IRES Lunch Seminar
ires |
Aim
The IRES Lunch Seminar is an informal forum where researchers present their work in progress in details and receive criticism and feedback from colleagues. Presentations on the blackboard are also welcome. PhD students entering the job market this year are strongly encouraged to present their job market paper.
Practical details
The Macro Group provides sandwiches. Whether you would like a sandwich or not, please register by the Friday before the meeting at :
https://forms.gle/syKv2jf3NjPXXKuz9
Organizers:
- Silvia Peracchi
- Joseph Gomes
When?
On Tuesdays from 12:45 to 13:45
Where? :
This year the IRES Lunch Seminar will take place in room D.144 Dupriez Building, Place Montesquieu 3,1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Programme - academic year 2024 - 2025
September 2024
24 Andualem Assefa Welde (University of Macerata)
Social Division and Preferences for Redistribution
Abstract
Why is income redistribution almost nonexistent in Sub-Saharan Africa, despite it being one of the most unequal regions? Rising inequality does not automatically lead to redistributive taxation. The main aim of this study is to identify the key factors that shape individual preference for redistribution policies, with an emphasis on issues related to social stratification, such as ethnic favoritism and discrimination. The study relies on data from the 8th round Afrobarometer survey (2019-2022) , which introduced a range of questions on redistribution.
October 2024
01 IRES Afternoon
08 Sébastien Fontenay (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
Can Public Policies Break the Gender Mold? Evidence from Paternity Leave Reforms in Six Countries
Abstract
Abstract: We investigate the impact of paternity leave policies on gender role attitudes in the next generation. We measure gender-stereotypical attitudes using an Implicit Association Test with 3,000 online respondents in six countries. Using an RD design, we observe a significant reduction (-0.21 SD) in gender-stereotypical attitudes among men born post-paternity leave implementation. This shift influences career choices, as men whose fathers were affected by the reform are more inclined to pursue counter-stereotypical jobs, particularly in high-skilled occupations like healthcare and education. Our findings highlight how paternity leave fosters egalitarian gender norms and affects the occupational choices of the next generation.
29 Pablo Álvarez Aragon (UNamur)
Ancestral Beliefs and Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract
This paper contributes to the explanation of the puzzle of persistently high fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. I focus on the impact of a belief system that emphasizes the role of ancestors, who influence people's lives and have a strong interest in the continuation of their lineage into which they may be reincarnated. I combine first-hand data with original ethnographic information and both historical and contemporary surveys to show: 1) a strong, positive relationship between ancestral beliefs and fertility in different contexts and time periods that holds across ethnic groups, across individuals within countries, and across migrants who grew up in similar environments but whose beliefs in ancestral influence differ; and 2) that this relationship is specifically driven by the motive to continue one's lineage. To address this second point, I test the specific predictions of a simple model of fertility in which children are a public good for a family with ancestral beliefs because they continue the family line. However, whether one's children continue one's lineage depends on the kinship system: while this is the case in a patrilineal system, in a matrilineal system children continue the mother's lineage, but not the father's lineage. The model predicts that 1) ancestral beliefs have a stronger positive influence on fertility in patrilineal societies; and 2) in groups with ancestral beliefs, very specific free-riding behaviors emerge: in patrilineal societies, male fertility decreases with the number of brothers, while in matrilineal societies, female fertility decreases with the number of sisters (but not brothers). The predictions are supported by the data.
November 2024
05 Andrea Caria (University of Cagliari)
The Remote Control of fertility: Causal evidence from the transition to digital terrestrial television in Italy
Abstract
This study examines the impact of the transition from analog to digital terrestrial television (DTT) on fertility rates in Italy. Utilizing the staggered implementation of DTT between 2008 and 2012, I identify a negative effect on fertility in treated municipalities. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, the analysis reveals that more densely populated, educated, and politically left-leaning municipalities experience more pronounced effects. The findings suggest that exposure to diverse television content influences family planning decisions, leading to higher female labor force participation and reduced time spent on housework. This research underscores the significant role of media in shaping demographic trends and highlights the need for policymakers to consider the broader societal impacts of media consumption.
12 Ella Sargsyan (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Potato to the Rescue: Home Production and Child Nutrition during Deep Economic Crises
Abstract
Sufficient nutrition intake in early life is crucial for the development of human capital. In light of rising concerns about food insecurity caused by a variety of crises, it is essential to identify effective coping strategies households can employ to mitigate the lasting impacts of income shocks and associated nutrition deficits. We uncover a previously unexplored coping mechanism - home production - and establish the extent of its effectiveness in mitigating negative effects of crises on child health. To do so, we focus on the transition period after the collapse of the Soviet Union and investigate the role of household production of potatoes. Specifically, utilizing individual-level data from Russia, Kazakhstan, and other post-Soviet countries and exploiting the variation in the soil suitability index, we establish that households that grew potatoes on land more suitable for their cultivation were able to reduce the negative effects of transition shock on the health of their children as measured by adult height and height-for-age z-score. Our findings suggest that targeted nutritional interventions are needed to mitigate long-term damage for children in times of catastrophic economic shocks, particularly in areas where households face limitations in home production.
19 Diego Malo rico (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Economics or Culture? Social Identification in Sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract
This paper examines how an individual’s ethnic group’s economic status and its cultural distance from the nation affect their social identification in Sub-Saharan Africa. I use the agricultural value of each ethnic group as a proxy for economic status and measure cultural distance based on the linguistic distance of each ethnic group within its country. Focusing on ethnic versus national identification, I find that as the economic status of ethnically distant groups improves, individuals in these groups tend to identify more strongly with their ethnic group. Conversely, individuals from less ethnically distant groups increasingly identify with the nation as their group’s economic status rises. Additionally, the findings reveal that more superficial linguistic cleavages have a stronger impact on social identification than deeper linguistic differences, suggesting that people respond more strongly to easily recognized traits. These patterns highlight the potential for economic shifts to polarize identities, emphasizing the interconnected roles of economic conditions and cultural factors in shaping group affiliations.
26 Jing-Rong Zeng (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Beggar Thy Neighbor? Illicit Gold Trade and Conflict in the African Great Lakes Region
Abstract
We investigate the impact of establishing a gold refinery in Uganda on conflict dynamics at artisanal gold mining sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Using a difference-in-differences approach and high-resolution data on mining activities and conflict events, we find that the refinery’s opening significantly increased violence at neighboring artisanal mining sites in the DRC. To understand the underlying dynamics, we constructed a novel dataset that maps the distribution of violent groups and integrates smuggling route data from the DRC to Uganda. Our analysis reveals that certain armed groups strategically targeted mining sites around the smuggling route following the refinery's establishment, while the pre-existing control of some artisanal mining sites by armed actors partially mitigated the intensified conflicts. These findings highlight the complex effects of mineral-related regulations and smuggling in fragile regions, where weak state capacity and cross-border political-economic dynamics can exacerbate conflict and instability. Additionally, our results underscore the nuanced relationship between armed groups and local mining communities; in some cases, armed groups act as "stationary bandits," providing security to facilitate their extraction of resource values.
December 2024
03 Andrea Marcucci (Università della Svizzera Italiana)
Water Wars
Abstract
We study the relationship between access to water resources and local violence in Africa. Due to limited irrigation, rural communities rely on rainfall, rivers, and lakes for their economic needs. Rainfall scarcity can make access to water from rivers and lakes more valuable, thereby generating conflicts in rural settings. We explore this hypothesis by integrating granular data on the river network with high-resolution data on rainfall and violent conflict events in Africa from 1997 to 2021. We find that reduced rainfall in a location leads to more conflict in neighboring areas that are water-rich and located upstream along the river network. These are the sites that exert more control over the river flow. The effect is more pronounced in regions experiencing a long-term decline in water presence. Consistent with the proposed mechanism, conflicts concentrate in areas with higher returns to water access, as proxied by the presence of agricultural production. Additionally, the impact is more pronounced in regions with unequal water distribution among ethnic groups, highlighting how cooperation costs are an important friction preventing peaceful sharing of water resources. In terms of policy responses, we find that the effects tend to be mitigated in countries with stronger democratic institutions, better rule of law, higher state capacity and less corruption.
10 Morteza Ghomi (Bank of Spain)
Stimulating Avenues: EIB Loans and Returns to Public Infrastructure
Abstract
We analyze the economic impact of public infrastructure investment using European Investment Bank (EIB) loans to publicly owned firms and governments as an instrument for infrastructure shocks. To address endogeneity in loan approval, we apply the Inverse-Probability-Weighted Regression-Adjustment (IPWRA) estimator and a local projection IV approach. Our findings show that infrastructure investment boosts employment, output, and private investment in the medium term without causing inflation. The output multiplier peaks at 3.3 five years after the shock, with larger effects in countries with higher debt-to-GDP ratios and poor governance. Interestingly, in such countries, public investment strongly crowds in private investment, amplifying the overall impact.
17 David de la Croix (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Salvation, Flora, and the Cosmos: Pre-modern Academic Institutions and the Spread of Ideas
Abstract
Having a few good ideas in a lifetime is not uncommon, but for those ideas to spread and evolve, a community is essential. About 200 universities operated in premodern Europe. Together with about 150 academies of sciences which blossomed in the 17th century, they employed thousands of scholars. We examine whether the network established by these institutions was sufficiently dense to foster the spread of scholars' ideas across time and space. By building a network of scholars exchanging ideas through institutional affiliations (intention to treat), we demonstrate how the European academic landscape exposed cities to new ideas, influencing their development. We highlight examples such as Botanic Gardens, the publication of calendars, and Protestantism. Through counterfactual simulations, we show that both universities and academies played a crucial role, with academies, even early one (Lincei, Mersenne), exerted a strong multiplier effect. Ideas gain significance when effectively channeled by powerful institutions.
(with Rossana Scebba, Chiara Zanardello)
February 2025
04 Paul Atwell (Univerisad Carlos III)
11 François Fontaine (PSE)
18 Jean-François Maystadt (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
25 Morgane Rigaux (ULB)
March 2025
04 Filippo Manfredini (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
11 Michel De Vroey (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
18 Alexander Yarkin ( LISER and UC Davis)
25 Luca Pensieroso (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
April 2025
01 Natalia Bermúdez-Barrezuta (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
08 Giulia Tarullo (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
15 Rana Cömertpay (LISER)
May 2025
06 Lucie Giorgi (AMSE)
13 Keiti Kondi (Bureau fédéral du Plan)
Archives
In this section, you will find the programmes of previous years. Click to expand the content.
Programme - academic year 2023 - 2024
| September |
|---|
19 Michela Giorcelli (UCLA)
The Effects of Business School Education on Manager Career Outcomes
26 Nathan Lachapelle (IRES)
Introducing the degressivity of unemployment benefits: does it bring unemployed back to work
| October |
|---|
03 Leo Czajka (IRES) Job Market Paper
Fraud Detection under Limited State Capacity: Experimental Evidence from Senegal
17 Charles de Pierpont de Burnot (IRES)
Does immigrants birthplace diversity impact wages? Evidence from new migration flows composition in the US
31 Chiara Zanardello (IRES)
Early Modern Academies, Universities, and Economic Growth
| November |
|---|
07 Rossana Scebba (IRES) LECL 60
Integrating library and prosopographical data in the publication network of the Old University of Louvain
14 Jérémy Do Nascimento Miguel (Bordeaux School of Economics)
Fixing markets for unobservable quality, Lab-in-the-field evidence from rural wheat traders in Ethiopia
Enhancing the access of smallholder farmers to profitable value chains can improve their incomes and overall well-being. This requires farmers to adopt new practices and technologies that raise productivity and improve product quality. We focus on the role of the intermediating sector, particularly on the role of traders’ expectations regarding the quality of produce supplied by farmers, and analyze incentives for farmers to produce high-quality output. Our theoretical model demonstrates how quality expectations can be a self-fulfilling prophecy—perpetuating either bad equilibria (low quality, low prices) or opening up good ones (high quality, high prices)—and how an institutional innovation such as the introduction and promotion of certification services can set in motion a development trajectory from the bad to the good steady state. We conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment among wheat traders in Ethiopia to study how “demand” for high-quality crops is mediated by expectations and certification. Our experimental results provide mixed support for theoretical predictions. While trader expectations regarding farmer supply matter for trader investments, we also find that traders fail to optimally respond to new opportunities created by certification.
Co-written with Gashaw T. Abate (IFPRI), Tanguy Bernard (Bordeaux School of Economics), Erwin Bulte (Univ. Wageningen), and Elisabeth Sadoulet (UC Berkeley)
21
28 Gaia Spolverini (IRES) CANCELLED
Cooperation and prosocial behavior: evidence from the American frontier
| December |
|---|
5 Luigi Boggian (IRSS/IRES)
Prescribing Equality: Minding the Gap in Anxiolytics and Antidepressants Prescriptions between Immigrants and Natives in Spain
12 Marion Richard (IRES) Job Market Paper
Soldiers versus Laborers: Legacies of Colonial Military Forced Labor in Mali
19 Anna Gasten (University of Göttingen)
Are FDI restrictions inducing international migration? Evidence from Indonesia
| February |
|---|
06 Emmanuel de Veirman (De Nederlandsche Bank)
How Does the Phillips Curve Slope Relate to Repricing Rates?
13 Antoine Germain (CORE)
Working time regulations and redistribution
20 Karine Moukaddem (AMSE)
Arab Spring Protests and Women’s Marriage Outcomes: Evidence from Egypt
27 Jing-Rong Zeng (IRES)
In Search of Lost Peace: The Local Effects of Peacekeepers on Conflict Dynamics in Africa
This study investigates the influence of peacekeeping intervention on the evolution of local conflict intensity, offering the first quantitative insights into their long-term effectiveness. Using a robust difference-in-differences approach and an event study design, it captures dynamic treatment effects annually post-deployment. The findings initially suggest a promising reduction in local fatalities due to the peacekeepers’ presence. However, accounting for unobserved country-specific differential trends nullifies the positive impacts. Upon peacekeepers’ withdrawal, local conflict may further escalate. Comparably, there is little evidence that peacekeepers are beneficial for revitalizing local economic activities, as indicated by nighttime lights.
Given the complex nature of peacekeeping operations amidst concurrent peace talks and political agreements, the study underscores the importance of country-specific macro trends. The paper diverges significantly from previous literature, which generally indicates a positive impact of peacekeepers’ presence on short-term conflict reduction. In contrast, the study provides evidence suggesting that the mere presence of peacekeepers may not be the primary causal factor in conflict stabilization. Furthermore, the results on the nightlights raise questions regarding the extent to which a peace dividend exists and highlight the challenges of economic recovery in conflict-affected areas.
| March |
|---|
05 Gonzague Vannoorenberghe (IRES)
Globalization and the urban-rural divide in France
The growing economic divide between globalized urban centers and left-behind rural places is a powerful narrative in many countries. This paper uses rich administrative micro data to quantify whether urban-rural economic linkages have decreased in France over the period 1995-2015. In a set of reduced form exercises, we first show that employment growth in urban areas outperformed the rest of the country, especially in the second half of the period. This happens at the same time as a reduction in positive spillovers of urban growth to neighboring rural areas. We then build and calibrate a spatial general equilibrium model of trade and migration featuring a variety of linkages. We find little evidence of disappearing links between urban and rural territories and no role for globalization on economic linkages between urban and rural areas.
joint with F. Mayneris and D. Verdini
12 Diego Malo Rico (IRES)
Ethnic Remoteness Reduces the Peace Dividend from Trade Access
19 Kam Pui Tsang (KU Leuven)
Sanctioning forced labour in China: Evidence from the US cotton ban
26 Mathilde Pourtois (IRIS)
Tightening Eligibility Requirements for Unemployment Benefits: Impact on Housing Autonomy
| April |
|---|
16 Amma Panin (CORE/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Do Exclusionary Policies Reduce Cognitive Bandwidth and Harm Economic Outcomes of Marginalized Groups?
23 Esther Arenas Arroyo (Vienna University)
30 Tiziano Toniolo (IRES)
In-work benefits and labour supply: Analysis of the introduction and expansion of the social work bonus for Belgium
| May |
|---|
07 Jaime Marques Pereira (Lancaster University Management School)
Trumping the News: A High-Frequency Analysis
14 Edwin Fourrier-Nicolaï (University of Trento)
Digital Technologies and Firm's Employment and Training
21 Riccardo Turati ( Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)
Digging Up Trenches: Populism, Selective Mobility & the Political Polarization of Italian Municipalities
We study the effect of local exposure to populism on net population movements by citizenship status, gender, age and education level in the context of Italian municipalities. We present two research designs to estimate the causal effect of populist attitudes and policies. Initially, we use a combination of collective memory and trigger variables as an instrument for the variation in populist vote shares across national elections. Subsequently, we apply a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of electing a populist mayor on population movements. We find three converging results. First, the exposure to both populist attitudes and policies, as manifested by the vote share of populist parties in national elections or the close-election of a new populist mayor, reduces the attractiveness of municipalities and leads to larger population outflows. Second, the effect is particularly pronounced for young, female, and highly educated natives, who tend to move across Italian municipalities rather than internationally. Third, we find no effect on the foreign population. Our results highlight a foot-voting mechanism that may contribute to a political polarization in Italian municipalities.
(with L. Bellodi, F. Docquier, S. Iandolo and M. Morelli)
Programme - 2020 -2021
| September |
|---|
22 David de la Croix More 56
The Academic Market and the Rise of Universities in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (1000-1800)
29 Fabio Blasutto (IRES) CORE B-135
The Rise of Cohabitation and Unilateral Divorce
This paper analyzes the role of unilateral divorce for the rise of cohabitation. Exploiting the staggered introduction of unilateral divorce across the US states, we show that after the reform singles become more likely to cohabit than to marry, and that newly formed cohabitations last longer. We then provide a theoretical rationale for these facts, building a life-cycle model with partnership choice, female labor force participation and saving decisions. A structural estimation of the model suggests that unilateral divorce decreases couples' stability, which makes cohabitation preferred to couples that would have been at high risk of divorce. Since cohabiting couples formed after the reform are better matched, the average length of cohabitations increases. A counterfactual experiment reveals that the time spent cohabiting would have been halved if divorce laws had never changed.
Joint with Egor Kozlov (Northwestern University)
| October |
|---|
13 Charles de Beauffort (IRES) Doyens 22
Minding One's Own Business: Optimal Time-Consistent Fiscal and Monetary Policy in a Liquidity Trap when Coordination is Lacking"
27 Samia Ferhat
The impact of university openings on human capital formation
This paper presents new evidence on the impact of university openings on the acquisition of human capital by the local youth in France. We exploit seven university openings between 1991-1993 in counties where no previous universities existed that we combine with five waves from representative outflow samples of young individuals leaving the French educational system at the end of their studies.
We take advantage of specific control groups to compute differences-in-differences estimates that are robust to displacement, spillover and substitution effects. Our DiD outflow estimator identifies the underlying and policy relevant inflow treatment effect on birth cohorts under mild conditions that are consistent with the data. We find that opening a new university increases significantly the probability of attaining at least a two-year post-secondary degree by about 10 percentage points in counties that are initially undereducated compared to the rest of France. Conversely, university creations which occur in relatively educated counties does not have a significant impact on the acquisition of human capital. We argue in favour of a catchup effect, in which university openings help undereducated counties to converge to the average level of higher education in a given country.
| November |
|---|
03 Nippe Lagerlöf (York University) CANCELLED
10 Sébastien Fontenay (ULB)
The Unintended Consequences of Maternity Leave Allowance on Fertility and Career Decisions
17 Jean-François Maystadt (IRES)
The Gravity of Distance : Evidence from a Trade Embargo (with Afnan Al-Malk and Maurizio Zanardi)
24 Joseph Gomes (IRES) CANCELLED
Maternal Mortality and Women's Political Participation (with Sonia Bhalotra, Damian Clarke, Atheendar Venkataramani)
| December |
|---|
01 Elisabeth Leduc (ULB)
Subsidizing Domestic Services as a Tool to Fight Unemployment: Effectiveness and Hidden Costs (with Ilan Tojerow)
08 Bart Cockx (Ghent University)
Priority to unemployed immigrants? A causal machine learning evaluation of training in Belgium (with Michael Lechner and Joost Bollens)
15 Gregory Ponthière (Hoover Chair)
Childlessness, childfreeness and compensation (with Marie-Louise Leroux (UQAM) et Pierre Pestieau (ULiège))
| February |
|---|
02 Joseph Gomes (IRES/LIDAM)
Ethnonationalism
09 Pierre Cahuc
The Lock-in Effects of Part-time Unemployment Benefits (co-authored with Hélène Benghalem and Pierre Villedieu)
16 Rigas Oikonomou (IRES/LIDAM)
23 Adèle Lemoine
Inherited Gender Norms and the Cognitive Gender Gap: Evidence from SHARE data
Several studies showed that women outperform men in verbal and memory abilities, but this finding is not universal. In particular, this female cognitive advantage decreases when gender roles are more traditional. As literature shows that cognitive functioning improves with human capital investment, gender gaps in education and labour market participation are expected to explain cognitive gender differences. We investigate the contribution of gender norms to the gender cognitive gap using second generation immigrants in the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and measures for gender norms at the parental home-country level in the World Value Survey (WVS) and the European Value Study (EVS). We find that female memory skills decrease relatively to men when both parents are born in a country associated to traditional gender roles. The exploration of underlying mechanisms supports the canal of gender differences in education.
| March |
|---|
02 François Courtoy
Optimal Taxes and Transfers with Household Heterogeneity (co-authored with Boris Chafwehé)
09 Elsa Leromain
Voting under threat: Evidence from 2020 French local elections
This paper studies the impact of the spread of Covid-19 on turnout to French local elections in March 2020. Using heterogeneity in exposure to the virus, we analyse how different risk factors affect voter turnout. We show that proximity to a cluster, population density and the age of the population - known risk factor at the time - deter turnout at the city-level. We also document a large heterogeneity in the effect of turnout depending on the political affinity of the city as measured by its votes in the first round of the 2017 presidential election. Turnout is lower in cities with a higher vote share for Marine Le Pen, conditional on a number of demographic and socio-economic characteristics.
Joint with Gonzague Vannoorenberghe
23 Dorothée Hillrichs
Recovering Within-Country Inequality from Trade Data
| April |
|---|
20 Marcus Biermann
Remote Talks: Changes to Economics Seminars during COVID-19
27 Clémentine Garrouste (Paris Dauphine)
Impact of later retirement on mortality: Evidence from France
| May |
|---|
04 Fabien Petit (AMSE)
Inter-generational Mobility and Job Polarization
11 Muriel Dejemeppe CANCELLED
18
25 Luigi Boggian
Forgone care and horizontal inequity in healthcare use in fifteen European countries: differences between immigrants and natives
This paper assesses disparities in self-reported unmet needs for care in doctor visits and dental care within native and immigrant groups in 15 European countries. Self-reported unmet needs for care refer to the fact that despite identified healthcare needs individuals forego healthcare utilisation for a variety of reasons. We define the immigrant status according to three dimensions: being born abroad, not having the citizenship, being a second-generation immigrant, and the country of origin to identify European and Non-European immigrants or non-citizens. Using a set of non-linear regression models, we explore a number of channels to explain disparities in foregone care between immigrants and natives. Our results show that (i) both first- and second- generation immigrants are more likely to forego care even after controlling for health needs and socioeconomic factors, the effect being mainly driven by immigrants of non-European origin, (ii) the lack of citizenship however leads to a lower access to doctor visits and dental care (iii) only second-generation immigrants with Non-European origins have a slightly higher intensity of doctor visits, (iv) there are country-specific horizontal inequities in foregone care disfavouring immigrants, (v) we rule out language barriers, social trust, religiosity and disparities in health shocks as potential channels explaining disparities in foregone care between immigrants and natives and find that satisfaction with basic health insurance partially explain observed disparities.
Co-authored with Sandy Tubeuf
| June |
|---|
08 Daniele Verdini (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
China shock, Markups, and the Evolution of Aggregate Productivity
15 Charles de Beauffort
Debt management in a world of fiscal dominance
Programme - academic year 2021 - 2022
| September |
|---|
14 Joseph Gomes (IRES/LIDAM)
Whither Identity? The Political Economy of Ethnic Exclusion: Consequences, Mitigators, and Facilitators
28 Leo Czajka
Using third party data to improve tax compliance in a context of low enforcement: three possible designs for one RCT in Senegal
| October |
|---|
12 Marcus Biermann
Remote Talks: How ICT Changed Economics Seminars during COVID-19 (JMP Presentation)
19 Vincent Vandenberghe (IRES/LIDAM)
Partial De-Annuitization of Public Pensions v.s. Retirement Age Differentiation. Which is Best to Account for Longevity Differences?
a pension system with a unique retirement age is a priori problematic. The usual policy recommendation to address this problem is to differentiate the retirement age by SES. This paper explores the relative merits of (partial) de-annuitization of public pensions v.s. retirement age differentiation as ways of addressing (imperfectly assessed) inequality of longevity
28 THURDSDAY Jean - François Maystadt (IRES/LIDAM) LECL 72
Refugees, child health and malaria transmission in Africa.
| November |
|---|
2 Elsa Leromain (IRES/LIDAM)
Import Liberalization as Export Destruction? Evidence from the US (JMP Presentation)
16 Erika Pini (CORE/LIDAM) CORE B-135
Polarization in a multidimensional political space (JMP Presentation)
23 Guillermo Santos Antreassian (IRES/LIDAM)
Optimal fiscal stimulus under active and passive monetary policy
30 Elisa Navarra (ULB) ONLINE
Spillover effects of subsidies on downstream trade
| December |
|---|
7 Daniele Verdini CORE B-135 !! CANCELLED !!
Globalization and the Urban-Rural Divide in France
| February |
|---|
08 Joanne Haddad (ULB)
Settlers and Norms
15 Andréa Renk (UNamur)
Sterilizations and immunization in India: the Emergency experience (1975-77)
22
| March |
|---|
01 Chiara Zanardello
Market forces in Italian Academia today (and yesterday)
08 Yannik Schenk Room LECL 70
"Beyond the Veil of Ignorance: Does Disclosure of Nationalities in Police Press Releases foster Migration Skepticism?"
15 Goedele Van den Broeck (UCLouvain) AGOR 03
Structural transformation and the gender pay gap
29 Kevin Pineda Hernandez (ULB) AGOR 03
Moving Up the Social Ladder? Intergenerational Earnings Mobility Among Female and Male Immigrants in Belgium.
| April |
|---|
26 Matthew Curtis (ULB) AGOR 03
Cultural Inheritance and the European Marriage Pattern (with Gregory Clark and Neil Cummins)
| May |
|---|
03 Elie Vidal-Naquet (AMSE) AGOR 03
Commuting costs and spatial job search
10 Marion Richard (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain) AGOR 03 CANCELLED
Conflict as a migration cost" ou "Long-term Legacies of Military Forced Labor in Former French Soudan (Mali)"
17 Mathilde Pourtois (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Hiring subsidies for low-skilled youths in Wallonia: Short-term impact on employment
Targeted labour cost reductions are commonly used to tackle unemployment of disadvantaged groups in the labour market. The intent is to encourage firms to hire workers from a specific group by lowering their costs. This paper evaluates the impact of a hiring subsidy targeted to low- and medium-skilled unemployed youths in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium. As of July 2017, this scheme entitles employers hiring young workers with at most a high school diploma to a € 500 monthly subsidy up to three years. Using administrative data, we exploit the discontinuity in the age requirement to estimate the impact of the subsidy on transition to work and cumulative employment of the eligible population. We find that the subsidies do not create new job opportunities for the targeted youths in the short-run: the take up of the subsidy just produces a full deadweight loss. Moreover, there is evidence that overall employment is negatively affected, low-skilled youth turning away from regular -unsubsidized- jobs. These results are robust to different validity tests.
Joint work with Muriel Dejemeppe (IRES/UCLOUVAIN) and Matthieu Delpierre (IWEPS).
31 Keiti Kondi (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Internal Migration as a Response to Soil Degradation: Evidence from Malawi
.
| June |
|---|
14 Martina Magli (LMU Munich)
Programme - academic year 2022 - 2023
| September |
|---|
20 Amma Panin
Using religious participation to insure mental health in Ghana
| October |
|---|
04 Arnaud Deseau (Job Market Paper)
The Most Important Event? The Long-Run Impact of the Dissolution of French Monasteries
11
18 Alessio Mitra
Are complex technologies nurturing knowledge dependencies?
25 Dorothee Hillrichs (Job Market Paper)
Recovering within-country inequality from trade data
| November |
|---|
08 Daniele Verdini (Job Market Paper)
The Anticompetitive Effect of Trade Liberalizations
15 Fabrizio Ciotti
Competition for Prominence
22 Gonzague Vannoorenberghe
Globalization and the urban-rural divide in France
29 Leo Czajka !!Cancelled!!
| December |
|---|
6 Ritwik Bannerjee (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore )
Using social recognition to address the gender difference in volunteering for low-promotability tasks
Research shows that women volunteer significantly more for tasks that people prefer others to complete. Such tasks carry little monetary incentives because of their very nature. We use a modified version of the volunteer’s dilemma game to examine if non-monetary interventions, particularly, social recognition can be used to change the gender norms associated with such tasks. We design three treatments, where a) a volunteer receives positive social recognition, b) a non-volunteer receives negative social recognition, and c) a volunteer receives positive, but a non-volunteer receives negative social recognition. Our results indicate that competition for social recognition increases the overall likelihood that someone in a group has volunteered. Positive social recognition closes the gender gap observed in the baseline treatment, so does the combination of positive and negative social recognition. Our results, consistent with the prior literature on gender differences in competition, suggest that public recognition of volunteering can change the default gender norms in organizations and increase efficiency at the same time.
Joint with Priyoma Mustafi
13 Andrej Sokol (Bloomberg)
Striking a bargain: narrative identification of wage bargaining shocks
With Žymantas Budrys and Mario Porqueddu
| February |
|---|
07 Nathan Lachapelle (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Using regression kink design to infer causal effects of unemployment benefits on the young
14 Ales Marsal (National Bank of Slovakia)
Prescriptions for Monetary Policy when Inflation Is High
21 Hamzeh Arabzadeh (RWTH-Aachen University)
Distribution of natural resource rents and deindustrialization: the role of luxury goods
28 Lamis Kattan (Georgetown University in Qatar)
Gender-Based Labor Legislation and Employment: Historical Evidence from the United States
(joint work with Joanne Haddad (Université Libre de Bruxelles))
| March |
|---|
07
14 Cristina Lafuente Martinez (CORE/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Hysteresis for the young: search capital and unemployment
21 Silvia Peracchi (University of Luxembourg)
28 Diego Malo Rico (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Static Model of Violent Groups: Give me my Dollars!
| April |
|---|
18 Lorenzo Trimarchi (Université de Namur)
Environmental Political Cycles
25 David Weil (Brown University)
Climate Change, Population Growth, and Population Pressure
| May |
|---|
02 Leo Czajka (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Using third-party data to improve tax compliance in a context of low enforcement
09 Jade Ponsard (Aix-Marseille University)
Collective Action and Gender Norms: Evidence from Suffragette Demonstrations
16 Tiziano Toniolo (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Permanent exemption from social security contributions in Belgium: An evaluation with a directed search model
23 Jing-Rong Zeng (IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
Keeping the Long-term Peace – The Dynamic Effects of UN Peacekeeping Missions on Local Fatalities
This paper examines the impact of UN peacekeeping missions on conflict reduction and their long-term dynamics. Combining geo-coded peacekeeping data with the UCDP conflict event dataset, we construct a comprehensive grid-year panel dataset covering all UN missions in Africa from 1994 to 2020.
This paper contributes to the UN peacekeeping literature by incorporating state-of-the-art econometric methods and rigorously addressing concerns related to identification and endogeneity.
30 Andreas Tryphonides (University of Cyprus)
The Cross Section of Household Preferences and the Marginal Propensity to Consume: Evidence from high frequency data
| June |
|---|