Department News

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Mind & Life Europe Francisco Varela Award (EVA)

A team including Anthony Tuckwell, Shi Zhuo, Daniel Sgroi and Elliot Ash have won a Mind & Life European Francisco Varela Award of 17,500 euros to fund a project seeking to investigate the behavioural impact of mindfulness. This is the first time Mind & Life have funded economists before. You can find out more about this story on the CAGE website.

Interdisciplinary workshop with Mathematics Institute

The Economics Department recently collaborated with colleagues in Mathematics on a day-long workshop 'Dynamics of Money'. The day focused on fragile banking, credit and policy responses to the financial crisis. Talks were well attended by academics and post-graduate students from Mathematics, suggesting a growing interest in collaborating with economists on questions beyond the traditional application of stochastic processes to derivatives pricing.

Alex Karalis helped organised the day and opened discussions with a review of classic models of banking and the modern bank's balance sheet. Marcus Miller presented recent work with Lee Zhang on Shin's pecuniary externality as an explanation for the Fed's massive expansion of its remit to act as Lender of Last Resort to the shadow banking sector. Special thanks are due to Steffie Parades-Fuentes who stepped in at the last minute to elaborate on connections between central bank policy and money creation, private banking and the contribution of regulatory design to financial instability in the run up to the crisis. External speakers included Macro Bardoscia from the BoE on networks and contagion and Anne Pettifor closed the day with a thought provoking attack on the 'monetarily radical-fiscally conservative' policy stance of the last decade.

Colleagues interested in developing links with researchers in Mathematics may be interested in supervision opportunities recently advertised by the 'Mathematics of Real World Systems' programme. Please contact Dr. Stefan Grosskinsky (S.W.Grosskinsky@warwick.ac.uk) to find out more about this programme.

Bridget Rosewell - Post Event Summary

Our fourth and last Guest Lecture of the 2018/19 academic year took place on Monday 11 February when Bridget Rosewell CBE shared her professional experiences and advice during her talk on “Planning Our Infrastructure – Dealing with Long Term Uncertainty”.

Bridget who is currently working as the Commissioner with the NIC (National Infrastructure Commission) explained the factors taken into account when planning infrastructure, as well as previous mistakes made throughout the years, challenges faced in the past, ingenious solutions for these and innovative but realistic ideas for the future. Over 100 students and members of staff from the University of Warwick attended the lecture, followed by a Q&A session where Bridget answered and clarified multiple questions asked by the audience.

Which way now? CAGE & SMF Policy Report - Post Event Summary

On Tuesday 12^th February, policy experts and opinion formers helped launch CAGE's new policy report Which way now? Economic policy after a decade of upheaval. The evening event at Warwick Arts Centre was attended by around 80 representatives including local business leaders, local dignitaries, academics and students.

The report, edited by Professor Vera Troeger, presents 18 studies by 25 different authors from CAGE and other universities and institutions. Arranged in four themes, each author tackles the question of what a post-financial crisis, post-Brexit economic policy should look like with the aim of presenting accessible recommendations informed by robust, up-to-date research.

The launch, chaired by Dr Arun Advani, focused on the regional skills and productivity agenda and included presentations by Dr Dennis Novy, Professor Vera Troeger and Dr Roland Rathelot from their contributions to the report.

CAGE Public Lecture - How Do Bad Institutions Survive? The Economics of European Guilds

Institutions – the social and political ‘rules of the game’ – are widely viewed as central to economic growth. But what kind of institution makes an economy work better, and what kind mainly favours particular groups? In many European economies, guilds ruled crafts and trades from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. Did the benefits of guilds outweigh their costs?

To answer these questions and to give a history of how guilds have benefited their members and powerful elites, Sheilagh Ogilvie, a Professor of Economic History, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy, will be holding a public lecture organised by the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).

The lecture is at 18:00 on 28th February 2019 in S0.21, Social Science Building, The University of Warwick. To find out more and to book your place, please visit: https://bit.ly/2RknM8E

The First Offer Holder Open Day - Summary

Thank you to everyone that came to the first of two Offer Holder Open Days last Wednesday 6th February. We were really pleased with how many staff and current students came along to the lunch and taster sessions, which gave a very warm welcome to the 120 approx. prospective offer holders and their parents.

Our next Open Day for Offer Holders will take place on Wednesday 27 February at 12:30 – 1:00pm outside OC0.01. All staff are invited and encouraged to join the lunch. These events are designed to give our offer holders the fullest possible sense of what it will be like to study with us so we’d really appreciate it if you could make it for half an hour.

Publications, Presentations, Workshops, Working Papers & Talks

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Kirill Pogorelskiy's paper "Communication Among Voters Benefits the Majority Party" co-authored with Thomas R Palfrey has been published on The Economic Journal.

Abstract:

How does communication among voters affect turnout? In a laboratory experiment, subjects, divided into two competing parties, choose between costly voting and abstaining. Pre-play communication treatments, relative to the no communication control, are public communication (subjects exchange public messages through computers) and party communication (messages are public within one's own party). Communication benefits the majority party by increasing its turnout margin, hence its winning probability. Party communication increases turnout; public communication decreases total turnout with a low voting cost. With communication, there is no support for Nash equilibrium and limited consistency with correlated equilibrium.

 Jonathan Cave has the following updates:

• will be participating in the FRAME Final Policy Conference; Understanding the interaction between macroeconomics and innovation policy in London on Monday and Tuesday.
• will be speaking on “Software Download: AI’s Role in the Future of Business” at a Global Cyber Security Summit in London on 27 February.
• will be presenting a paper on “Towards a well-regulated Internet of Things” at a PETRAS-IET Conference on Living in the Internet of Things on 2 May.

Media Coverage

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"UK firms investing billions abroad because of Brexit" - Dennis Novy's research mentioned - Surrey Chammbers of Commerce, 12 February 2019

"That’s driving me up the wall! Academics’ pet peeves" - Andrew Oswald's column - Times Higher Supplement, 25 January 2019 (subscription required to view)

"Anna Pavord’s guide to snowdrops" - Andrew Oswald research mentioned - The Times, 20 January 2019 (subscription required to view)

"Study suggests UK workers 'have already lost a week's wages' to Brexit" - Dennis Novy's quoted - Sheen Stickland, 9 February 2019

Department Diary

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