15th Annual IWH-CompNet Conference 2026

Center for Business and Productivity Dynamics – CompNet, the Halle Institute for Economic Research, and the European Commission (DG Economic and Financial Affairs) are pleased to announce the 15th Annual IWH-CompNet Conference, to be held at the European Commission in Brussels on October 22–23, 2026. The conference will focus on productivity enhancement in Europe and the role of industrial policy, competition, and market structure in shaping long-term growth and economic resilience.

Productivity growth in Europe remains subdued, yet it is essential for sustaining living standards, supporting the green and digital transitions, and strengthening resilience in an increasingly fragmented global economy. The challenge of boosting productivity growth features prominently in high-level policy reflections, including the Letta Report on the future of the Single Market and the Draghi Report on European competitiveness, as well as in the European Commission’s policy agenda.

A central theme of the conference is how Europe can reconcile potentially competing policy goals. Industrial policies aimed at fostering scale, innovation, and strategic autonomy may support productivity growth, but they can also raise concerns regarding market concentration, reduced competitive pressure, and consumer welfare. Conversely, competition policies that prioritise consumer choice may limit the emergence of firms with sufficient scale to innovate and compete globally. The conference will provide a forum for policy-relevant academic research that offers micro-based evidence to assess trade-offs, complementarities, and design choices.

The conference welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions, particularly papers using firm-level, micro-aggregated, or harmonised cross-country data, including IWH-CompNet data and national microdata infrastructures. In line with the IWH-CompNet tradition, the aim is to foster a structured dialogue between academic research and policymaking by highlighting evidence-based insights into productivity, reallocation, innovation, and firm dynamics. The programme will combine academic paper sessions with policy discussions involving researchers and policymakers from European institutions and national authorities.

Topics of Interest (not limited to)

• Productivity growth, dispersion, and convergence across firms, sectors, and countries
• Industrial policy and productivity: design, effectiveness, and distributional effects
• Market structure, firm concentration, markups, intangibles, and competition dynamics
• Innovation, scale, and the role of large firms versus SMEs
• Productivity diffusion, technology adoption, and barriers to firm growth
• Reallocation dynamics, entry and exit, and resource misallocation
• Strategic autonomy, dependencies, geopolitical fragmentation, defence spending, and productivity in open economies
• Global value chains, reshoring, and firm performance
• Green and digital transitions, including AI, and their implications for productivity
• Intangible capital, knowledge spillovers, and human capital accumulation

Organisers: Center for Business and Productivity Dynamics – CompNet, Halle Institute for Economic Research, European Commission (DG ECFIN)

Location: European Commission, Brussels

Call for papers deadline: May 30, 2026

Decisions notified by: July 3, 2026

Keynote Speaker: Kalina Manova (University College London)

Scientific Committee: Filippo di Mauro (IWH-CompNet), Javier Miranda (IWH-CompNet), Eric Bartelsman (Vrije Universiteit), Alessandro Turrini (DG ECFIN), Luis Garcia Lombardero (DG ECFIN), Rolf Strauch (ESM, CEPR, RPN)

Kindly submit your paper via this form. For organisational questions, please contact cbpd-assistance@iwh-halle.de

Only authors of accepted papers will be contacted.

More Information