky.social · Jan 27

What a week ahead! ✨

The one & only @katemcnamara.bsky.social visits us in Cologne to talk about EU Economic Statecraft in the Age of Geopolitics

Then @luukschmitz.bsky.social & I are hosting this stellar lineup of scholars for our Geoeconomic Turn in IPE workshop 🌍

@mpifg.bsky.social

Screenshot of MPI Lecture featuring Kathleen R. McNamara from Georgetown University. The title reads: “The Securitization of Market Competition? EU Economic Statecraft in the Age of Geopolitics.” The text explains the EU’s evolving competition policies. A photo of Kathleen McNamara is on the left.

Screenshot of the MPIfG Geoeconomic Turn in IPE conference. The text describes the rise of geoeconomics, including rivalries, industrial policies, and green/digital transitions, with questions about globalization and strategies for resilience.

A detailed schedule of the Geoeconomic Turn in IPE workshop. Block I – Geo-economic Power Shifts. Block II – Beyond the Global North. Block III – Europe’s Challenges. Block IV – Critical Minerals. Block V – Finance. Block VI – Infrastructures and Firms.

7 14

Reposted by Luuk Schmitz

Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung (MPIfG) @mpifg.bsky.social · Jan 21

The MPIfG is seeking a research group leader (tenure track) with a focus on the socioeconomic and political impacts of technological change to set up a new research group at the intersection of #economy, #society, and #technology.

📢Please share widely!

s.gwdg.de/SULoAf

41 42

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Dec 20

Bottom line: these models provide unprecedented scale to augment research and it is easier than ever to get started. However, the community must take seriously open-source and locally deployable models in the interest of open science principles. Replication code: github.com/joshcova/LLM...

GitHub - joshcova/LLMs-for-social-scientists: Workshop series for advanced graduate students on how to interact with LLMs/classifiers

Workshop series for advanced graduate students on how to interact with LLMs/classifiers - GitHub - joshcova/LLMs-for-social-scientists: Workshop series for advanced graduate students on how to int...

github.com

3

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Dec 20

Are you curious about using Large Language Model as a research tool for text annotation but don't know where to start? @joshcova.bsky.social and I have you covered with this primer that guides readers with a hands-on example written in accessible language.

📃 Here: osf.io/preprints/os...

2 7 19

Reposted by Luuk Schmitz

Timo Seidl @timoseidl.bsky.social · Dec 16

Do you work on European integration and want to live in one of the most livable cities in 🇪🇺?

We have an opening for 3-year postdoc position at our research group, which is part of the #polsci department @univie.ac.at.

Application Deadline: Jan 9, 2025.

More info: jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...

University Assistant post doc EIF 1 Political Science Vienna

jobs.univie.ac.at

10 10

Reposted by Luuk Schmitz

Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung (MPIfG) @mpifg.bsky.social · Nov 22

Here is a starter pack of MPIfG researchers and alumni. Hit follow for research on economic sociology and political economy!

If you are a current or former MPIfG researcher and would like to be added, please let us know in the comments.

#socsky

go.bsky.app/P1fDXjf

10 20 43

Luuk Schmitz @luukschmitz.bsky.social · Nov 21

Good to know we are outdoing the potatoes!

1 5