Department News

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Daniel Sgroi - World Wellbeing Panel Invitation

Daniel Sgroi has been invited to join the World Wellbeing Panel. The panel is a group of 40 or so leading international experts on subjective wellbeing including Richard Layard, Richard Easterlin and Andrew Oswald, and is administered from LSE. According the website: “The World Wellbeing Panel is about the promotion of wellbeing as the ultimate purpose of all major decision makers, particularly government.

To this end, we will ask an international panel of experts a monthly question of wellbeing policy relevance selected from a prior list suggested by our experts, policy makers, and journalists. Via this poll we will foster debates about policy in terms of their impacts on wellbeing, which over time should lead to better policies and decisions.” Further details are available here.

NSS Survey - Update

The NSS 2018 Survey opened on Monday 5 February for all final-year undergraduate students. It invites students to reflect on their experiences of teaching and learning over their time at Warwick and to score the Department and University against a number of criteria. The NSS runs for 10 weeks and closes on Monday 30 April 2017.

NSS results have always been important. However, the NSS results in the categories relating to Teaching, Assessment and Feedback and Academic Support are also being used as metrics in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) to which institutions make their submissions annually. The TEF results will affect the national and international reputation of the University and financial implications are attached to the TEF ranking of institutions (Gold, Silver or Bronze).

Our current response rate is 50.5%, which compares favourably with the Warwick average of 39.5%. The Department is running a campaign to encourage final-year students to participate in the NSS and we are keen to achieve a NSS response rate of at least 75%. We have managed to maintain a high overall satisfaction score in the 90s over recent years, but we are in a very competitive market and are therefore committed to further improvement this year which becomes more challenging the better we do. We recognise that there are areas where we can continue to do better.

Please note: NSS 2018 Guidance for Institutions and Students’ Unions emphasises the requirement for promotion of the NSS to be neutral. It is not acceptable to attempt to influence the nature of students’ responses within the NSS, only to encourage participation. We are also unable to link the NSS to league table results or university rankings. These should not be mentioned in any communication.

We thank colleagues for understanding the importance of the NSS and supporting the Department’s efforts to promote student participation. Further information on the NSS 2018 can be found here and queries should be directed to Kelly Taylor; k.e.taylor@warwick.ac.uk

Offer Holders Open Day - 14th February 2018

On Wednesday of this week, the Department hosted its first Offer Holders’ Open Day in the Oculus. Sixty out of the seventy prospective students who registered showed up on the day to find out more about studying Economics at Warwick and to meet academic staff and current students, including Warwick Economics Summit and Society. A number of talks were delivered that focused on our Economics Degree Programmes, the student experience within Economics and ended with a dynamic taster session delivered by Daniel Sgroi, entitled ‘Using Big Data to Measure Happiness in the Past’.

Thank you to those members of staff who attended the lunch prior to the talk. These events are a value conversion opportunity and a ‘final stage’ to promote the University and reflect the reputation and continuing success of our department.

Update - The next OHOD will take place on Wednesday 14 March, in Zeeman Building. There will be lunch in the Oculus at 12.30pm, and we would like to encourage staff to attend, so please save the dates in your diary.

• Wednesday 14 March 2018
• Wednesday 25 April 2018

Staff Recognition Scheme Goes Live!

The Economics Department Recognition Scheme is now up and running and we are extremely pleased that nominations are trickling through. This month the following members of staff have been nominated for, and received an award:

Individual	Area
Dr Mirko Draca	Academic
Charlotte White	Marketing and Events Team
Gill Gudger	Departmental Office
Sharon Yarrow	Departmental Office
Andrew Taylor	IT Team
Peter Kane	IT Team
Colin Ellis	Facilities

All received vouchers to the value of £50. Well done!

The Scheme enables colleagues or teams to be nominated for an outstanding contribution/or providing exceptional performance on a one off or short term basis.

How to nominate a colleague can be found by clicking on the link here

We await further nominations!

Economics Video Project - 3rd Year Optional Modules

A series of short videos will be created professionally to use on our website for marketing promotion ranging from student interviews to Economic modules. Over the coming weeks, selected students will be given the opportunity to work with Online Communications Officer Maz and the internal Warwick Production team.

We will be starting off with 3rd year optional module video and have Depending on the video content, academic and/or administrative staff will be contacted by Maz (m.meharban@warwick.ac.uk) and requested to spare 10-15 minutes, so could you please set some time aside.

Stephanie Redding - Economics Students Careers Link

Just a quick reminder to all staff, and Personal Tutors in particular, that all queries from students related to careers, jobs, internships and guidance related to those should be referred to Stephanie Redding - S.Redding@warwick.ac.uk

Publications, Presentations & Talks

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Miguel Almunia's paper on "Under the Radar: The Effects of Monitoring Firms on Tax Compliance", (with David Lopez-Rodriguez) was published in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, vol. 10 (1), February, pp. 1-38

Liliana Varela's paper “Exchange Rate Exposure and Firm Dynamics” joint with Juliana Salomao has been published in the CEPR Discussion Papers 12654, in 28 January 2018.

Victor Lavy's paper "Paid Parental Leave and children's schooling outcomes" was published in the Economic Journal, February 2018, pp: 81-117.

Victor Lavy and Edith Sand's paper "The Effect of Social Networks on Students’ Academic and Non-Cognitive Behavioural Outcomes: Evidence from Conditional Random Assignment of Friends in School". Forthcoming, Economic Journal.

Dennis Novy delivered a workshop on his research and the estimation of trade costs for researchers at the Department of International Trade, the Department for Exiting the European Union and HM Treasury.

Media Coverage

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"Inclusion of happiness and wellbeing in policies is gaining prominence on government agendas" - Andrew Oswald: Mena Herald - 10th February 2018

"Elites 'offer the best maternity provision'" - Vera Troeger: Times Higher Education - 8th February 2018

Department Diary

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