Department News

Staff Promotion

We are pleased to congratulate the following colleagues on their recent promotions:

• Assistant Professor Mingli Chen has been promoted to Associate Professor
• Assistant Professor Marija Vukotic has been promoted to Associate Professor
• Dr Cecilia Lanata Briones has been promoted to Senior Teaching Fellow
• Dr Atisha Ghosh has been promoted to Senior Teaching Fellow
• Dr Mahnaz Nazneen has been promoted to Senior Teaching Fellow
• Dr Isleide Zissimos has been promoted to Senior Teaching Fellow

Well done to you all!

CAGE releases special series on race and economics

The special series demonstrates how economics can inform debate on racial inequality and shape the development of new policy. But there is still a long way to go to achieve equality and diversity of representation within the discipline.

Read more about the special series here

Warwick Economics students present their research at BCUR 2021

We are delighted that a number of final year undergraduate University of Warwick Economics students were accepted to present the results of their dissertation research at the 2021 British Conference for Undergraduate Research.

Read the full news article.

Warwick Alumna shares her experiences as a Mental Health First Aider

Warwick Economics alumna and former undergraduate blogger, Isabel Higginson shares her experience as a Mental Health First Aider as part of Mental Health Awareness month.

Read the full news article.

Four Economics students present papers at prestigious Carroll Round 2021

The 20th Carroll Round Conference was held virtually, on 22-25 April 2021. Once again, the Department of Economics at Warwick was well represented at the conference, with one final year Economics student and three graduates from 2020 presenting their papers:

Read the full news article.

TeachECONference2021

Stefania Paredes Fuentes will be chairing the session titled “Lessons Learned from Teaching in a Pandemic” at the 2^nd annual virtual economics education conference, TeachECONference2021, co-organised by Parama Chaudhury (UCL), Cloda Jenkins (UCL) and Doug McKee (Cornell University). The conference will take place 28-30 June, 3pm-6pm BST/ 10am-1pm EDT.

There is no registration fee. All are welcome to join.

Magistrate Recruitment

The West Midlands Magistrates’ Benches will be open for applications to recruit new magistrates from 1st June 2021. The region is seeking to appoint up to 47 new Magistrates to join the criminal benches across Coventry & Warwickshire (7), the Black Country (20), and Birmingham & Solihull (20). The application deadline is 30th June 2021, and the link for online applications is Become a magistrate: Apply to be a magistrate - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). If successful, the University’s Time Off For Public Duties Policy provides staff with paid time away from work for magistrate duties. If you are interested in applying and would like to learn more, please see the attached poster or contact Robert Horton (R.S.Horton@warwick.ac.uk).

Call for WIHEA Fellowship Nominations

The call for WIHEA Fellowship nominations and applications is now open! A Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA) Fellowship is an outstanding opportunity to engage with colleagues and students across the University and take on a role of influence and leadership. By becoming a Fellow, staff and students can take part in exchanges, projects, learning circles, propose teaching and learning policy, or develop new academic practice that will enhance student experience and outcomes. The call for nominations/applications will close at 12 noon, Monday, 21 June 2021.

Follow the links to find out more about the role of a WIHEA Fellow and the selection process.

Departmental HR Update

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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

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Library Update - From Helen Riley, Economics Librarian

The University asks you to submit any new reading lists and update existing lists in Talis Aspire by 31st July - please see the official message sent to all Heads of Departments on 7th May for the details. This year's lists have been rolled over in draft for 2021/22 and they will only become visible to students when you have checked and published them. There are guides on the Library website, and Library staff will be very happy to assist you as you edit or create a list; please contact Helen dot Riley at Warwick dot ac dot uk.

And farewell... I'm also sorry to tell you that I am retiring on 10th August. The Library will be able to replace me and my colleagues will support you in the interim period. There are tutorials and other online help for your students on the Library website. I will say goodbye properly later on, but I do want to thank all of you for your advice and support. I will miss working for Economics, but it's still business as usual for now!

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

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Clement Imbert's paper "How to Improve Tax Compliance? Evidence from Population-Wide Experiments in Belgium" has been published in the Journal of Political Economy.

Abstract

We study the impact of simplification, deterrence, and tax morale on tax compliance. We ran four natural field experiments varying the communication of the tax administration with the universe of income taxpayers in Belgium throughout the tax process. A consistent picture emerges across experiments: (i) simplifying communication substantially increases compliance, (ii) deterrence messages have an additional positive effect, (iii) invoking tax morale is not effective and often backfires. A discontinuity in enforcement intensity, combined with the experimental variation, allows us to compare simplification with standard enforcement measures. We find that simplification is far more cost-effective, allowing for substantial savings on enforcement costs.

Eric Renault's paper (with Veronika Czellar, David T. Frazier) "Approximate Maximum Likelihood for Complex Structural Models" has been accepted for publication in Journal of Econometrics.

Abstract

Indirect Inference (I-I) is a popular technique for estimating complex parametric models whose likelihood function is intractable, however, the statistical efficiency of I-I estimation is questionable. While the efficient method of moments, Gallant and Tauchen (1996), promises efficiency, the price to pay for this efficiency is a loss of parsimony and thereby a potential lack of robustness to model misspecification. This stands in contrast to simpler I-I estimation strategies, which are known to display less sensitivity to model misspecification due in large part to their focus on specific elements of the underlying structural model. In this research, we propose a new simulation-based approach that maintains the parsimony of I-I estimation, which is often critical in empirical applications, but can also deliver estimators that are nearly as efficient as maximum likelihood. This new approach is based on using a constrained approximation to the structural model, which ensures identification and can deliver estimators that are consistent and nearly efficient. We demonstrate this approach through several examples, and show that this approach can deliver estimators that are nearly as efficient as maximum likelihood, when feasible, but can be employed in many situations where maximum likelihood is infeasible.

Working Papers

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Nicholas Craft's working paper '1360 - The 15-Hour Week: Keynes’s Prediction Revisited' 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

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'How could a wealth tax work in the UK?' - Arun Advani's research mentioned - The Times - 22 May 2021.

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

'QE for bankers feels good, will QE outside the financial complex be inflationary?' - CAGE mentioned - Thomas Attwood - 13 May 2021.

Dates For Your Diary

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