Organisers: Federico Rossi, Christine Braun & Marta Santamaria

Title of paper is Identification and Inference of Network Formation Games with Misclassified Links joint with Takuya Ura.

 Abstract: This paper considers a network formation model when links are potentially measured with error. We focus on a game-theoretical model of strategic network formation with incomplete information, in which the linking decisions depend on agents’ exogenous attributes and endogenous positions in the network. In the presence of link misclassification, we derive moment conditions that characterize the identified set of the preference parameters associated with homophily and network externalities. Based on the moment equality conditions, we provide an inference method that is asymptotically valid when a single network with a large number of agents is available. Finally, we apply our results to study trust networks in rural villages in southern India.

Organiser: Christopher Roth

Title to be advised

About the talk:

While the toolkit of economics can be applied to investigate a range of problems and issues that affect all our daily lives it is surprisingly common to hear students on economics degrees claim that it is difficult for them to engage with the discipline and, perhaps worse still, that they feel alienated by what and how we teach. However, staff too can often feel frustrated bemoaning, for example, a lack of student engagement. The result is that staff and students can struggle to develop a meaningful relationship: one where there is empathy. In the workshop we discuss what can be done to develop a more empathetic relationship focusing on the role that the GES competences of knowledge, application and communication can play to make the teaching of economics a more rewarding experience for both staff and students alike.

Dr Dean Garrat is a Senior Teaching Fellow. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Associate of the Economics Network. Dean is coauthor of 3 leading undergraduate economics textbooks led and inspired by John Sloman: Economics, Essentials of Economics, and Economics for Business. He has also received various recognitions for his teaching, such as Outstanding Teaching Prize by the Economics Network in 2006, and Nottingham Business School Teacher of the Year in 2013. Dean is also academic assessor for the Government Economic Service (GES), where he helps to assess potential recruits to the GES with particular responsibility for assessing candidates' ability to articulate their understanding of economics, including non-technical terms.

Dr Robert Riegler is a Teaching Fellow at Aston Business School. Robert is an applied economist, with research in areas of foreign direct investment, trade and economics education. He promotes the usage of technology for teaching and learning, and is an Associate of the Economics Network.

Seminar organiser: Stefania Paredes Fuentes (Christian Soeggard will host this seminar)

Organisers: Federico Rossi, Christine Braun & Marta Santamaria

Title: Like an Ink Blot on Paper: Testing the Diffusion Hypothesis of Mass Migration, Italy 1876-1920.

A PDF is available at http://www.ariellzimran.com/spitzer_zimran_diffusion.pdf

Title: Narratives and the Economics of the Family

Abstract: We argue that families adopt stories and that different stories give rise to different patterns of behavior. We build a theoretical model, focusing on two common, competing stories, which we term the “protector narrative” and “fulfillment narrative.” Our model makes predictions regarding the bundle of behaviors associated with each of these narratives; it also makes predictions regarding the narratives families will choose to adopt. We show that the protector narrative gives rise to a type of “traditional” family with distinct gender roles: men are breadwinners, are authoritarian towards women and children, and are expected to be “tough”; women avoid work when feasible, and are not expected to be “tough.” Because of role differentiation, it is important to be part of a family. The fulfillment narrative gives rise to a type of “modern” family in which gender roles are less distinct, both men and women work, and marriages are based, to a greater extent, on romantic love.

Organiser: Christopher Roth

The Work Programme, Benefit Sanctions and Protest Voting (joint with Thiemo Fetzer)

Abstract: The Work Programme (WP) was an EU sponsored active labour market welfare-to-work programme in the UK introduced in June 2011 by the coalition government and affecting around 2 million individuals. Rewarded work programme providers helped welfare claimants finding a job through payment-by-result contracts. The program was radical in both scale and approach, caused a substantial public outcry, and lead to a substantial amount of media coverage questioning its effectiveness. This paper studies the WP and specifically focuses on intended and unintended effects. We exploit exogenous variation due to the random assignment of individual referrals to individual contractors. This generates, at a finer geographic level, excess referrals whereby a contractor has to handle out of chance more cases referred than they expected. This strengthens incentives to “skim the cream”.

We document that excess referrals are strongly and causally associated with a subsequent increase in benefit sanction referrals, which in turn produce financial grievances. We further investigate whether these WP-induced benefit sanctions had an impact on political outcomes and broader social and economic outcomes such as local election support for UKIP, support for Leave, etc. The latter is not unlikely as the Work Programme made the European Union immediately salient for all WP participants as all letters and communication were mandated to be branded with the European Union flag, as it co-financed by the European Union cohesion fund.

Title is Choice Simplification: A Theory of Mental Budgeting and Naive Diversification

http://home.cerge-ei.cz/matejka/choice_simplification.pdf.

Seminar organisers: Sinem Hidir & Costas Cavounidis

The title of paper is Long Live the Vacancy

Abstract: We reassess the role of vacancies in a Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides style search and matching model. Long-lived vacancies and endogenous job separations together with alternating offer bargaining greatly improve the ability of the model to replicate key stylized labor market facts. The model explains not only standard deviations and autocorrelations of labor market variables, but also their dynamic correlations. The model is consistent with a large surplus both on the worker and the firm side, and generates a wage response to productivity shocks that is in line with empirical evidence on the wage dynamics of new matches. With only one shock, the model captures the dynamics of the US labor market from 1951 to 2014 surprisingly well.

Organisers: Federico Rossi, Christine Braun & Marta Santamaria

Organiser: Yannick Dupraz

Title to be advised

Organiser: Helios Herrera

Title to be advised.

Seminar organisers: Sinem Hidir & Costas Cavounidis

Organisers: Federico Rossi, Christine Braun & Marta Santamaria

Future Shocked? AI, Skill Demand and Employment in the UK Labor Market (Emma Duchini, Mirko Draca, Arthur Turrell, Giulia Vattuone)

Abstract: Artifical Intelligence (AI) technologies are developing fast. Exploiting a granular data set on online job listing data, this paper explores the diffusion of AI in the UK labor market. First, it traces the demand for AI skills over time, across occupations and counties. Second, it uses novel measures of AI-occupational exposure to study potential dynamics of substitution and complementarity between AI-performed tasks and those performed by humans. Third, it aims to assess the impact of AI on the structure of jobs, by implementing a text-based analysis of job ads.

Organiser: Roland Rathelot

Organiser: Roland Rathelot

I invite the participants to propose their ideas on future talks and guests for the seminar series. Given the current scenario, this can also be an opportunity to talk about the support that we can offer in this period.

Organiser: Stefania Paredes Fuentes

Paper Title: "Sticky Wages on the Layoff Margin"
Time: Apr 23, 2020 3:00 PM London
Zoom Details: Contact the organisers

"The economic consequences of large-scale pandemics: lessons from the history of plague in Europe and the Mediterranean"

Link to Alfani's VoxEu column: https://voxeu.org/article/pandemics-and-asymmetric-shocks?

To register, people will need to send an email to cage.centre@warwick.ac.uk.

Here is the link to join the webinar via Teams

Organiser: Roland Rathelot

Chair: Parama Chaudhury (UCL)
Presenter: Stefania Paredes Fuentes (Warwick)

This will take place via Zoom, please register here and we will send you the details to participate.

(The event will be live-streamed on the CTaLE YouTube Channel)

Labour market effects of an urban public works program (with Simon Franklin)

Organiser: Roland Rathelot

Organiser: Roland Rathelot