Research Seminars

The Economics Department welcomes

Ann Owen (Hamilton College)

The talk is titled:

Gender Dynamics at FOMC Meetings

Thursday, September 12th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract: Existing literature has studied the role that the gender composition of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) plays in meeting dynamics and resulting policy decisions; however, an important topic that has received little attention is whether and how the gender composition of the FOMC affects meeting participants’ behavior at various levels of the career ladder. We apply textual analysis and regression methods to a newly compiled database of FOMC meeting transcripts over the past three decades to examine the drivers of participant behaviors. We find that female FOMC members behave similarly to male FOMC members; however, female FRS staff members behave differently than men. Importantly, we show that the presence of more women on the FOMC is associated with changing behavior of female FRS staff members. We also establish that some meeting behaviors are associated with career progression, including ones that are affected by the presence of more women on the FOMC.

The Economics Department welcomes

Eddy Minuci (NC A&T State)

The talk is titled:

Determinants of Contracts and Wages in the Women's National Basketball Association

Thursday, October 10th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract: The determinants of contracts and wages within the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) remain understudied. Our research fills this gap by analyzing factors influencing player salary using a unique dataset of WNBA player contracts from 2014 to 2024. Given the development of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in 2020, we explore its impact on player compensation and contract setting in the league. We find evidence that the CBA increased average player compensation when excluding extension contracts from our analysis. We also find that under this CBA, the probability that players sign multi-year contracts or contract extensions falls. Given the positive relationship between player compensation and these types of contracts, our results suggest that despite the new guidelines set to improve players' well-being, an unintended consequence of this agreement is that it lowers the incentive for teams to offer long-term contracts to or re-sign a player.

The Economics Department welcomes

Marie Thea How Choon (St. Lawrence University)

The talk is titled: Gender Composition and Group Behavior:
Evidence from US City Councils.*

Thursday, October 17th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract: How does gender composition influence individual and group behavior? To study this question empirically, we assembled a new, national sample of United States city council elections and digitized information from the minutes of over 40,000 city-council meetings. We find that replacing a male councilor with a female councilor results in a 25p.p. increase in the share of motions proposed by women. This is despite causing only a 20p.p. increase in the council female share. The discrepancy is driven, in part, by behavioral changes similar to those documented in laboratory-based studies of gender composition. When a lone woman is joined by a female colleague, she participates more actively by proposing more motions. The apparent changes in behavior do not translate into clear differences in spending. The null finding on spending is not driven by strategic voting; however, preference alignment on local policy issues between men and women appears to play an important role. Taken together, our results both highlight the importance of nominal representation for cultivating substantive participation by women in high-stakes decision making bodies; and also provide evidence in support of the external validity of a large body of laboratory based work on the consequences of group gender composition.

The Economics Department welcomes

Sooyoung Lee (Hobart and William Smith Colleges)

The talk is titled:

Foreign Ownership without Knowledge Transfers: Evidence of Processing Exporter Underperformance from Firm-Level Data

Thursday, October 24th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

Abstract: This paper focuses on the linkage between foreign ownership and the performance of processing exporters vis-à-vis ordinary exporters and non-exporters. Recent literature finds that processing exporters are less productive than ordinary and non-exporters, while it is silent on the role of foreign ownership in explaining the underperformance of processing exporters. Using recent Vietnamese firm-level data in 2017-2019, we identify novel stylized facts on processing exporters and examine firm performance gaps by exporter type (ordinary, non, and processing) and ownership regime (foreign and domestic). The results show that processing exporters underperform non-exporters only among foreign-owned firms, not among domestically owned firms. Our heterogenous-firm model explains the processing-non-exporter performance gap based on the limited firm-specific asset transfers and low sales fixed costs that processing exporters bear. Our counterfactual analysis highlights that tariff reductions may limit productivity gains from trade when processing exporters are present in the economy.

The Economics Department welcomes

Erin Wolcott (Middlebury)

The talk is titled:

Did Racially Motivated Policy Changes Reverse Equality Gains for Everyone?

Thursday, November 7th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

Abstract: Labor protection policies in the 1950s and 1960s helped many low- and middle-wage white workers in the United States achieve the American Dream. This coincided with historically low levels of inequality across income deciles. I find that after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, policies that had previously helped build the white middle class reversed, especially in states with a larger Black population. Calibrating a search model to match unemployment benefits, minimum wages, and bargaining power before and after the Civil Rights Act, I find declining labor protections explain half of the rise in 90/10 wage inequality since the 1960s.

The Economics Department welcomes

Daniela Vidart (Univ of Connecticut)

The talk is titled:

TBA

The Economics Department welcomes

Amanda Gregg (Middlebury)

The talk is titled:

TBA

The Economics Department welcomes

Shafaat Yar Khan (Syracuse)

The talk is titled:

Trade War and Peace: U.S.-China Trade and Tariff Risk from 2015-2050

Thursday, April 24th, 2025

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

TBA

The Economics Department welcomes

Mike Mei (Colgate)

The talk is titled:

TBA

The Economics Department welcomes

Gillian Brunet (Smith)

The talk is titled:

TBA

The Economics Department welcomes

Haruka Takayama, SUNY-Albany

The talk is titled:

Greenfield or Brownfield? FDI Entry Mode and Intangible Capital

Thursday, November 9th, 2023

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract: When a multinational firm invests abroad, it can either establish a new facility (greenfield investment, GF) or purchase a local firm (cross-border merger and acquisition, M&A). Using a novel US firm-level dataset, I provide the first evidence that multinationals with higher levels of intangible capital systematically invest through GF rather than M&A. Motivated by this empirical result, I develop a general equilibrium search model of a multinational firm’s choice between M&A and GF. The model implies that equilibrium FDI patterns can be suboptimal. In particular, policymakers in less developed economies can increase welfare by incentivizing M&A. By allowing highly productive multinationals to use local intangible capital, this policy raises aggregate productivity relative to the laissez-faire outcome.

The Economics Department welcomes

Cody Couture, Hamilton College

The talk is titled:

Political Advertisements and Consumer Sentiment

Thursday, January 11th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Fiorella Pizzolon, Hamilton College

The talk is titled:

Optimal Time-Consistent Monetary Policy and Sovereign

Debt Currency Denomination

Thursday, February 15th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract

In the past two decades, the share of external sovereign debt in emerging economies denominated in foreign currency has fallen. I document that in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, foreign currency debt was mainly substituted by debt denominated in local currency, while indexed debt represented a small proportion. In Uruguay, on the contrary, foreign currency debt was largely substituted by inflation-indexed debt. To study these differences, I use a small open economy model in which each period, a government that cannot default and lacks commitment optimally chooses inflation and the issuance of foreign currency, local currency and inflation-indexed debt. The choice of debt currency denomination balances hedging benefits and costs implied by each type of bond. On one hand, the exchange rate features a negative correlation with tradable endowment, making local currency and indexed debt useful securities in terms of hedging. On the other hand, the government is tempted to use inflation surprises (local currency debt) and real exchange rate depreciation surprises (local currency and indexed debt) to dilute the value of its debt. Foreign currency debt acts as a commitment device, because its value cannot be diluted. I derive analytical expressions to gain insight into the nature of these trade-offs and solve the model numerically to explain the difference in currency composition across countries. Large external debt-to-GDP ratios, long debt duration, and low inflation costs encourage more borrowing in inflation-indexed bonds and can explain the larger share of inflation-indexed debt in Uruguay compared to other Latin American countries.

The Economics Department welcomes

Dong Cheng, Union College

The talk is titled:

State-dependent Distribution Friction and Monetary Policy

Thursday, April 18th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract

We examine the quantitative importance of state-dependent distribution friction using a dynamic multi-sector model. Our model predicts a counter-cyclical distribution margin, consistent with the empirical evidence from Brazilian fuel price data. Estimating an augmented model with price and wage rigidity, we attribute the lion’s share of such countercyclicality to productivity shocks from the service sector. We find that the state-dependent distribution friction significantly amplifies money neutrality as higher distribution friction dampens the consumption response to monetary policy shocks. A model with time-invariant distribution friction cannot replicate this result.

The Economics Department welcomes

Ama Baafra Abeberese, Wellesley

The talk is titled:

Court Efficiency, Contract Enforcement and Informality: Evidence from India

Thursday, April 25th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract

Inefficient courts can negatively affect contract enforcement and, hence, reduce the benefits of formalizing. We find evidence of this using data on Indian firms and courts. We find an increase in informality in states where court cases take longer to be resolved. We investigate heterogeneity of this effect by the contract intensity of industries.

The Economics Department welcomes

Michael Martell, Bard College

The talk is titled:

Economic Vulnerability and Mental Health for Sexual and Gender Identity Minorities in the US

Thursday, May 16th, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract

Despite improvements in the legal and social environment, economic outcomes for LGBTQ individuals suggest a high degree of vulnerability. We use data on over 500,000 individuals collected from July 21, 2021 to May 9, 2022 as part of US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse survey which is the Bureau’s first survey to collect self-reported sexual orientation and gender identity. We use linear probability models to answer several questions related to the economic experience of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals during this time period. We find that lesbian women, bisexual women, and bisexual men were more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to be in a household that experienced pandemic related job loss. Bisexual men were more likely than heterosexual men to have difficulty paying their expenses, experience food insufficiency and experience housing insecurity in the last week. Lesbian and bisexual women were more likely than heterosexual women to report expense difficulty and food insufficiency. The vulnerability we observe may have been exacerbated by the pandemic but appears to be largely due to pre-existing—and likely continuing—inequalities.

The Economics Department welcomes

Alexander Cardazzi, Old Dominion University

The talk is titled:

1.) The Impact of Micromobility on Road Safety and Bodily Injury

2.) Pricing Misinformation: Evidence from Housing Transactions

Thursday, May 23rd, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Kaywana Raeburn

The talk is titled:

Secure in our Preferences? An Analysis of Security Attachment and Economic Preferences

Thursday, September 29th, 2022

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Jason Huh, Ph.D., Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The talk is titled:

More Doctors in Town Now? Evidence from Medicaid Expansions

Thursday, October 13th, 2022

4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

We examine how physicians’ practice locations are affected by Medicaid expansions. We focus on the dramatic Medicaid eligibility expansions for pregnant women that took place between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Instrumenting for eligibility using a simulated measure of Medicaid generosity, we estimate that the increase in the number of pregnant women eligible for Medicaid between 1982 and 1992 raised the supply of obstetricians and gynecologists (OB/GYNs) by 14 percent in poor counties. Our results are driven by recently graduated OB/GYNs and are concentrated in counties with urban populations. Our results demonstrate that Medicaid coverage rules are an important determinant of physician supply.

Jason Huh's CV and research interests can be found on his website here.

The Economics Department welcomes

Salvador Ortigueira

The talk is titled:

On the Optimal Reform of Income Support for Single Parents

(with Nawid Siassi)

Thursday, October 27th, 2022

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

We characterize the optimal reform of U.S. income support for low-income single parents using a life-cycle heterogeneous agent model with idiosyncratic risk and incomplete asset markets. We use the U.S. tax-transfer system as the benchmark policy and a sample of single mothers drawn from the CPS to assess reforms that maximize the expected utility of single mothers-to-be. When policy cannot be tagged by the age of the children, the optimal reform calls for an increase in out-of-work income support by about 15 percent, and a decrease in earnings subsidies to low-wage workers by roughly 50 percent. This reform delivers substantial welfare gains. Tagging policy by the age of the children makes the government’s trade-off between providing insurance to single mothers with children of pre-school age, on the one hand, and providing work incentives to those with school-age children, on the other hand, more favorable, thus increasing their scope for smoothing marginal utility throughout the life cycle. With tagging, mothers of pre-school age children get a substantial increase in out-of-work income support and no earnings subsidies. Tagging brings additional welfare gains.

The Economics Department welcomes

Jianjing Lin,

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The talk is titled:

How do Hospitals Respond to Payment Incentives?
(with Gautam Gowrisankaran and Keith A. Joiner)

Thursday, January 12th, 2023

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

In recent years, a series of payment reforms in the U.S healthcare system have substantially increased coding cost. Literature has found financial incentives are important drivers for coding intensity, but the role of coding costs has been less understood. We examine the impact of both revenues and coding costs on hospital billing practices for Medicare inpatients. We first examine whether increased extra reimbursements from reporting more diagnoses lead hospitals to report more top codes and find positive evidence before the 2007 payment reform but not after, suggesting coding cost could play a more important role post reform. We then test for costly coding by comparing hospitals with electronic medical records (EMRs) to non-EMR hospitals and find adopters reported relatively more top codes after the same reform. We further use a 2008 policy where Medicare implemented financial penalties for documenting certain conditions. EMR hospitals coded relatively more of these conditions following the penalization, lowering revenues. Together, this evidence is consistent with costly coding. Reducing coding costs may increase inpatient Medicare costs by $1.03 billion annually.

The Economics Department welcomes

Dr. Bryan McCannon, West Virginia University

The talk is titled:

The Right to Counsel: Criminal Prosecution in 19th Century London

Thursday, February 2nd 2023

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

in Lippman 200

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

Exploiting a novel data set of criminal trials in 19th century London, we evaluate the impact of an accused’s right to counsel on convictions. While lower-level crimes had an established history of professional representation prior to 1836, individuals accused of committing a felony did not, even though the prosecution was conducted by professional attorneys. The Prisoners’ Counsel At of 1836 remedied this and first introduced the right to counsel in common law systems. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy we identify the causal effect of defense counsel. We find the surprising result that the professionalization of the courtroom lead to an increase in the conviction rate, which we interpret as
a consequence of jurors feeling that the trial became fairer. We go further and employ a topic modeling approach to the text of the transcripts to provide suggestive evidence on how the trials changed when defense counsel was fully introduced.

The Economics Department welcomes

Nabamita Dutta, University of Wisconsin - La Crosse

The talk is titled:

Opportunity And Necessity Entrepreneurship: Do Linguistic Structures Matter?

Thursday, February 16th 2023

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

in Lippman 200

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract

A rapidly growing literature explores the link between linguistic structures and
economic outcomes. The language a speaker uses systematically influences
cognition, thinking, and thus behavior. It also influences the form and content of
cultural information that is shared through time and generations. We examine how
these linguistic structures influence entrepreneurship. Not all forms of
entrepreneurship are equally conducive to, nor associated with, economic growth
and prosperity. A distinction is often made between necessity entrepreneurship,
which is a result of individuals being pushed into self-employment by adverse
circumstances, and opportunity entrepreneurship in which individuals choose to
pursue promising ideas. We find that countries with languages not dropping
personal pronouns in their major spoken language, or those speaking a weak future
time reference (FTR) language, have higher proportions of opportunity relative to
necessity driven entrepreneurs, and that this effect is stronger in countries with
higher levels of economic freedom.

The Economics Department welcomes

Caitlyn Meyers, Middlebury College

The talk is titled:

Cooling off or burdened? The effects of mandatory waiting periods on abortions and births

Thursday, April 27th 2023

Time: 3:45 pm-5:00 pm

in Lippman 200

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

I implement event study and difference-in-differences research designs to measure the causal effects of mandatory waiting periods for abortions, distinguishing between “one-trip” waiting periods that allow counseling and information to be provided remotely and “two-trip” waiting periods that require two in-person appointments. The results suggest that one-trip waiting periods do not have substantial effects on abortions or births. Two-trip waiting periods are estimated to reduce abortions and delay those that still occur, increasing second trimester abortions by 19.1%, reducing resident abortion rates by 8.9%, and increasing births by 1.5%. These effects are larger for young women and for women of color. These effects also are larger in counties that are far from abortion providers and in counties with high poverty and unemployment. These findings support a “burden” rather than a “cooling-off period” interpretation of the findings.

The Economics Department welcomes

Rodrigo Schneider, Skidmore College

The talk is titled:

Does Exposure to Refugees Impact Political Support for Right-Wing Parties? Empirical Evidence from Venezuelan Refugees in Brazil

(with Smriti Tiwari)

Thursday, May 25th 2023

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30 pm

in Lippman 200

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

In this paper we study how exposure to Venezuelans refugees in Brazil affected
the support for right-wing candidates in the 2018 elections of the latter country. We study
the Venezuelan refugee crisis, which gained traction in 2017 when many fled an authoritarian
regime and asked for asylum in neighboring country, and take advantage of the granular data
provided by the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court to build a dataset containing the distance
from each polling station in the city of Boa Vista in the State of Roraima, which received
the largest amount of Venezuelan refugees in Brazil, to its closest refugee shelter. We find
that polling stations that are closer to these shelters showed larger support for right-wing
candidates. Our results are robust to a placebo test in which we look at the 2014 elections,
prior to the refugee crisis, to establish that distance the closest shelter is not a pre-treatment
variable that explains political ideology.

The Economics Department welcomes

Billur Aksoy

(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

The talk is titled:

Discrimination against Sexual Minorities in Prosocial Domains

(with Ian Chadd, Boon Han Koh)

Friday, October 1st, 2021

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

We study the effects of anticipated discrimination in prosocial domains against sexual minorities using a sharing (dictator) game in an online experiment. Recipients are given the opportunity to signal their sexual identity. Decision-makers, upon observing these signals, decide how much of their endowment to share with their matched recipients. We find that female, but not male, recipients are less likely to signal their sexual minority status when they are aware of the potential payoff implications of their decisions. Investigating the treatment of sexual minorities by decision-makers, we find that decision-makers are similarly generous based on the recipient's chosen signal of their sexual minority status. However, the intersection of decision-makers' political affiliations and the perceptions of these signals matter: Republican heterosexual decision-makers are less generous to others whom they perceive to be sexual minorities, while their Democratic counterparts are slightly more generous. This cannot be explained by religious affiliation or perceptions about the recipient's political leaning, but it is consistent with the direction of their implicit bias against homosexuals.

The Economics Department welcomes

Younghawn Song

(Union College)

The talk is titled:

Do Fathers Have Son Preference in the United States?

Evidence from Paternal Subjective Well-Being

(with Jia Gao)

Friday, October 29th, 2021

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

The Economics Department welcomes

Ian Chadd

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The talk is titled:

The Queer Frontier: Advances in LGBTQ+ Economics

(The Valerie J. Hoffman ('75) Lecture Series in Feminist & Queer Studies)

Wednesday, April 13th, 2022

Time: 4:00 pm-6:00 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Dr. Ian Chadd is a behavioral and experimental economist who uses a combination of experimental methods and theory to study questions surrounding limited attention and the intersection of risk and reciprocity. He has several on-going projects on gender and economic preferences covering topics such as gender and artificial intelligence, and competitiveness preferences in transgender individuals.

The Economics Department welcomes

Pinka Chatterji

SUNY-Albany

The talk is titled:

Medicare Part D and Disparities in Health

(with Min Jang)

Friday, April 29th, 2022

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract

Over the past three decades an influx of new prescription drugs has transformed the treatment of chronic disease in the US and endowed the nation with a wide range of effective medications. However, historic progress in reducing mortality rates was recently reversed, educational and racial disparities in mortality persist, and gaps in life expectancy by education have widened in recent years. Attempting to shed light on these discordant facts, we examine whether a prescription drug benefit program can reduce education-related disparities in outcomes related

to chronic diseases. Specifically, we investigate the effect of Medicare Part D on drug insurance coverage, medical utilization, and mortality, while also exploring these effects by education. We find that Part D is associated with increased drug insurance rates, greater utilization of prescription drugs, and decreased out-of-pocket spending. These improvements are magnified among low-educated individuals. Part D is associated with a mixed pattern of healthcare utilization that varies by education. Among low-educated individuals, the program increases outpatient care utilization, while among higher-educated individuals, it is associated with reductions in inpatient stays. These effects in medical utilization are translated into health benefits, as the prescription drug program reduces mortality and the effect is magnified among those with lower educational attainment. Our findings show that Medicare Part D increases medical utilization and reduces mortality among the elderly, especially for groups such as the low-educated elderly, who would otherwise lack drug insurance coverage.

The Economics Department welcomes

Paul Gaggl

(University of North Carolina at Charlotte)

The talk is titled:

Capital Composition and the Declining Labor Share

(Maya Eden and Paul Gaggl)

Friday, February 26th, 2021

Time: 3:30 pm-4:30pm

Online

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

To what extent can technological advances in the production of capital account for the recent, worldwide decline in the labor income share? We pose two challenges to the automation narrative: first, estimates of the elasticity of substitution (EOS) between capital and labor tend to fall below or around one, suggesting that a decline in the price of capital should not lead to a decline in the labor income share. Second, we illustrate that, despite technological improvements, the price of capital relative to output has remained roughly constant, worldwide. This poses a challenge to the view that cheaper capital has caused the displacement of workers. We show that a more nuanced approach, which takes seriously the composition of capital, ascribes a prominent role to the automation hypothesis. Though information and communications (ICT) capital is a small fraction of the capital stock, it is highly substitutable with labor, and its user cost declined sharply over the last few decades. A framework that distinguishes between ICT and non-ICT capital is empirically plausible and suggests that automation accounts for more than one quarter of the global decline in the labor share, even if the aggregate EOS is substantially less than unity.

The Economics Department welcomes

Belinda Archibong
(Barnard College)

The talk is titled:

The Epidemic Effect: Global Governance Institutions Mitigate the Effects of Epidemics

(Belinda Archibong, Francis Annan and Uche Ekhator-Mobayode)

Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 3:30 pm-4:30pm

Online

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

Epidemics can negatively affect economic development except mitigated by global governance institutions. We examine the effects of sudden exposure to epidemic disease on human capital outcomes using evidence from the African meningitis belt. Meningitis shocks reduce child health outcomes, especially in periods when the World Health Organization (WHO) does not declare an epidemic year. These effects are reversed when the WHO declares an epidemic. Children born in meningitis shock areas during a year when an epidemic is announced are 10 percentage points (pp) less stunted and 8.2 pp less underweight than their peers born in non-epidemic years. We find suggestive evidence for the crowd-out of routine vaccination during epidemic years. We analyze data from World Bank projects and find evidence that an influx of health aid in response to WHO declarations may partly explain these reversals.

The Economics Department welcomes

Prabal Kumar De
(The City College of New York)

The talk is titled:

The Effects of Compulsory Schooling Expansion on Intergenerational Education Mobility

Friday, May 7th, 2021

Time: 3:30 pm-4:30pm

Online

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Hakan Yilmazkuday

(Florida International University)

The talk is titled:

Gains from Trade: Does Sectoral Heterogeneity Matter?

Friday, September 13th, 2019

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

This paper assesses the quantitative importance of including sectoral heterogeneity in computing the gains from trade. Our theoretical framework has sectoral heterogeneity along five dimensions, including the elasticity of trade to trade costs. We estimate the sectoral trade elasticity with the simulated method of moments estimator and micro price data. Our estimates range from 2.97 to 8.94. Our benchmark model is calibrated to 21 OECD countries and 20 sectors. We remove one or two sources of sectoral heterogeneity at a time and compare the gains from trade to the benchmark model. We also compare an aggregate model with a single elasticity to the benchmark model. Our main result from these counterfactual exercises is that sectoral heterogeneity does not always lead to an increase in the gains from trade, which is consistent with the theory.

The Economics Department welcomes

Steve Schmidt
(Union College)

The talk is titled:

Student Loans, Financial Aid, and
College Retention Rates

Thursday, September 19th, 2019

Time: 12:50 pm-1:50pm

Abstract:

Colleges and universities have an interest in increasing their retention rates, both because it is socially desirable for students to complete their educations, and because college rankings are substantially affected by retention rates. Retention of individual students is affected by the way they finance their educations, so it is natural for colleges to ask whether changing their aid policies could affect their retention rates. We examine the relationship between institutional aid, loans, and retention using a panel data set for 8 years and 1292 four-year US colleges. Comparisons to the student-level literature suggest that including fixed and period effects substantially controls for endogeneity arising from non-random assignment of students to schools and cohorts. We find heterogeneous effects of aid and loans on retention for different schools, which is not surprising since the student-level literature often finds heterogeneous effects on students. At selective schools, more institutional aid increases retention, though the effect is small. There is no effect at less selective schools. With loans, we find a reverse pattern; more students with loans has no effect on retention at selective schools but decreases it at less selective schools. Institutions that want to know how changes in institutional aid policies will affect their retention rates need to consider their own circumstances carefully, thinking about both how the changes will affect the particular students they currently enroll and how changes in aid policy will affect the mix of students that attends the institution.

The Economics Department welcomes

Don Lehmann ‘73 (Columbia)

&

Russ Winer ‘66 (NYU)

The talk is titled:

Research Frontiers in Marketing

Thursday, September 26th, 2019

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Nam T. Vu

(Miami University of Ohio)

The talk is titled:

Asymmetric Effects of Sectoral Shifts under Low and High Uncertainty

Friday, October 25th, 2019
Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm
There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.
Abstract:
This paper studies the asymmetric effects of sectoral shifts on economic performance under low and high uncertainty using US data. A sectoral shift is found to induce more depressed economic activity under high uncertainty relative to under low uncertainty. These effects are statistically different across the two uncertainty regimes and are not driven solely by recessions. A tractable two-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with sectoral shifts and stochastic volatility is able to qualitatively explain these empirical findings.

The Economics Department welcomes

Tanseli Savaser (Vassar College)

The talk is titled:

CEO Incentives and Bank Risk Over the Business Cycle

Thursday, November 7th, 2019

Time: 4:00 pm-5:30pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

We examine whether the relationship between managerial risk-taking incentives and bank risk is sensitive to the underlying macroeconomic conditions. We find that risk-taking incentives provided to bank executives are associated with higher bank riskiness during economic downturns. We attribute this finding to the increase in moral hazard during macroeconomic downturns when the perceived probability of future bailouts and government guarantees rises. This association is particularly strong for larger banks, banks that maintain lower capital ratios and banks that are managed by more powerful Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). Our findings highlight the importance of the interaction between managerial incentives and the macroeconomic environment. Boards and regulators may find it useful to consider the countercyclical nature of the relationship between risk-taking incentives and bank riskiness when designing managerial compensation.

The Economics Department welcomes

Lewis Davis

Union College

The talk is titled:

On the Origin of Religion Values: Does Italian Weather Affect Bolivian Values

Thursday, October 18th, 2018

Time: 4:00 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

In this paper I advance and empirically support the indigenous religious values hypothesis, which holds that religions espouse the values indigenous to the countries in which they develop. To identify the indigenous values of a religion’s homeland, I rely on the negative relationship between individualism and rainfall variation. I find strong empirical support for the hypothesis that contemporary individualism depends on rainfall variation in the homelands of religions to which a country’s population adheres. Indeed, this relationship explains over a quarter of the international variation in individualism. This effect is robust to controls for the role of religion in institutional and technological transfers and the confluence of conversion and colonization. In keeping with the explicitly religious nature of the mechanism proposed here, I also find that rainfall variation in religion homelands plays a greater role in explaining the values of countries with greater religious freedom and the values of individuals who are more religious or members of religious minorities.

The Economics Department welcomes

Joel Rodrigue

Vanderbilt Univ.

The talk is titled:

Decomposing the Impact of Trade on Aggregate Skill Demand: Evidence from Indonesia

Friday, October 26th, 2018

Time: 3:00 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

This paper studies the impact of plant-level trade on the aggregate demand for skilled workers among Indonesian manufacturers. We combine regression methods with standard decomposition techniques to counterfactually quantify the impact of plant-level integration into import and export markets on the aggregate demand for skilled labour. Our analysis reveals four striking results: (1) the aggregate demand for skilled labour in the Indonesian manufacturing sector grew by 14 percentage points over the 1996-2006 period; (2) plant-level import and export decisions could have induced a change in the demand for skilled labour of a similar magnitude; (3)the observed import and export decisions did not significantly affect the aggregate demand for Indonesian skilled labour between 1996 and 2006; (4) importing affects skill upgrading largely through changes in within-plant skill-intensity, while export-ing affects both across-plant reallocation and within-plant skill-intensity. Counter-factual policy experiments suggest that a 10 percent reduction in internal shipping costs would induce a 0.5-8 percentage point increase in aggregate skill demand through changes in import behavior. Similarly, the elimination of tariffs on Indonesian exporters would induce a 4-17 percentage point increase in aggregate skill growth through changes in plant-level export decisions.

The Economics Department welcomes

Minsik Choi

Ewha Womans University, Korea

The talk is titled:

A Comparative Study of East Asian Adolescents’ Time Preference and Smartphone Addiction

Friday, November 2nd, 2018

Time: 3:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Kaywana Raeburn

Union College

The talk is titled:

Learning in a Bandit Game and Technology Choice

Friday, November 9th, 2018

Time: 3:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

We present a decision-making experiment, conducted in the field, that explores the extent to which learning in a bandit game predicts technology choice on the farm. We find evidence of heterogeneity of learning in the bandit game, including overweighting of winning draws and Bayesian updating. Our results suggest that learners who overweight recent draws are more likely to have adopted new farm crops within the previous year.

The Economics Department welcomes

Stephanie Seguino, University of Vermont

The talk is titled:

The Costs of Exclusion: Gender Job Segregation, Structural Change, and the Labour Share Income

Friday, April 5th, 2019

Time: 3:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

While women’s share of employment has risen in many countries over the last two decades, gender job segregation has worsened, with women increasingly excluded from ‘good’ jobs in the industrial sector. In this article, the determinants of gender job segregation are assessed using panel data for a broad set of developing countries covering the period 1991–2015. The effect of gender job segregation on all workers, via the labour share of income, is also analysed. The results identify two major contributors to gender job segregation — the rising capital/labour ratio and the ratio of female/male labour force participation rates — indicative of ‘crowding’ and exclusion as economies move up the industrial ladder. The analysis further indicates that the crowding of women into lower quality jobs has a negative effect on workers as a whole by dampening the labour share of income. Those processes are influenced by global and macroeconomic conditions and policies that have circumscribed the expansion of high-quality jobs relative to labour supply, intensifying competition for ‘good’ jobs and weakening labour’s bargaining power.

The Economics Department welcomes

Michael Klein, RPI

The talk is titled:

Trade Secret Protection in a Small Open Economy

Friday, April 26th, 2019

Time: 3:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

Multinational firms indicate that the threat of trade secret misappropriation by current

and former employees remains a substantial impediment to conducting business in emerging mar-
kets. In this paper, I examine the economic implications of strengthening international standards

in trade secret protection. I develop a general equilibrium model featuring heterogenous firms that

differ in the degree to which they must expose employees to trade secrets. To prevent employee mis-
appropriation, firms offer incentive compatible wage premiums based on their individual exposure

and the common level of legal protection. Entry selection into the international market generates
an endogenous distribution of firm specific wages and positive unemployment in equilibrium. I find
that stronger protection stimulates multinational investment and increases aggregate productivity.
However, distributional effects leave many workers worse-off.

The Economics Department welcomes

Cynthia Bansak, St. Lawrence University

The talk is titled:

Refugee Admissions and Public Safety:

Are Refugee Settlement Areas More Prone to Crime?

Friday, October 13th, 2019

Time: 3:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of refugees worldwide rose to 21.3 million in 2015. Yet, resistance to the welcoming of refugees appears to have grown. The possibility that refugees may commit acts of terrorism or engage in criminal behavior has served as fuel for the Trump Administration’s position in 2017. Is there any basis for these fears? We exploit the variation in the geographic and temporal distribution of refugees across U.S. counties to ascertain if there is a link between refugee settlements and local crime rates or terrorist events in the United States. We fail to find any statistically significant evidence of such a connection.

The Economics Department welcomes

Hyunseok Jung

The talk is titled:

Adaptive LASSO for Stochastic Frontier Models with Many Efficient Firms

Friday, October 27th, 2017

Time: 3:30 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

We apply the adaptive LASSO (Zou, 2006) to select a set of maximally efficient firms
in the panel fixed-effect stochastic frontier model. The adaptively weighted L1 penalty
with sign restrictions allows simultaneous selection of a group of maximally efficient

firms and estimation of firm-level inefficiency parameters with a faster rate of conver-
gence than least squares dummy variable estimator. Our estimator possesses the oracle

property. We propose a tuning parameter selection criterion and an efficient optimiza-
tion algorithm based on coordinate descent. We apply the method to estimate a group

of efficient police officers who are best at detecting contraband in motor vehicle stops
(i.e. search efficiency) in Syracuse, NY.

The Economics Department welcomes

Andrea Robbett, Middlebury College

The talk is titled:

Voter Expression and Information Acquisition in Common Value Elections

Friday, April 27th, 2018

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Ryan Decker, Federal Reserve Board of Governors

The talk is titled:

Firm Dynamics and Local Economic Shocks: Evidence from the Shale Oil and Gas Boom

Friday, May 4th, 2018

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Smriti Tiwari, Skidmore College

The talk is titled:

Long-term effects of temporary shocks

Friday, May 24th, 2018

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

A national level unconditional cash transfer programme, Bantuan Langsung Tunai (BLT), in Indonesia allows an empirical assessment on whether there are long-term benefits in terms of food consumption and overall well-being. The results show that a positive albeit temporary income shock increases the quantity of food consumed by the poorest households and the overall subjective well-being among the poorest recipients. It is also found that poor households are more likely to invest in farm and non-farm businesses, which in turn helps them sustain a higher level of food consumption and overall satisfaction months after the end of the programme.

The Economics Department welcomes

Jia Gao, Union College

The talk is titled:

Religion, Employment and Female Happiness

Friday, May 31st, 2018

Time: 4:00 pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

The gender gap in employed share of the population differs significantly across individuals from different religious backgrounds and living in societies with different religious traditions. We document this relationship and explore to what degree it reflects the role of religion on the preference for employment, and to what degree it is accounted for by other, non-voluntary factors related to religious affiliation and religious traditions. To this end, we estimate the gender gap in the employment happiness premium, which is the happiness gain associated with being employed. We find significant differences across religions in the employment happiness premium for women and between women and men. Our results indicate that the oppression of working outside exists among Hindus, Muslims, Catholics and Protestants women, and the severity is in that order.

The Economics Department welcomes

Chris Hanes, SUNY Binghamton

The talk is titled:

Quantitative Easing in the 1930s

Friday, September 16th, 2016

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

Wage inflation surged in the 1930s though unemployment remained high and output below trend. This is an anomaly in terms of the “Phillips curve” relationship prevailing in other eras. Proposed explanations include New Deal labor policies, and Roosevelt’s package of inflationary exchange-rate and monetary policies. In standard new Keyesian models the latter could boost inflation immediately by raising the expected long-run future price level. I find the anomalous wage inflation can be entirely explained by New Deal labor policies. The 1930s U.S. does not give evidence that policymakers can manipulate long-run inflation expectations to boost current inflation

The Economics Department welcomes

Chiara Farronato (HBS)

The talk is titled:

Market Structure with the Entry of Peer-to-Peer Platforms: The Case of Hotels and Airbnb

Friday, September 23th, 2016

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

We study the effects of enabling peer supply through Airbnb in the accommodation industry. We present a model of competition between flexible and dedicated sellers - peer hosts and hotels - who provide differentiated products. We estimate this model using data from major US cities and quantify the welfare effects of Airbnb on travelers, hosts, and hotels. The welfare gains are concentrated in locations (New York) and times (New Year's Eve) when hotels are capacity constrained. This occurs because peer hosts are responsive to market conditions, expand supply as hotels fill up, and keep hotel prices down as a result.

The Economics Department welcomes

Christina Houseworth, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

The talk is titled:

Divorce Among European and Mexican Immigrants in the U.S.

Friday, November 11th, 2016

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

This paper analyzes the status of being currently divorced among European and Mexican immigrants in the U.S., among themselves and in comparison to the native born of the same ancestries. The data are for males and females age 18 to 55, who married only once, in the 2010-2014 American Community Surveys. Among immigrants, better job opportunities, measured by educational attainment, English proficiency and a longer duration in the U.S. are associated with a higher probability of being divorced. Those who married prior to migration and who first married at an older age are less likely to be divorced. Those who live in states with a higher divorce rate are more likely to be divorced. Thus, currently being divorced among immigrants is more likely for those who are better positioned in the labor market, less closely connected to their ethnic origins, and among Mexican immigrants who live in an environment in which divorce is more prevalent.

The Economics Department welcomes

Gerald Caprio Jr. (Williams College)

The talk is titled:

Guardians of Finance: Making Regulators Work for Us

Friday, January 13th, 2017

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

How the unaccountable, unmonitorable, and unchecked actions of regulators precipitated the global financial crisis; and how to reform the system.

The recent financial crisis was an accident, a “perfect storm” fueled by an unforeseeable confluence of events that unfortunately combined to bring down the global financial systems. Or at least this is the story told and retold by a chorus of luminaries that includes Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan.

In Guardians of Finance, economists James Barth, Gerard Caprio, and Ross Levine argue that the financial meltdown of 2007 to 2009 was no accident; it was negligent homicide. They show that senior regulatory officials around the world knew or should have known that their policies were destabilizing the global financial system and yet chose not to act until the crisis had fully emerged.

Barth, Caprio, and Levine propose a reform to counter this systemic failure: the establishment of a “Sentinel” to provide an informed, expert, and independent assessment of financial regulation. Its sole power would be to demand information and to evaluate it from the perspective of the public—rather than that of the financial industry, the regulators, or politicians.

The Economics Department welcomes

Jia Gao, Union College

The talk is titled:

Language Environment at Home and Academic

Achievement During Early Childhood

Friday, January 27th, 2017

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

The Economics Department welcomes

Allan Zebedee, Clarkson University

The talk is titled:

Hear Me Write: Does CEO Narcissism Affect Disclosure?

Friday, February 10th, 2017

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

Through earnings announcements, conference calls, and other press releases, corporate executives have an opportunity to frame the narrative of financial disclosures. Numerous studies have shown that textual tone significantly influences stock returns, suggesting that through word choice, upper management may impact market reaction. In this study, we examine the influence of CEO personality traits on corporate disclosures by analyzing the tone of earnings announcements for a sample of Fortune 500 CEOs over nearly two decades. Our hypotheses are twofold: (1) that qualitative disclosures in firms with narcissistic leaders will be biased upward and (2) the bias will moderate as CEOs becomes older. Our empirical results support these hypotheses and suggest that more narcissistic CEOs tend to reinforce their grandiose self-image by issuing more positive earnings announcements but this desire wanes with CEO age. We also find that the stock market response to the tone of the earnings announcement is less pronounced for more narcissistic CEOs, suggesting the market takes into account the bias in narcissistic CEO announcements.

The Economics Department welcomes

Zsófia Barta, SUNY

The talk is titled:

Rating Politics? Partisan Discrimination in Credit Ratings in Developed Economies

Friday, April 7th, 2017

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

How does government partisanship influence sovereign credit ratings of developed countries? Given the convergence of fiscal and monetary outcomes between left and right governments in the past decades, credit rating agencies (CRAs) should in principle not discriminate according to ideology. However, we hypothesize that CRAs might lower ratings for left governments as a strategy to limit negative policy and market surprises as they strive to keep ratings stable over the medium term. A panel analysis of Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch’s rating actions for 23 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1995 to 2014 shows that left executives and the electoral victory of nonincumbent left executives are associated with significantly higher probabilities of negative rating changes. We find no evidence of similar systematic partisan bias in spreads on government bonds, but spreads do adjust to partisan-biased downgrades. This suggests that CRAs may introduce partisan discrimination into sovereign credit markets.

The Economics Department welcomes

Russell Weinstein (RPI)

The talk is titled:

Geography and Networks in Employer Recruiting

Friday, April 21st, 2017

Time: 3:30 pm-5:00pm

There will be a 30-minute post-seminar discussion as well.

Abstract:

I analyze whether reducing geographic distance to high-wage jobs increases access to those employment opportunities. I collect office locations and campus recruiting strategies for over 70 prestigious banking and consulting firms, from 2000 to 2013. Using an event study framework, I find firms are 2 times more likely to recruit at local universities after opening a nearby office, and 6 times more likely outside industry clusters. New target campuses outside industry clusters are less academically selective. The results suggest place-based policies may improve access to high-wage firms, and also suggest the importance of a university’s local labor market for post-graduation outcomes.