We are happy to announce the the new Applied Economics Seminar series at the University of Vienna, which will take place bi-weekly on Tuesdays from 13.15-14.30h. On March 6, Nicolas de Roos (University of Sydney) will present "Startup search costs". Abstract: Search frictions determine the impacts of policies or technologies in many markets. Workhorse economic models used to study these impacts assume constant marginal search costs: individuals pay the same search cost to become informed about an additional price (sequential search models), or the entire price distribution (non-sequential search models). This paper provides evidence from a natural experiment in retail gasoline on a new form of search costs: startup costs. We empirically document how a temporary, large exogenous shock to consumers’ search incentives leads to a permanent doubling of their search intensity for gasoline prices. This result is difficult to explain with a standard search model but follows directly in a model with a one-time up-front cost to start searching. *Location:* University of Vienna, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 1090 Vienna, VGSE seminar room, 3rd floor 1:15 pm