Title: DO ROLE MODELS INCREASE STUDENT HOPE AND EFFORT? EVIDENCE FROM INDIA

Abstract:

This paper offers experimental evidence on the significance of role models on fostering hope, increasing effort and improving the academic performance of primary school students in India. Students from private schools in Jaipur were randomised at an individual level to a treatment or a placebo group. Treated students watch a short film produced in Jaipur, as a part of the experiment. The placebo group students watch a television show for kids, ‘Malgudi Days’. This intervention increases student hope by 0.17 standard deviation (s.d.) and effort by 0.26 s.d. Along with hope, I find significant improvements in students’ self-efficacy or optimism and happiness that are sustained in the medium run. While learning outcomes do not change immediately, the one-off treatment leads to a 0.16 s.d. increase on standardised test scores in English, six-weeks after the intervention with no effect on Mathematics. A cost-effectiveness analysis highlights role models as a promising intervention tool that can have an effect on student motivation and their learning outcomes.

Title:Buying Opinions

 Abstract: A principal hires an agent to acquire soft information about an unknown state. Even though neither how the agent learns (the experiment chosen by the agent) nor what the agent discovers (the realization of the experiment) are contractible, the principal is unconstrained as to what information the agent can be induced to acquire and report honestly. When the agent is risk neutral, and a) is not asked to learn too much, b) can acquire information sufficiently cheaply, or c) can face sufficiently large penalties, the principal can attain the first-best outcome. Risk aversion (by the agent) introduces inefficiencies: the first-best is unattainable, though whether the agent obtains rents depends on whether he may exit to take his outside option after learning.

Title: An Organizational Theory of State Capacity (with Mike Ting, Columbia)

Abstract: A burgeoning literature recognizes that the efficacy of the state is crucial for economic growth and citizen welfare. However, much of that literature abstracts away from the institutional details underlying state capacity. We develop a theory that provides a working definition of state capacity---the ability to handle administrative problems of varying complexity, such as tax collection---and how it is provided and maintained. We conceive of the state as a knowledge hierarchy, or an information-processing institution that passes problems up a set of organizational layers until a layer with the required expertise solves it. Knowledge hierarchies are costly to establish and operate, and politicians differ in policy preferences and public goods valuations. We embed this structure in a simple political economy framework, where politicians may idle parts of the state depending on electoral prospects, thus reducing output. In conjunction with high partisanship, this gives the state designer incentives to distort the state away from efficient levels of capacity and specialization.

This year’s CAGE Research Away Day will be held on November 10th, 1-5pm in Radcliffe House (the provisional program can be found here). The aim of this event is for our faculty and associated academics to present recent work related to CAGE's themes, in an informal setting allowing for feedback and discussion. If you would like to attend the event (in part or for the whole half day), please register with Josh Allen at cage.centre@warwick.ac.uk.

Title: "Subcontracting Away Strategic Uncertainty" (with Costas Cavounidis)

MS Teams Link: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3a44e76bae944e45478914cb98497b7098%40thread.tacv2/1665048380873?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22aac8c148-e99c-4793-9a9e-9a8b8d83de0e%22%7dLink opens in a new window

Title: Labor Market Power, Self-Employment, and Development

Nonparametric identification of first-price auction with unobserved competition: a density discontinuity framework (joint with Yao Luo (University of Toronto))

Abstract: We consider nonparametric identification of independent private value first-price auction models, in which the analyst only observes winning bids. Our benchmark model assumes an exogenous number of bidders N. We show that, if the bidders observe N, the resulting discontinuities in the winning bid density can be used to identify the distribution of N. The private value distribution can be nonparametrically identified in a second step.

This extends, under testable identification conditions, to the case where N is a number of potential buyers, who bid with some unknown probability. Identification also holds in presence of additive unobserved heterogeneity drawn from some parametric distributions. A last class of extensions deals with cartels which can change size across auctions due to varying bidder cartel membership. Identification still holds if the econometrician observes winner identities and winning bids, provided a (unknown) bidder is always a cartel member. The cartel participation probabilities of other bidders can also be identified. An application to USFS timber auction data illustrates the usefulness of discontinuities to analyze bidder participation.

The paper can be find here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1908.05476.pdf

Title: Domestic Superstars vs. Superstar FDI: Granular Comparative Advantage and Micro Implications

Title: Estimating Large Network Formation

This workshop is hybrid, here is a Teams link . https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OWE3ZDAyNWYtYTgzMS00NTUxLWI2ZDktMWYxZjFkYjQyZTUy%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22d235acba-bb89-4eff-a07c-515e0b711c79%22%7d

Title: Female representation and talent allocation in entrepreneurship: the role of early exposure to entrepreneurs

Abstract: Women are highly under-represented in entrepreneurship in all OECD countries, raising concerns both from a gender equality and an aggregate productivity perspective. Using registry data from Denmark, we follow one million individuals from adolescence into adulthood to study whether higher exposure to entrepreneurs during adolescence can improve female representation and talent allocation in entrepreneurship. We exploit within-school, across-cohort variation in adolescents' exposure to entrepreneurship, as measured by the share of their peers whose parents are entrepreneurs during the last years of compulsory schooling. We find that higher exposure to entrepreneurs during adolescence encourages girls' entry and tenure into this profession. The effect is driven by exposure to the parents of female peers and works via a decrease in girls' likelihood to discontinue education at the end of compulsory schooling and to hold low-paying jobs as adults. The increase in female entrepreneurship is associated with the creation of firms that are larger and survive for longer than the average firm, indicating that early exposure improves the allocation of talent in entrepreneurship by reducing women's entry barriers to this profession. Our results suggest that such barriers are both cultural and informational in nature and that raising women's early exposure to entrepreneurship from the 25th to the 75th percentile would increase the total number of jobs created by entrepreneurs by 5.3%.

Title: Study design: Can improving teacher’s wellbeing improve student outcomes? Experimental evidence from Jordan

Abstract: Since the onset of the Syrian crisis in 2011, Jordan has been host to one of the largest refugee populations in the world. Although the inflow of refugees has slowed recently, there are concerns that Jordan’s government school system is under considerable stress, limiting its ability to deliver high-quality education. Teachers’ wellbeing is of particular concern since they increasingly manage overcrowded classrooms in double shift schools often with children who have faced severe trauma. In response to these challenges, the Jordanian Ministry of Education is launching a teacher training intervention aimed at improving teacher’s emotional and occupational wellbeing. The present study is an experimental evaluation of this program. The main outcomes of interests are teacher wellbeing, teaching quality, student wellbeing, and student learning. The intervention will be launched in February 2024, with the endline survey planned in June 2024.

Title to be advised

Organised by Subhasish Dey

Title: Optimal Insurance: Dual Utility, Random Losses and Adverse Selection (joint with Alex Gershkov, Benny Moldovanu and Philipp Strack)

Abstract: We study a generalization of the classical monopoly insurance problem under adverse selection where we allow for a random distribution of losses, possibly correlated with the agent's risk parameter that is private information. Our main purpose is to provide a convenient analytical model that explains both the pattern of observed customer behavior and the pattern of insurance contracts most often observed in practice: these consist of menus of several deductible-premium pairs, or menus of insurance with coverage limits- premium pairs. The main departure from the classical insurance literature is obtained here by endowing the agents with risk-averse preferences that can be represented by a dual utility functional.

Title: The Politicization of Bureaucrats: Evidence from Brazil ​(with Rogerio Santarrosa)

Abstract: In developing countries incumbents commonly exercise political influence over bureaucrats through monitoring or patronage hiring. We investigate a new politicization channel: a phenomenon where bureaucrats join political parties while in office. First, with a regression discontinuity design and administrative data on the universe of Brazilian municipal bureaucrats, we identify an incumbency advantage in their politicization. Second, we find larger effects for a special set of bureaucrats: 55,000 interviewers enrolling households into Bolsa Família (BF). Third, we show that these effects are even stronger for interviewers highly exposed to voters; in municipalities where BF was expanded; and in administrations connected to PT’s federal government, BF’s creator. The Brazilian context and this evidence together suggest that the following logic might drive this politicization: policy‐driven interactions with voters allow bureaucrats to accumulate political capital – either due to good performance or capture – which is converted into rents by joining the incumbent political networks.

The title of the paper: "What’s Trending in Difference-in-Differences? A Synthesis of the Recent Econometrics Literature" (Jonathan Roth, Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna, Alyssa Bilinski, John Poe), presented by Carmen Villa.

Title: (Endogenous) Growth Slowdowns

Abstract: We present a model where temporary shocks can lead to permanent changes in the rate of growth of total factor productivity (TFP). The model features matching between basic research and development within an expanding variety semi-endogenous growth model. Search externalities generate vicious and virtuous research cycles. The model has a unique equilibrium path but multiple balanced growth paths (BGPs). After a long-lived or deep financial shock, the economy can transit between these BGPs, generating “super-hysteresis” in TFP. We analyze the model in the context of the Japanese growth slowdown and show that it can explain almost all of the TFP growth decline after the financial crisis in the early 1990s. Demographic shocks combined with a long-lasting financial crisis proved to be the “wretched coincidence” that led to the growth slowdown.

Title: Relaxing Strict Exogeneity in Nonlinear Panel Data Models, joint with Kevin Dano and Bryan Graham

Two workshops:

CWIP 1: 1-2pm, Ben Lockwood - Small Firm Growth and the VAT Threshold: Evidence for the UK

CWIP 2: 2:15-3:15pm, Wiji Arulampalam - Changing body weight of adolescents in Great Britain: The role of fast-food (Joint work with Yu Aoki & Sushil Mathew).

This workshop is hybrid, here is a Teams link . https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OWE3ZDAyNWYtYTgzMS00NTUxLWI2ZDktMWYxZjFkYjQyZTUy%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22d235acba-bb89-4eff-a07c-515e0b711c79%22%7d

Title: Understanding Engagement and Performance of Social Mobility Students

Speaker: Lory Barile, Neil Lloyd and Ramkumar Govindaswamy

Abstract: One of the guiding principles to inclusive education is to improve participation and outcomes for all students and ensure that all students are able to achieve their potential. Effective data monitoring is key to this and to ensure that change is transformative and sustained. This study extends the existing literature on ‘mobilities in Higher Education ’ by looking at the extent to which Economics students from social mobility backgrounds at the University of Warwick engage and perform within their programme of studies. The paper will provide a contribution to the literature by:

1) Analysing the relationship between student engagement and performance using a Revealed Preferences Approach and considering a) how students’ characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic and pre-university performance) affect students’ (online and in-person) engagement and b) how this links to students’ performance.

2) Investigating how different types of assessments (e.g., MCQ, Essays, Group tasks) impact engagement and performance.

Organised by Subhasish Dey

Title: Martingale Embeddings: Theory and Applications.

We will discuss the paper "Structural Estimation in Urban Economics" by Holmes and Sieg. Gabriele Guaitoli will lead the discussion.

Who Benefits from Meritocracy? (with Santiago Pérez)

Does screening applicants using exams help or hurt the chances of lower-SES candidates? Because individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds fare, on average, worse than those from richer backgrounds in standardized tests, a common concern with this “meritocratic” approach is that it might have a negative impact on the opportunities of lower-SES individuals.
However, an alternative view is that, even if such applicants underperformed on exams, other (potentially more discretionary and less impersonal) selection criteria might put them at an even worse disadvantage. We investigate this question using evidence from the 1883 Pendleton Act, a landmark reform in American history which introduced competitive exams to select
certain federal employees. Using newly assembled data on the socioeconomic backgrounds of government employees and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that, although the reform increased the representation of “educated outsiders” (individuals with high education but limited connections), it reduced the share of lower-SES individuals. This decline was driven by
a higher representation of the middle class, with little change in the representation of upper class applicants. The drop in the representation of lower-SES workers was stronger among applicants from states with more unequal access to schooling as well as in offices that relied more heavily on connections prior to the reform. These findings suggest that, although using
exams could help select more qualified candidates, these improvements can come with the cost of increased elitism.

This seminar will be hybrid format via MS Teams.

Click here to join the meeting<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_NjExOWVhZTAtNTY4MC00OWUwLWEyYWQtYTcxOGY3NmE1YzAy%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%229f3e7b84-305e-496a-b9de-8c9ca74b3237%22%7d>

Title: History-Dependent Self-Control and Emotional Decision-Making

MS Teams Link: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3a44e76bae944e45478914cb98497b7098%40thread.tacv2/1665048380873?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22aac8c148-e99c-4793-9a9e-9a8b8d83de0e%22%7d

Title: to be advised

Christine Braun is hosting this visit.

Title: Omina Juncta in Uno: Foreign Powers and Trademark Protection in Shanghai's Concession Era (with Laura Alfaro, Cathy Bao, Maggie X. Chen, Junjie Hong)

Title: Noisy, Non-Smooth, Non-Convex Estimation of Moment Condition Models