Department News

RES appoints Stefania Paredes Fuentes as Diversity Champion

We are pleased to report that the Royal Economic Society has appointed Stefania Paredes Fuentes as RES Diversity Champion. In this role Stefania will help embed diversity more fully into the RES’s decision-making and promote and monitor diversity across all the Society’s activities.

Read the full news release.

Careers in Economics Webinar Series 2020-21

Over the past few years we have found that students from Warwick’s Economics Department have highly valued the opportunity to meet with employers and alumni to explore the range of economics related careers. For the 2020-21 academic year, the Department will be hosting a new series of webinars covering a range of topics.

The first webinar will be Friday 16 October from 11-12pm with Warwick Alumni Stavros Antonopoulos and Paula Gallego Marquez. To find out more and to register, click here.

First study of the impact of academisation on teachers’ pay and progression to be led by Warwick economists

Warwick researchers will carry out the first detailed study into the impact of English schools’ conversions to autonomous academies on the teacher labour market, thanks to a grant awarded by the Nuffield Foundation.

Read the full news release.

Research reveals ‘climate-change complacency’ across Europe

Most European citizens do not particularly care about climate change. That’s the striking finding from new research on the views of 70,000 randomly sampled European men and women.

Read the full news release.

RAE Prize Winner’s Article Published Online

We are pleased to say that Maike Kusserow, Warwick Economics 2020 graduate and Research in Applied Economics (RAE) Prize Winner has had a short article published on the OECDs ‘Wikigender’ platform: Can Political Gender Equality Produce Educational Gender Equality? Evidence from Developing Regions.

Read the full news release.

Flu Jab

The University is offering flu vaccinations to all staff. The cost of the vaccination is £7.99 which will be deducted from your November or December salary. In previous years, spaces have been limited and have been booked quickly, therefore, should you wish to have the flu vaccination, please book your place.

Internal Vacancies

The The Department has the following vacancies open to internal candidates:

• FA6 – Comms Officer (Research Impact) (0.6 FTE)
• FA4 – Senior PG Administrator (0.6 FTE)
• FA4 – Senior Examinations Assistant (0.6 FTE)

All are fixed term contracts. Find out more about these opportunities.

Virtual Open Days

Last week, the University held the first of this month’s Virtual Open Days on Friday 9 October – Saturday 10 October. A big thank you to all staff members who took part in our Departmental sessions which included taster lectures, talks on our programmes and student experience, admissions, Q&As and opportunities to for prospective students to meet our students.

The Virtual Open Days will continue on Saturday 24 October and Monday 26 October 2020.

Specsavers Eye Care

All employees are entitled to a free eye test at any Specsavers store. Should you require glasses solely and especially for monitor use, you will be entitled to a pair of single vision glasses (restrictions apply) or you will be able to request a voucher which will enable you to save £20 on a pair of glasses of your choice (again, restrictions apply). To claim your free voucher, please email HR.services@warwick.ac.uk.

New Staff Appointment

We would like to give a warm welcome to the following new members of staff have joined the Department of Economics!

• Caroline Elliott, Professor in Economics (Teaching Focused)
• Stefano Caria, Associate Professor
• Natalia Zinovyeva, Associate Professor
• Ludovica Gazze, Assistant Professor
• Ao Wang, Assistant Professor
• Andreas Stegmann, Assistant Professor

Online Resources

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Library Update - Helen Riley, Economics Librarian

The Library is now fully open from 8.30 a.m. to midnight every day - please check our website for any COVID-19 service updates and contact me if you have any questions. There is some good news:-

• Selected major textbooks in electronic format have been obtained from Kortext for one year initially, with a few more titles still to be confirmed. I will send you full details as soon as I have them; several books already have catalogue records and links. Many thanks to Jeremy for indicating the most vital priorities. Our managers are now lobbying for more money to improve e-textbook provision further.
• We always look for e-books when we are told that you recommend them, so if you have not yet published your reading list in Aspire, please do it very soon or ask Helen Riley for help. We have provided guidance on e-books - not all titles are available or affordable, unfortunately.
• The Library has had to cancel printed newspapers temporarily on grounds of health and safety. We are sorry that this includes the Financial Times, which is available online via our catalogue but with one month's embargo. The Economist is also available online via the catalogue, and all issues are available to date.

IT Support - New Online Systems

Andrew Taylor has created a dedicated webpage on the staff intranet named ‘Working Remotely’, where he has documented the various tools we are using to collaborate with one another, i.e. Microsoft Teams and how to access your email and the H and M drives.

NOTE – this webpage is constantly being updated with new information so please revisit it if you have any questions.

Publications, Presentations & Workshops

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Manuel Bagues' paper (with Thomas Le Barbanchon and Alexandra Roulet) Can Gender Quotas in Candidate Lists Empower Women? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design” has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Public Economics.

Abstract

We provide a comprehensive analysis of the short- and medium-term effects of gender quotas in candidate lists using evidence from local elections in Spain. In the context of a closed list system with proportional representation, quotas were introduced in 2007 in municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants, and were extended in 2011 to municipalities with more than 3,000 inhabitants. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, we find that quotas increased the share of women in candidate lists by around 8 p.p. and among council members by 4 p.p. However, within three rounds of elections, we do not observe any significant variation in several proxies of politicians’ quality, the probability that women reach powerful positions such as party leader or mayor, or the size and composition of public finances. Overall, our analysis suggests that quotas in candidate lists fail to remove the barriers that prevent women from playing an influential role in politics.

Roland Rathelot's paper (with Thomas Le Barbanchon and Alexandra Roulet) Gender Differences in Job Search: Trading off Commute Against Wage” has been accepted in the Quarterly Journal of Economics

Abstract

In this paper we relate gender differences in willingness to commute to the gender wage gap. Using unique administrative data on job search criteria, we first document that unemployed women have a lower reservation wage than comparable men and that the maximum commute they are willing to accept is smaller. We also find that they get lower wages and shorter commutes in their next job. We then identify indifference curves between wage and commute using the joint distributions of reservation job attributes and of accepted job bundles. Indifference curves are steeper for women, who value commute around 20% more than men. Through the lens of a job search model where commuting matters, we estimate that around 10% of the gender wage gap is accounted for by gender differences in the willingness to pay for a shorter commute. Finally, we use job application data to test the robustness of our results and to show that female workers do not receive less demand from far-away employers, confirming that most of the gender gap in commute is supply-side drive

Sascha O. Becker is co-organising a 24-hour round-the-clock conference: ASREC24h. This conference of the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics and Culture (ASREC) starts at 10am Melbourne time and runs for 24 hours nonstop: 48 papers, 30 minutes each = 24 hours. To register, go to http://www.asrec.org/

Sascha O. Becker's paper “The Political Economy of the Prussian Three-class Franchise” (with Erik Hornung) is now available for download on the website of the Journal of Economic History.

Abstract

How did the Prussian three-class franchise, which politically over-represented the economic elite, affect policies? Contrary to the predominant and simplistic view that the system allowed the landed elites to capture most political rents, we find that members of parliament from constituencies with a higher vote inequality support more liberal policies, gauging their political orientation from the universe of roll call votes cast in parliament during Prussia’s rapid industrialization (1867–1903). Consistent with the characteristics of German liberalism that aligned with economic interests of business, the link between vote inequality and liberal voting is stronger in regions with large-scale industry.

Arun Advani has the following updates:

• Presented work on a possible wealth tax to David Gauke (former financial secretary to the Treasury) - 01/10
• Presented work on cap gains and on importing inequality to the High Pay Centre - 06/10
• Presented work on a capital gains tax and top incomes more generally to David Gauke (former financial secretary to the Treasury) and other tax practicioners at Macfarlanes - 09/10
• Gave seminar on Importing Inequality at University of Bristol - 14/10
• Presented work on CG and Wealth Tax to clerk of the Treasury Select Committee as part of the Tax After Coronavirus enquiry on 10/8
• Appeared on @CoronaNomics to talk about Discover Econ and research on what can economics do for racial justice
• Attended the TransformTax advisory board meeting (to which Arun has been appointed), including discussion of his environmental work

• Presented his CG work to roundtable organised by David Hume Institute on 28/7

• Awarded ESRC grant of £106,022 for his work ' the fiscal response to Covid-19: "Thinking big" on tax policy after the crisis, with the funding used to set up the Wealth Tax Commission.

Working Papers

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Peter Hammond's working paper 'Roberts' Weak Welfarism Theorem: A Minor Correction' has been released as part of the Warwick Economics Research working paper series.

Peter Hammond's working paper (with Lei Qiaoy and Yeneng Sun ) 'Monte Carlo Sampling Processes and Incentive Compatible Allocations in Large Economies' has been released as part of the Warwick Economics Research working paper series.

Media Coverage

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'Advisers can reap rewards from getting culture right' - Andrew Oswald's research mentioned - FT Advisoer - 6 October 2020.

'Economics and its identity crisis' - Arun Advani's research mentioned - Financial Times - 20 August 2020.

'Does immigration import inequality?' - Arun Advani's research mentioned - The Economist - 26 September 2020.

'The Economic History Podcast' - Nick Craft interviewed - Buzzsprout - 22 August 2020.

'Left vs Right is dead: Politics is about anarchists vs centrists, new CAGE study shows ' - Mirko Draca's research mentioned - Phy.org - 18 September 2020.

Dates For Your Diary

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