Department News

What can we do about Climate change?

In the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference - COP26 (31 October -12 November 2021 in Glasgow) the Department of Economics will be hosting a panel discussion event hosted online to explore what can be done by individuals as well as organisations and countries to slow or reverse global warming.

Our panel will consist of two Warwick academics, Prof Andrew Oswald (Department of Economics) and Prof Nick Chater (Warwick Business School) who will be joined by two former students of the Department of Economics - Dr Maureen Paul, Chief Economist of the energy regulator Ofgem and Sugandha Srivastav, a doctoral student in Environmental Economics from the University of Oxford.

CAGE Event

CAGE will be hosting a half-day conference on Wednesday, 20 October from 2-4pm, organised by Ludovica Gazze. What’s in our backyards? Environmental exposure, health, human capital and housing values 20 October 2021, 2:00-4:00pm (arrival from 1:45pm) Scarman Conference Centre. Half-day conference (in person and online)

Read the programme here. and register to attend here

Departmental Vacancies

We are currently recruiting for the following roles within the Department:

Research Assistant (.5 FTE) (FA5) - to work alongside Assistant Professor Federico Rossi
Closing date: 19 October 2021

Assistant Professor (x4 - any field) to commence September 2022
Closing date: 24 November 2021

Programme Co-ordinator (PG Office) (1xFTE) (FA5)
Closing date: 20 October 2021

Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion (Call for Volunteers)

The Warwick ED&I team are looking for 100 staff volunteers for a short pilot, in particular junior teaching staff and non-desk based staff, although all welcome!

Warwick has partnered with Good Course who deliver text-based learning via your mobile phone! The course explores important and often difficult topics, such as marginalisation, and anti-racism, with the primary goal of increasing awareness of challenges at work and study, whilst opening our minds on how to be a more active bystander.

Instead of sitting at a computer for what is usually an hours online course, Good Course provide a micro-course which deliver daily text messages to your personal mobile phone over just a 5-day period, taking just 3-5 minutes a day to complete, enabling the end user to complete the bite-size learning at their convenience and refer back at any time. We are looking for 100 members of staff to take part in the pilot, which will be held during October 2021. At the end of the 5 days, all we ask is that volunteers complete a short survey on how you rated this approach to learning, how you rated the content and would you recommend to colleagues.

To register your interest in taking part in this pilot, please follow this link and complete a short form. After you register, we will be in touch to confirm your place and let you know the date the text messages will commence.

Pathways to Economics

The Department of Economics will be hosting a free two-part online event – Pathways to Economics on Tuesday 19 October – Wednesday 20 October which is designed to help Year 10 and 11 students discover what economics really is at a crucial stage of their education. Over the two days, we will be holding four interactive sessions where students will:

• Be introduced to the exciting subject of economics;
• Experience a short taster session with a Professor of Economics;
• Hear from Maths and Economics teachers discuss what studying these subjects will involve at A Level;
• Chat to current students about their experience of transitioning to university;
• Find out about the various career opportunities for economics graduates and the support they receive at university

The event is sponsored by the Royal Economics Society and Discover Economics has been organised in line with our Widening Participation and Outreach strategy which aims to enhance and encourage access to higher education.

If you know a Year 10 – 11 student or their parent(s)/guardian(s) who may be interested in attending, please do encourage them to register a place via the event webpage.

If you have any questions or queries, please contact the Economics Widening Participation and Outreach Team.

The Financial Times Online Subscription

To access our subscription to the Financial Times Online for the first time - https://www.ft.com/ please click on the link provided and follow the steps on the FT webpage to set up your individual access: FT Online Access Set Up

If you experience any difficulties in obtaining access, please contact the FT Online Support Team by email: customer.support@ft.com and if this fails, please contact Bozena Bozena dot Beauclair at warwick dot ac dot uk who will liaise with the FT Online Subscription Team to resolve the issue.

ReproducibiliTea journal club

The Warwick University ReproducibiliTea journal club second session will take place on Wednesday 27th October at 3pm on Microsoft Teams facilitated by Ferran Brosa Planella, research fellow from WMG.

Session 2- The “issues” that lead to the reproducibility crisis”- Smaldino Paul E. and McElreath Richard. 2016. The natural selection of bad science. R. Soc. open sci.3: 160384. The natural selection of bad science | Royal Society Open Science (royalsocietypublishing.org)

Read the paper and come along (online) for discussion, & open science! Click here to join the meeting. Everyone is welcome to join us, we are hoping for a diverse range of attendees from all career stages, disciplines, and backgrounds.

To join our mailing list or if you have any questions, please contact reproducibilitea@warwick.ac.uk. You can also join the Warwick ReproducibiliTea public Teams channel for updates about future meetings and schedule

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.

Online Resources

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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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Federico Rossi's paper "The Relative Efficiency of Skilled Labor across Countries: Measurement and Interpretation" was recently accepted by the American Economic Review:.

Abstract: I study how the relative efficiency of high- and low-skill labor varies across countries. Using micro data for countries at different stages of development, I document that differences in relative quantities and wages are consistent with high-skill workers being relatively more productive in rich countries. I exploit variation in the skill premia of foreign-educated migrants to discriminate between two possible drivers of this pattern: cross-country differences in the skill bias of technology and in the relative human capital of skilled labor. I find that the former is quantitatively more important, and discuss the implications of this result for development accounting.

Peter J. Hammond's interview was published in Marc Fleurbaey and Maurice Salles (editors) Conversations in Social Choice and Welfare - Vol. 1 (Springer Nature Switzerland), pages 209–241.

Lucie Gadenne has been recently appointed Associate Editor of the Economic Journal.

Sascha O. Becker presented "Scholars at Risk: Academic Networks and High-Skilled Emigration from Nazi Germany" (with Volker Lindenthal, Sharun Mukand and Fabian Waldinger) at IIES Stockholm.

Sascha O. Becker presented "Shallow Christianity and the Rise of Hitler" (with Andreas Stegmann and Hans-Joachim Voth) at UBC Vancouver.

Sascha O. Becker received a grant (132,000 EUR) from the Rockwool Foundation.

Working Papers

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Sonia Bhalotra’s working paper (with Irma Clots-Figueras & Lakshmi Iyer) 'Religion and abortion : The role of politician identity ' has been released as part of the Warwick Economics Research working paper series.

Daniel Sgroi's working paper (with Jonathan Yeo and Shi Zhuo) 'Ingroup Bias with Multiple Identities : The Case of Religion and Attitudes towards Government Size' has been released as part of the Warwick Economics Research working paper series.

Media Coverage

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'Fix the taxation of capital gains' - Arun Advani's article - The Statesman - 28 Sept 2021.

'Examining the unprecedented burst in exultant government advertisements from a democratic lens' - Andrew Oswald mentioned - The Leaflet - 27 Sept 2021.

'UK employment figures' - Arun Advani interviewed live - BBC News - 12 October 2021.

'We can make research more ethical without compromising its quality' - Stefano Caria's article - THE - 28 Sept 2021.

Dates For Your Diary

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