On March 25th, 2021, Georgios Tsiachtsiras defended his doctoral thesis titled "Three Essays on the Geography of Innovation: The Role of Transportation Networks and Institutions” supervised by Dr. Rosina Moreno and Dr. Ernest Miguelez (Groupe de Recherche en Économie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA)

The doctoral committee was composed of Dr. Carolina Castaldi (Utrecht University), Dr. Alfons Herranz (Universitat de Barcelona) and Dr. Gaétan de Rassenfosse (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) who decided to grade the PhD thesis with an “Excellent” mark.

This doctoral thesis studies the effect of transportation networks and religiosity on innovation performance from a historical and a recent perspective. In doing so, it sheds light on the underlying mechanisms related to knowledge spillovers behind the main effect. Specifically, it provides consistent evidence that higher connectivity can reduce the cost of exchanging ideas. New inventions are more likely to emerge with the stimulation of the flow of ideas. On the other hand, religiosity can hamper technological progress when an anti scientific agenda is being promoted.