Department News

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RES Conference 15-17 April - Summary

We are pleased to report that the RES Conference which we hosted on campus last week was a great success. Leading global thinkers in Economics - James Heckman (Chicago), Anne Case (Princeton), Eliana Ferrara (Bocconi) and Peter Neary (Oxford) delivered the keynote lectures on themes including the future of capitalism, welfare policies, and the science of trade. We welcomed over 700 delegates from all over the world to discuss around 500 different economic ideas, including inequality, corruption, the economics of healthcare, the rise in hate crime and the impact of gender on economic development.

In addition to the main conference, we also hosted special events: a mentoring retreat for over 40 female junior economists and a symposium for over 80 junior researchers to foster discussion and sharing of research in all fields of economics. Three public events focusing on Brexit, the understanding of economics and how universities can support regional development attracted over 150 people to debate economic issues.

Kirill Pogorelskiy, the RES Conference Local Organiser commented: “I’d like to thank everyone involved for their hard work over the past few months. I’m especially grateful to the student volunteers, Bozena Beauclair and Elizabeth Vasileva as they have done a truly outstanding job and went out of their way to make RES-2019 a success”.

Employee Benefits - Additional Support

The University has partnered with an independent organisation – Health Assured to provide all salaried employees with access to additional wellbeing services.

Support is available by phone 24/7, 365 days a year. Staff can access free financial advice, counselling, legal advice, bereavement support, advice on medical problems, and a range of information resources, webinars and self-help tools. All support is confidential and staff can self-refer to use the service at any time. Support is also available for family members who are aged between 16-24 years and are in full time education

Academic Promotions Explained

Academic Processes will be holding a ‘Promotions Explained’ event on Tuesday 21 May 2019 to discuss the promotions framework. The event is specifically aimed at those academic staff who are either considering applying for a promotion or supporting a colleague in applying for promotion. Maths and Stats will host the event (room B3.03) with lunch provided from 12:30 and the event beginning at 13:00. Registration is essential.

Publications, Presentations, Workshops, Working Papers & Talks

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Sascha O. Becker's paper "Discrimination in Hiring Based on Potential and Realized Fertility: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment" (joint with Ana Fernandes and Doris Weichselbaumer) has been accepted in the Journal of Labour Economics. The paper is available open access thanks to the ESRC.

Abstract: Due to conventional gender norms, women are more likely to be in charge of childcare than men. From an employer's perspective, in their fertile age they are also at “risk” of pregnancy. Both factors potentially affect hiring practices of firms. We conduct a large-scale correspondence test in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, sending out approx. 9,000 job applications, varying job candidate's personal characteristics such as marital status and age of children. We find evidence that, for part-time jobs, married women with older kids, who likely finished their childbearing cycle and have more projectable childcare chores than women with very young kids, are at a significant advantage vis-à-vis other groups of women. At the same time, married, but childless applicants, who have a higher likelihood to become pregnant, are at a disadvantage compared to single, but childless applicants to part-time jobs. Such effects are not present for full-time jobs, presumably, because by applying to these in contrast to part-time jobs, women signal that they have arranged for external childcare.

Victor Lavy's paper "Teachers’ Pay for Performance in the Long-Run: The Dynamic Pattern of Treatment Effects on Students’ Educational and Labor Market Outcomes in Adulthood" has been accepted for publication at the Review of Economic Studies.

Abstract: This paper examines the dynamic effects of teachers’ pay for performance experiment on long-term outcomes at adulthood. The program led to a gradual increase in university schooling of the high school treated students, reaching a gain of 0.25 years of schooling at age 28-30. The effects on employment and earnings were initialy negative, coinciding with a higher enrollment rate in university schooling, but became positive and significant at a later age. These gains are largely mediated by the positive effect of the program on several high school outcomes, including quantity and quality gains in the high stake matriculation exams.

Dennis Novy presented a new paper on “Trade Blocs and Trade Wars during the Interwar Period” (with David Jacks) at the Japan Center for Economic Research in Tokyo on 06 April 2019.

Abstract: What precisely were the causes and consequences of the trade wars in the 1930s? Were there perhaps deeper forces at work in reorienting global trade prior to the outbreak of World War II? And what lessons may this particular historical episode provide for the present day? To answer these questions, we distinguish between long-run secular trends in the period from 1920 to 1939 related to the formation of trade blocs (in particular, the British Commonwealth) and short-run disruptions associated with the trade wars of the 1930s (in particular, large and widespread declines in bilateral trade, the narrowing of trade imbalances, and sharp drops in average traded distances). We argue that the trade wars mainly served to intensify pre-existing efforts towards the formation of trade blocs which dated from at least 1920. More speculatively, we argue that the trade wars of the present day may serve a similar purpose as those in the 1930s, that is, the intensification of China- and US-centric trade blocs

Federico Trombetta presented his paper "The Newsroom Dilemma: Media Competition, Speed and the Quality of Journalism" (joint with Ayush Pant) at two different conferences: the Spring Meeting of Young Economists (Bruxelles) on 13th April and the Royal Economic Society Symposium of Junior Researchers (Warwick) on 18th April.

Peter Hammond presented the paper "Incentive Compatible Pareto Gains from Economic Migration: Are They Possible?" at a Conference in honour of John Weymark at Vanderbilt University from 13th - 14th April.

Peter Hammond presented his paper "Should we discount the welfare of future generations? Ramsey and Suppes versus Koopmans and Arrow" (co-authored with Graciela Chichilnisky and Nicholas Stern at the Royal Economic Society Meeting, University of Warwick, 15th - 17th April.

Mark Harrison presented his paper “Contracting for Counterintelligence: the KGB and Soviet Informers of the 1960s and 1970s” to a panel at the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies annual conference, Cambridge, on 14 April.

 Daniel Sgroi has the following items to announce:

• launch of a new group in the department; the Experimental and Behavioural Economics Research Group. Daniel Sgroi and Kirill Pogorelskiy are Co-ordinator and Deputy Co-ordinator respectively.
• Daniel Sgroi presented Ignoring Good Advice at the Royal Economic Society Conference at Warwick on 16th April, Historical Analysis of National Wellbeing using Digitized Text, at LSE on 2nd April and will be presenting Theory of Mind and Strategic Decision-Making in Warwick at the DR@W forum on 25th April.
• Paul Seabright wrote a piece in Le Monde discussing Historical Analysis of National Subjective Wellbeing using Millions of Digitized Books by Thomas Hills, Eugenio Proto, Daniel Sgroi and Chanuki Seresinhe

Subhasish Dey has had his paper accepted for presentation at the Nordic Conference on Development Economics 2019 in Copenhagen from 17-18 June. His paper has also been accepted for presentation at the UNU-WIDER Development Conference in Bangkok, Thailand from 11-13 September 2019.

Arun Advani was a panel member for the RES Presents public event on "How can economics be better communicated and discussed?" on Monday 15 April.

Media Coverage

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"‘Growing up fast:why parenting in your 20s is the new punk" - Jonathan Cave quoted - The Guardian, 11 April 2019

"Why capitalism is good for your health" - Andrew Oswald's research mentioned - New York Post, 20 April 2019

"The One Piece of Advice To Follow For A Successful Career" - SMF & CAGE mentioned - Elite Learning, 25 April 2019.

Department Diary

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