Department News

Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) Scholars Program

Ludovica Gazze has been accepted as a mentee in the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) Scholars Program. This new mentoring program aims to engage a diverse group of early career environmental and natural resource economists in AERE while providing invaluable career guidance, skill development, and networking opportunities. It represents an ambitious effort to increase diversity in environmental and natural resource economics, help the newest members of our community succeed, and create an inclusive culture that encourages members to give back to the organisation and field.

The one-year Scholars Program includes:

(1) a one-on-one mentorship between the scholar and a more established AERE member

(2) peer mentoring that is led by the scholars themselves, and

(3) a one-day workshop on the “hidden curriculum”.

The program committee reviewed an impressive pool of early-career scholars to select the 20 mentees who most demonstrated a commitment to increasing diversity in economics, an interest in actively working to improve the culture in economics, and a desire to grow personally and professionally. All accepted scholars receive $1,500/year for travel to the AERE Summer Conference for the two years beginning and ending the program.

Economics PhD student's research paper wins two awards

We are delighted to announce that PhD student Karmini Sharma has won the best student paper award at the Australian Gender Economics Workshop 2021 and at the Women in the Economy: 3rd Annual Workshop.

Read the full news article.

PhD Conference

The 9th annual Warwick Economics PhD Conference will be hosted virtually this year. The three-day conference (24-26 June 2021) organised by Warwick Economics PhD students brings together PhD research from across the globe. This event is for open to Department staff. We look forward to seeing you there.

National Student Survey (NSS) Update

The NSS 2021 closed on 30 April 2021, with a final response rate of 72%. Thank you to all colleagues who helped promote the survey, through lecture shout-outs and announcements in classes. This year our target was 65% and to encourage survey participation, there was an incentive of £5 per participant. Students voted for all of the funds (£1350) to be donated to their chosen charity, Student Support.

Warwick Economics alumnus listed in Forbes 30 under 30 for Europe

We are pleased to inform you that a former student of the Department of Economics has been selected for the Forbes’ Directory 30 Under 30 (Finance) 2021 for Europe. The list, published by Forbes annually, recognises exceptional achievements of 30 individuals under 30 years old, in twenty different industries.

Read the full news article

Podcast: How does infrastructure affect economic development?

Dr Marta Santamaria discusses the role that transport infrastructure plays in economic development, and whether governments can and should adapt their transport networks to unexpected changes in the political and economic environment.

Listen to the podcast.

WIHEA: Everyday Excellence in an Extraordinary Year event

The WIHEA Teaching Recognition and Reward learning circle are running an event called "Everyday Excellence in an Extraordinary Year" on the afternoon of Monday 24 May. There will be workshops celebrating and discussing examples of teaching excellence over the last, highly unusual year, covering early career teaching, the promotion application system, teaching excellence from HoDs' perspective, engagement and impact, and input from the students' perspective.

Details and a registration link can be found on their webpage. Everyone is welcome.

Departmental HR Update

---

Health and Wellbeing

Good health and wellbeing is paramount for staff at all times, but more especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. The University offers a range of remote sessions dedicated to improving our wellbeing. We encourage as many of you as possible to explore any one of these opportunities. Click the link below for more information:

Online Resources

---

Library Update - From Helen Riley, Economics Librarian

If you would like to have a new book added to Library stock for your own use or for students' research needs, please contact Helen dot Riley at Warwick dot ac dot uk soon! There is some money remaining in the Library's Economics book fund which I would like to spend on your behalf. It usually takes several weeks to obtain new e-books, and longer to purchase printed books, so if you want the Library to provide research material for you this summer, please contact me soon, and definitely before June.

I'm also gathering requests for new journals and databases to add to this year's wish list. I already have a note of previous requests, and I am very happy to present more. The Library needs some indication of value for money, so we ask you to provide details of any module which would benefit and the number of students who might use the resource, but we also take research needs into account, so please make the best case you can and I will support you!

Later in Term 3 module leaders will be reminded to update their online reading lists for 2021/22 in Talis Aspire . Textbooks are purchased from a separate fund and we will endeavour to obtain new titles or new editions in good time for next academic year if your list is updated before the end of July. We hope to retain the well-used e-textbooks from Kortext next year, so please send me any feedback about those - they are very expensive, but they do meet students' needs. I hope that Term 3 will go well for all of you - please contact me any time and I will do my best to help you.

IT Support - New Online Systems

A dedicated webpage on the staff intranet named ‘Working Remotely’ has been created, where it documents 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

---

Daniel Sgroi and Anthony Tuckwell's paper "Evaluating the Sunk Cost Effect" has been published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Abstract

We provide experimental evidence of behavior consistent with the sunk cost effect. Subjects who earned a lottery via a real-effort task were given an opportunity to switch to a dominant lottery; 23% chose to stick with their dominated lottery. The endowment effect accounts for roughly only one third of the effect. Subjects’ capacity for cognitive reflection is a significant determinant of sunk cost behavior. We also find stocks of knowledge or experience (crystallized intelligence) predict sunk cost behavior, rather than algorithmic thinking (fluid intelligence) or the personality trait of openness. We construct and validate a scale, the “SCE-8”, which encompasses many resources individuals can spend, and offers researchers an efficient way to measure susceptibility to the sunk cost effect.

Bingsong Wang's paper (with Michael Ellington and Christopher Martin) "Search Frictions and Evolving Labour Market Dynamics" has recently been accepted by the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.

Abstract

This paper puts Search Frictions models under novel empirical scrutiny. To capture changing dynamics, we fit a Bayesian time-varying parameter VAR to US labour market data from 1965–2016. Using a DSGE model with Search Frictions, we identify several structural shocks, including a shock to worker bargaining power that we name a wage shock. We argue that the wage shock is a key driver of cyclical variation, explaining a higher proportion of the variation of these variables than productivity, demand or job separation shocks. We also document stark differences between empirical and theoretical impulse response functions that cast doubt on the core transmission mechanism of search and matching models.

Subhasish Dey's paper (with Ritanjan Das and Ranjita Neogi) "Across the Stolen Ponds: The Political Geography of Social Welfare in Rural Eastern India" has been accepted from World Development. [Paper is not available online yet]

Abstract

Despite a strong state and a slew of poverty reduction/welfare programmes, the provision of basic services to the rural poor in India remains puzzlingly inadequate. Moving away from the usual trend of aggregate welfare impact analysis that characterises most studies on this theme, we explore the on-ground distributive politics around the implementation of India’s flagship social welfare programme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Based on a mixed-method study in the state of West Bengal, using observational primary data and ethnographic material across 46 sample village councils ( gram panchayats ) from 2013 to 2018, we draw attention to the non-homogeneity in the way political incentives of welfare provision are orientated towards different parties and individual stakeholders. In doing so, we traverse across multiple domains of political economic concepts, particularly that of partisan alignment, clientelism and patronage, and unpack the differentiated constellation of localised political incentives founded on a unique form of transactional paradigm called settings. We show how these on-ground transactions provide a multitude of political incentives for ruling/opposition political parties and panchayat functionaries, often going beyond conventional ethno-favouritism ideas of patronage and assuming a more personalised context. In turn, we also argue that the idea of settings is useful in providing a deeper understanding of local state-society relations and the political geography of welfare provisions in rural eastern India.

Mark Harrison talked about economic warfare against Germany in World War I to a panel of the US Naval War College and Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance virtual workshop, “Economic Warfare: What Can World War One Tell us about 21st Century Conflicts?” on 23 April.

Stefania Paredes Fuentes gave an invited lecture on “Hacia una formación incluyente y diversa de Economistas” (Towards an Inclusive and Diverse Education of Economists) at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá-Colombia on Tues 4 May.

Andrew Oswald will give a talk on 'Advertising as a Cause of Human Dissatisfaction' at a conference organised by McGill University in Canada on 14 May.

Ivan Yotzov and Sascha Becker obtained funding from the Monash-Warwick Alliance to continue running and expanding the Applied Young Economist Webinar (AYEW) which is a joint venture between Warwick and Monash.

Sascha Becker presented "Scholars at Risk: Academic Networks and High-Skilled Emigration from Nazi Germany" (with Volker Lindenthal, Sharun Mukand and Fabian Waldinger) at Northwestern University, Chicago, on Wed 7 May.

Working Papers

---

Arun Advani's working paper (with Elliot Ash, David Cai & Imran Rasul) 'Race-related research in economics and other social sciences' has been released as part of the Warwick Economics Research working paper series.

Ludovica Gazze's working paper (with Jennifer Heissel) 'Infrastructure Upgrades and Lead Exposure : Do Cities Face Trade-O s When Replacing Water Mains?' has been released as part of the Warwick Economics Research working paper series.

Media Coverage

---

'EU carbon border could trigger taxes around the world' - Arun Advani's research mentioned - ITR - 5 May 2021.

'How a covert CIA operation led to vaccine hesitancy in Pakistan' - Andreas Stegmann quoted - Medical News Today - 11 May 2021.

'This week in tax: Amazon’s tax filings reignite tax avoidance debate' - Arun Advani quoted - ITR - 07 May 2021.

Dates For Your Diary

---