Our Workshops

Two 30mins presentations:

No.1 Human Capital, Self-Insurance, and Marriage Uncertainty: Racial Differences in Female Labor Supply

Abstract: Racial difference in female labour supply has been a puzzle in both economics and sociology as it is found not explained by economics, demographic or family variables. This paper first shows that racial gap is driven by married Black women with high wages in the South returning to the labor market almost immediately after childbirth. Failed to find any contemporaneous covariates to explain the gap, I build a life cycle model of female labor supply, consumption, and savings with uncertainty in divorce shock. Only using the racial difference in marriage and divorce rates, the model is able to generate the same racial gap in child penalties as empirical estimates. The structural model illustrates that Black women stay in the labor market to prevent human capital from depreciation as a means to self-insure against future divorce shocks.

Link to paper https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/jli/others/li_2022.pdf

No.2 Double Negative: Climate Change, Seasonality and Schooling

Abstract: Literature finds ambiguous or weak effects of annual average rainfall on schooling. This paper, however, demonstrates that rainfall has a significantly opposite effect on school enrollment, depending on the season in which it occurs. Increased precipitation in the dry season enhances schooling, while it reduces schooling in the wet season. Measuring rainfall annually cancels out the double negative impact, as climate change pushes precipitation in opposite directions between the two seasons. The paper calls for urgent policy measures for child protection in development against climate risks