Past Events

View past seminars and other events sponsored by the department of Economics. Events can be viewed by date or filtered by seminar series. 

Additionally, view the drop down menu on the left.

Date & TimeSeminar SeriesSpeaker and Title
January 21, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarChristopher Campos- University of California, Berkeley
January 20, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Erika Deserranno (Northwestern University): "Meritocratic Promotions and Worker Productivity: An Experiment in the Public Sector" (joint work with Gianmarco Leon and Philipp Kastrau)   Abstract: We study the effect of making the promotion criteria in an organization more performance-based (i.e., more meritocratic), the effect of increasing the prize associated with a promotion (i.e., more pay progression), and the interplay of the two on worker productivity. In collaboration with a large public sector organization in Sierra Leone, we introduce exogenous variation at the team level in the extent to which the promotion decision from a Community Health Worker (lower-tier) position to a Peer Supervisor (upper-tier) position is based on worker performance (rather than on personal connections). We cross-randomize this with variation in the perceived pay progression between these two positions. We find that more meritocracy in the promotion system increases worker productivity, especially for workers who perceive the pay progression to be large and for those who are highly-ranked in terms of performance. Higher pay progression has opposite effects depending on meritocracy. In meritocratic promotion regimes, a steeper pay progression motivates lower-tier workers to “climb the organization’s ladder” and prompts an increase in their effort. In non-meritocratic promotion regimes, a steeper pay progression instead demotivates workers, lowering their productivity. The combination of steep pay progression and low meritocracy that is the norm in many bureaucracies in developing countries and in multiple private sector firms around the world may thus hinder the productivity of lower-tier workers.
January 19, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarCarolyn Stein- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
January 15, 202111:30 AM - 1:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarNina Roussille- University of California, Berkeley
January 13, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Ashley Wong (Northwestern University) "Business Collaborations and Female Entrepreneurship"(joint work with Edward Asiedu, Francesca Truffa, and Monica Lambon-Quayefio)
January 12, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarZachary Bleemer- University of California, Berkeley
December 10, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Brittany Almquist Lewis  (Northwestern University): "Housing Inequities"   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
December 3, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsMichael Callen (London School of Economics): "Title TBA"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
December 3, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Clement Bohr (Northwestern University): Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
December 2, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Kensuke Maeba (Northwestern University): Title TBA   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
November 30, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsMark Gertler (New York University): "Title TBA" (Start time: 12:20 PM)  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 27, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Sng Tuan Hwee (National University of Singapore): TBA   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
November 24, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsStephane Bonhomme (University of Chicago): "Teams: Heterogeneity, Sorting and Complementarity" *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 23, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsEduardo Davila (Yale University): "Prudential Policy with Distorted Beliefs" (Start time: 12:20 PM) *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 23, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarMarie Decamps (Northwestern University): "Information Disclosure and Practising Styles: Evidence from Deliveries in Brazil" (start time is 11:10am)  
November 20, 20202:15 PM - 3:15 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarEvgeni Rachkovski (Northwestern University): "Trading Away Democracy: How Does Trading with Autocrats Affect Democratic Values in the Home Country?" (seminar time is 2:20pm to 3:10pm)  
November 20, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Michael Porcellachia (Northwestern University): "Labor Power and Racial Discrimination"   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
November 19, 20207:00 PM - 8:00 PMAn Evening with Professor KarlanJoin GRC as we speak with Dean Karlan, a professor of Finance at the Kellogg School of Management. Professor Karlan has also founded and led several social impact organizations. The first half of the session will be a deep-dive into Professor Karlan's work at Global Poverty Research Lab and ImpactMatters. The second half will consist of a Q&A for you to ask any specific questions you may have. Please join us on Nov 19 at 7pm CST and email northwestern@grcglobalgroup.com with any questions!      
November 19, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar  Joao Guerreiro (Northwestern University):  Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
November 18, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistorySuresh Naidu (Columbia University): "Mobility for All: Representative Intergenerational Mobility Estimates over the 20th Century" (Joint with Elisa Jacome and Ilyana Kuziemko) *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 18, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Joris Mueller (Northwestern University): Title TBA   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
November 18, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarYoshimasa Katayama (Northwestern University): "How do Hospitals Respond to Non-Linear Pricing? Evidence from Hospital Payment Reform in Japan" (start time is 11:10am)
November 17, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsIvan Canay (Northwestern University): "On the Use of Outcome Tests for Detecting Bias in Decision Making"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 17, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMGame Theory and Decision-Making: "Ruth, Anthony and Clarence." with Jeff ElyJoin us on Tuesday, November 17 at 12:00 PM CT via Zoom Webinar for a talk with Jeff Ely where he will be discussing game theory and decision-making through the lens of the Supreme Court.
November 16, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsMichael Woodford (Columbia University): "Optimally Imprecise Memory and Biased Forecasts" (Start time: 12:20 PM)  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 16, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Ting Wang (Northwestern University): "Parallel Inverse Aggregate Demand Curves in Discrete Choice Models" (start time is 11:10am)
November 13, 20202:15 PM - 3:15 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJason Premo (Northwestern University): "Title TBA" (seminar time is 2:20pm to 3:10pm)
November 13, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Mario Cannella (Northwestern University): “The Legacy of Nazi Annexation”   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
November 12, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Riccardo Bianchi-Vimercati (Northwestern University):  Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
November 11, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryDaniel Gross (Harvard Business School): "Automation and the Fate of Young Workers: Evidence from Telephone Operation in the Early 20th Century" *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 11, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Ritwika Sen and Hossein Alidaee (Northwestern University):  First Presenter: Ritwika Sen Title: Covid19 and the Value of Relationships in Informal Economies (with Vittorio Bassi, Tommaso Porzio and Esau Tugume) Abstract: This project focuses on the value of employment relationships in informal economies, where there are usually no written labor or trade contracts. By studying the resilience of these relationships to the Covid19 lockdown, we seek to understand whether these relationships are valuable, and to clarify the sources of their value. We argue that in periods of normalcy inefficient firm-worker matches may persist in the presence of labor market frictions. However, these relationships will be disrupted if they hold little value and there is a cost to re-match (e.g. workers traveling back to the city) as managers will hire different workers once firms reopen after the lockdown. If instead relationships are valuable, these will restart despite any costs to re-match even in the absence of formal contracts. Our starting point is a representative survey of about 1,000 managers and their employees that we conducted in 2018-19. We are now re-surveying this sample through a phone survey to understand which relationships have been disrupted and why. To further examine the sources of relationship value we introduce a nudging experiment and plan to interpret our findings using an adaptation of the canonical Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) model of search and matching. Second Presenter: Hossein Alidaee Title: “Recovering Network Structure from Aggregated Relational Data using Penalized Regression”, joint w. E. Auerbach and M. Leung Abstract: Social network data can be expensive to collect. Breza (2020) propose aggregated relational data (ARD) as a low-cost substitute that can be used to recover the structure of a latent social network when it is generated by a specific parametric random effects model. Our main observation is that many economic network formation models produce networks that are effectively low-rank. As a consequence, network recovery from ARD is generally possible without parametric assumptions using a nuclear-norm penalized regression. We demonstrate how to implement this method and provide finite-sample bounds on the mean squared error of the resulting estimator for the distribution of network links. Computation takes seconds for samples with hundreds of observations. Easy-to-use code in R and Python can be found at https://github.com/mpleung/ARD. *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
November 11, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarAnran Li (Northwestern University): "Design of the Public Option in the ACA Individual Insurance Market " (start time is 11:10am)
November 10, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsMatthew Thirkettle (Cornell University): "Identification and Estimation of Network Statistics with Missing Link Data"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 9, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsCharles Engel (University of Wisconsin-Madison): "Banks, Dollar Liquidity and Exchange Rates"(Start time: 12:20 PM)  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 9, 202012:00 PM - 1:15 PMIPR 2020 Post-Election PanelIPR 2020 Post-Election Panel Panelists: Martin Eichenbaum, Charles Moskos Professor Professor of Economics Laurel Harbridge-Yong, Associate Professor of Political Science and IPR Fellow Erik Nisbet, Owen L. Coon Endowed Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication and IPR Associate Chloe Thurston, Assistant Professor of Political Science and IPR Fellow Moderator: Daniel Galvin, Associate Professor of Political Science and IPR Fellow Organized by James Druckman, Payson S. Wild Professor of Political Science and IPR Associate Director and Fellow This event is part of the 2020 Fay Lomax Cook IPR Colloquium Series.
November 9, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarMauren Vairo (Northwestern University): "Screening with a Privately Informed Seller and Market Learning" (start time is 11:10am)
November 6, 20202:15 PM - 3:15 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarGaston Lopez (Northwestern University): "Competition, Coordination and Technology adoption: Evidence from the hospital industry" (seminar time is 2:20pm to 3:10pm)
November 6, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Klas Eriksson (Stockholm University): "Who owns the city?- General and Specific Regulation of Public and Private Interests in Stockholm Real Estate Market 1959-2020"
November 5, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Emre Yavuz (Northwestern University):  Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
November 4, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryMichele Rosenberg (Northwestern University): "Tell Me What You Grow and I’ll Tell You What You Think: Westward Expansion and the Politics of Slavery in the US South"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 4, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJingyuan Wang (Northwestern University): "Title TBA" (start time is 11:10am)
November 3, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsDalia Ghanem (University of California, Davis): "Testing Attrition Bias in Field Experiments"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 2, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsIan Dew-Becker & Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi (Northwestern University): "Systemic Risk in Production Networks" (Start time: 12:20 PM)  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
November 2, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarEdmund Yiqi Lou (Northwestern University): "Pandemics, social distancing, and political narrative" (start time is 11:10am)
October 30, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Andy Ferrara (University of Pittsburgh): "Group Cohesion Under Stress: An Event-Study Analysis of Desertions in the Civil War"   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 29, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Santiago Camara (Northwestern University):  Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom    
October 28, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryWalker Hanlon (New York University): "The Rise of the Engineer: Inventing the Professional Inventor During the Industrial Revolution" *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 28, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Matteo Magnaricotte (Northwestern University): "College Entry, Educational Spillovers, and Market Structure in Perú”, joint with J. Flor-Toro Abstract: As they complete the compulsory component of their schooling, students have to weigh the benefits from further education against its cost. The availability of college education can decrease the probability of dropout by increasing the ex-ante returns to a high school diploma. Analyzing the fast-growing higher education market of Peru, we provide preliminary evidence regarding the spillovers of colleges on secondary schooling, identifying an increase in high school graduation rates of similar size to the increase in students attending university. We observe that this spillover effect is present for public colleges but not for private ones. We further discuss how the sequentiality of educational choices and spillover effects of public colleges can affect market structure and private entry.   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 28, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarLaura Murphy (Northwestern University): "A Behavioural Aiyagari Model" (start time is 11:10am)
October 27, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsIsaac Loh (Northwestern University): "Nonparametric Identification and Estimation with Discrete Instruments" *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 26, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsAndrei Levchenko (University of Michigan): "International Comovement in the Global Production Network" (Start time: 12:20 PM) *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 26, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarFrancisco Pareschi (Northwestern University): "Oligopolistic Pricing Under Inflation: Evidence from the Soft Drink Industry in Uruguay" (start time is 11:10am)
October 23, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarKelly Strada (Northwestern University): "Role Mothers: Intergenerational Transmission of Attitudes towards Work" Abstract: Do women pay a social cost for working? Are children of working women disadvantaged or empowered? In this project, I exploit the WWII draft lottery to attain individual-level variation in the labor supply decisions for the wives of draft-eligible men. Specifically, I construct a novel wartime measure of labor force entry—SSN first issuance—and combine it with data on army enlistment and war supply contracts. By exploiting within-labor market variation in the demand for female work over time and the timing of one’s husband conscription, I can assess the ex-ante ambiguous long-term consequences of being (a child of) a working woman, as measured in restricted-access longitudinal censuses and surveys.   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 22, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsJoe Long (Northwestern University): "Chinese Capital Flight to the US Real Estate Market"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 22, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Carl Hallmann (Northwestern University): Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
October 21, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Eduardo Campillo Betancourt (Northwestern University): "Citizenship Policy and the Spread of Communicable Diseases: Evidence from the Dominican Republic" joint with F. Alba-Vivar and J. Flor-Toro Abstract: We study two controversial policies in the Dominican Republic in 2013 and 2015 that targeted as much as 10% of the country's population based on their foreign ancestry and limited their safe access to services such as health. Beyond the direct negative effects such policies may have on the targeted group, we argue that there may be important indirect effects from such policies through the contagion of communicable diseases. We exploit the timing and differential exposure to these policies across the country, as well as highly disaggregated epidemiological data on diseases to provide evidence of these indirect effects. Our estimates provide evidence of a notable increase in the caseload of Dengue, a highly contagious disease. Contrarily, there are no effects either for communicable diseases that are less contagious, or for non-communicable diseases. We argue that these results are due to a restriction in access to health services.   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 21, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarMatthew O'Keefe (Northwestern University): "Innovation Policy in Software Markets & The 2012 JOBS Act" (start time is 11:10am)
October 20, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsLixiong Li (Johns Hopkins University): "Title TBA"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 19, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsLaura Veldkamp (Columbia University): "A Growth Model of the Data Economy" (Start time: 12:20 PM)  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 19, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarPanagiotis Kyriazis (Northwestern University): "On the Dynamics of Government Interventions in Markets with Adverse Selection" (start time is 11:10am)
October 16, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Amy Coomb (University of Chicago): "Beyond the Nitrogen Thesis:  Brassica Napus Oilseed in the British Agricultural Revolution"   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 15, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsRicardo Dahis (Northwestern University): "Title TBA"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 15, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Kristina Manysheva (Northwestern University): Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
October 14, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryKatherine Eriksson (University of California, Davis): "Understanding the Success of the Know-Nothing Party"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 14, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch José Flor Toro (Northwestern University): "Getting health professionals to underserved areas in developing countries: wages, career-incentives, and selection" joint with M. Magnaricotte. Abstract: Human resources in health are unequally distributed within many developing countries, a factor which contributes to unequal access to health. Since job positions in poor and remote areas are often unattractive to health professionals, governments rely on different incentives to draw professionals to underserved areas. Are these incentives efficient in attracting health professionals and are they ultimately effective in improving health outcomes? We study Peru’s civil service requirement in remote areas for recently graduated health professionals, and two major reforms on the schedule of wages and career incentives for this particular system. We exploit discontinuities in the incentives schedules introduced by the reforms to document two facts. First, while both incentives seem to be effective in attracting health professionals scoring higher in major-specific tests, physicians respond strongly to career incentives and nurses to pay increases. Second, despite observably 'better' health professionals, health outcomes did not improve and in some cases worsened. We argue that this may result from the pattern of selection created by reforms in a system with limited job positions, different incentives, and different types of health professionals beyond what is measured in test scores. We then discuss a framework to quantify these selection patterns by exploiting administrative data and the system's centralized allocation.   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 14, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarDiego Cid Ortiz (Northwestern University): "Monetary Policy and Commercial Banks in the Mexican Mortgage Market" (start time is 11:10am)
October 13, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsVira Semenova (Harvard University): "Better Lee Bounds"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 12, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsAlessandra Peter (Princeton University): "Owning Up: Closely Held Firms and Wealth Inequality" (Start time: 12:20 PM)  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 12, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarMatias Bayas-Erazo (Northwestern University): "Financial Market Structure, Asset Prices, and Monetary Policy" (start time is 11:10am)
October 9, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Pawel Janas (Northwestern University): "Public Goods Under Financial Distress: Evidence from Cities in the Great Depression"   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 8, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsUtsav Manjeer (Northwestern University): "Title TBA"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 8, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Egor Kozlov (Northwestern University): Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
October 7, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryFelipe Valencia Caicedo (Vancouver School of Economics): “Trust Unraveled: The Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War”  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 7, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Jimmy Lee (Northwestern University): "Conventional Roles, Beliefs, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Agricultural Innovations: Preliminary Evidence, Theory, and a Field Experiment in Liberia" Abstract: As the youth population and school enrollment continue to rise in sub-Saharan Africa, school programs that provide practical life skills are increasingly common. Such programs can cost-effectively diffuse new knowledge into households. However, students conventionally assist their elders in many household decisions. A reversal of roles is required for students to teach their elders new practices. Unaware of skills that students have learnt in schools, elders are skeptical that students have valuable knowledge. Students, knowing that elders are skeptical, might be reluctant to engage in discussions of what they have learnt. This paper studies these informational barriers to intergenerational transmission of innovations in the context of a school-based agricultural education program in Liberia. I construct a novel game that highlights inefficiencies in communication when (i) an information friction hindering one player’s update on the state of nature is commonly known to both parties; (ii) costs of communication and/or sanctions for violating prevailing norms necessitate coordination between players; and (iii) players form beliefs with reference to conventional roles. I design a field experiment to separately identify biases in the reduced-form beliefs of students and their elders, to test policy-relevant informational treatments, and to measure their effects on the flow of agricultural innovations and production patterns within households.     *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 7, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarXiaoyun Qiu (Northwestern University): "Learning and Communication in a Changing World " (start time is 11:10am)
October 6, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsKenichi Nagasawa (University of Warwick): "Identification and Estimation of Partial Effects with Proxy Variables"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 5, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsDmitry Mukhin (University of Wisconsin-Madison): "Optimal Policy under Dollar Pricing" (joint with Konstantin Egorov) (Start time: 12:20 PM)  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
October 5, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarTomas Wilner (Northwestern University): "The Environmental Benefit of a Price Subsidy" (start time is 11:10am)
October 2, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Marco Tabellini (Harvard Business School): "Racial Diversity, Electoral Preferences, and the Supply of Policy: the Great Migration and Civil Rights."   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
October 1, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Bence Bardocy (Northwestern University): Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
September 30, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryMaggie Chen (George Washington University): "Omnia Juncta in Uno: Foreign Powers and Trademark Protection in Shanghai's Concession Era"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
September 30, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Sean Higgins  (Northwestern University): "Increasing Financial Inclusion and Attracting Deposits through Prize-Linked Savings" Abstract: Despite the benefits of saving in formal financial institutions, take-up and use of savings accounts are low among the poor. In a randomized experiment across 110 bank branches throughout Mexico, we provide a temporary incentive to both open and use a savings account: saving earns raffle tickets for cash prizes. We find that 41% more accounts are opened in treatment branches than control branches during the incentive months, and the temporary two-month incentive has a lasting three-year impact on the number of deposits made at treatment branches. Prize-linked savings can thus benefit both poor households and banks.     *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
September 30, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarGuillaume Gex (Northwestern University): "The Impact of Private Data Sharing" (start time is 11:10am)
September 28, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsPooya Molavi (Northwestern University): "Simple Factor Models and Macroeconomic Expectations" (Start time: 12:20 PM)  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
September 28, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarAhnaf Rafi (Northwestern University): "Estimating Heterogeneous Responses in Dyadic Regression Using Universal Singular Value Thresholding" (start time is 11:10am)
September 25, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Diego Ramos Toro (Dartmouth College): "Self-Emancipation and Progressive Politics: The Legacy of Civil War Refugee Camps"   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
September 24, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsMauricio Romero (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México): "Factorial designs, model selection, and (incorrect) inference in randomized experiments"" *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
September 24, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Jane Olmstead-Rumsey (Northwestern University): Title TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom  
September 23, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryBruno Caprettini (University of Zurich): "From Welfare to Warfare: New Deal Spending and Patriotism during World War II"  *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
September 23, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Chao Liu (Northwestern University): "Early-Life Health and Lifetime Outcomes: Evidence from the Large-Scale Schistosomiasis Eradication in China" (joint work with G.G. Liu) Abstract: Schistosomiasis is one of the most prevalent parasitic diseases in the world. This paper studies a large-scale deworming program targeted to schistosomiasis in China, to identify the long-term impacts of early-life health on adult outcomes. Using multiple identification strategies, we find that the disease control campaign led to increased educational attainment and adult economic status. The education effect for women was greater than that for men, but the income effect was reversed. Moreover, people in counties with a low initial education level mainly improved in basic education. The results also suggest that the education effect was larger when the intervention happened in utero and for people from a low socioeconomic background. Furthermore, we document the positive impact on employment for people in their fifties, job prestigiousness, adult health, and cognitive abilities. We also find a positive effect on the education level of the treated cohorts’ children.   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
September 23, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarAlex Doser (Northwestern University): "Labor Market Adjustments in the Great Depression" (start time is 11:10am)
September 21, 202012:15 PM - 1:45 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsThomas Winberry (University of Chicago Booth School of Business): "The Investment Network, Sectoral Comovement, and the Changing U.S. Business Cycle" (Joint with Christian vom Lehn) (Start time: 12:20 PM) *All fall seminars will take place via Zoom
September 21, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJose Alvarado (Northwestern University): "Unequal Taxes, Heterogeneous Rate of Returns, and Wealth Inequality" (start time is 11:10am)
September 18, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar John Clegg (University of Chicago): "The Carceral Legacy of Slavery"   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
September 17, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarSpeaker: TBA   *all fall lunches will take place via zoom
September 16, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Nancy Qian (Northwestern University):  The Soviet Great Famine, 1932–33 (joint with A. Markevich and N. Naumenko) Abstract: This paper investigates the causes of the Soviet Great Famine, 1932–33, and documents several new empirical facts. First, excess mortality was much higher in regions with a higher share of ethnic Ukrainians, even outside of the Soviet Republic of Ukraine. Second, this cannot be explained by differences in natural conditions, grain productivity, demographic structure or urbanization. Third, in regions with a higher share of ethnic Ukrainians, Soviet economic policies were implemented more zealously, which resulted in higher food procurement and famine mortality. Fourth, there is suggestive evidence that mortality was exacerbated by the presence of non-ethnic Ukrainian Communist Party bureaucrats. These and other results in the paper provide novel evidence for the presence of ethnic bias in famine-era Soviet policies and the contribution of ethnic bias to famine mortality.   *All fall lunches will take place via zoom
September 16, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarFergal Hanks (Northwestern University): "Durable Good Demand and Production" (start time is 11:10am)
September 11, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar - CANCELEDMelanie Meng Xue (NYAD) - Title "TBA"
September 3, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMECON Open House- WCAS Virtual Academic FairJoin the Department of Economics for a virtual information session on the Economics major/minor!
September 2, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMECON Open House- WCAS Virtual Academic FairJoin the Department of Economics for a virtual information session on the Economics major/minor!
September 1, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMAcademic Directions Fair: Roads to Business (Panel)Learn about life at Northwestern from current faculty, staff, and students. Northwestern graduates go on to lead successful careers in business and enjoy high acceptance rates to MBA programs. Learn about Northwestern’s approach to undergraduate business education. Learn About: -Chicago Field Studies (Internship Program) -Economics -Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation -Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) -Kapnick Center for Business Institutions -Kellogg Certificate Program for Undergraduates (CPU) Please fill out this form to RSVP and to receive your link to the event.
August 14, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMTEST Event This is a test - not a real event
August 7, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMFirst Year Facebook Q&A with Mark Witte and Rowan Lapi, ECON '23Join us THIS Friday, August 7 at Noon CST for a Q&A session with Director of Undergraduate Studies and Professor, Mark Witte and  current undergraduate Rowan Lapi, ECON '23 Event will take place via zoom; please contact lola.ittner@u.northwestern.edu to be sent the link.  
August 3, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMVirtual COVID-19 Talk with Matthias Doepke & Martin EichenbaumJoin the Department of Economics on Monday, August 3, 2020, at 12:00 PM CST for a virtual alumni talk with Economics Professors, Matthias Doepke and Martin Eichenbaum, as they discuss their research on the economic impact of COVID-19.
July 10, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Emre Yavuz (Northwestern University): “Technology Adoption and Invention: Evidence from the Industrial Revolution in France”
June 26, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarMichele Rosenberg (NU) - "Holding on to Power: Racial Violence and Labor Relations in a Post Slavery Society" (joint with J. Clegg, F. Masera, and S. Walker)  
June 22, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMVirtual Seminar in MacroeconomicsMichele Tertilt (University of Mannheim): "An economic model of the Covid-19 epidemic: The importance of testing and age-specific policies"
June 18, 20203:00 PM - 4:00 PMDepartment of Economics Virtual Senior Awards CeremonyPlease join us to virtually celebrate our senior award recipients. We will be giving out the Coen, Deibler and Eisner Awards, as well acknowledging the students who received department honors.
June 15, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMVirtual Seminar in MacroeconomicsSimon Mongey (University of Chicago): "Unbundling Labor"
June 12, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarMatthew Thomas (Northwestern University): "Asymmetric All-Pay Contests with Spillovers"
June 12, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarJoris Mueller (Northwestern University) - "Building National Identity: a Historic(al) Policy Experiment in TanzaniaD"  
June 11, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarAdriana Troian (Northwestern University) -"Title TBD"  
June 10, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarKensuke Maeba (Northwestern University): "Interaction with Local Officials for Effective School Monitoring in India"
June 8, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMVirtual Seminar in MacroeconomicsMatthias Doepke: "This Time It's Different: The Role of Women's Employment in the Great Lockdown" (Titan Alon, Matthias Doepke, Jane Olmstead-Rumsey, and Michèle Tertilt)
June 8, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarClement Bohr (Northwestern University): "Land, Labor, and Inflation"
June 5, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarValentyn Litvin (Northwestern University): "Common Ambiguity"
June 5, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarQ&A with Sciences Po "Emperors without Scepters: Early Colonial Leaders’ Personality and Civil Conflicts in French Western Africa" A link to the talk will be circulated a few minutes before noon.
June 3, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Economic HistoryDaniel Gross (Harvard Business School): "Automation and the Plight of Young Workers: Evidence from the Automation of Telephone Operation in the Early 20th Century"
June 3, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar Jose Flor Toro (Northwestern University) - "Title TBD"
June 3, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJingxiong Hu (Northwestern University): "Leveraged payouts and credit allocation efficiency"
June 1, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationIgal Hendel (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
June 1, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in MacroeconomicsEduardo Davila (Yale University): "Title TBD"
June 1, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMVirtual Seminar in MacroeconomicsGuido Lorenzoni: "Macroeconomic Implications of COVID-19: Can Negative Supply Shocks Cause Demand Shortages?" 
June 1, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarMaria Fernanda Petri Betto (Northwestern University): "Of schools and shams"
May 29, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomics of History Lunch SeminarPawel Janas (Northerwestern University) - "Economic Effects of the 1918 Pandemic: Evidence from the U.S"
May 28, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Egor Kozlov (Northwestern University) - "Title TBD"  
May 27, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Economic HistoryLeah Boustan (Princeton University): "Title TBD"
May 27, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch SeminarUtsav Manjeer (Northwestern University) - "Let the (P)rice Flow: The Local Economic Effects of India's Agricultural Export Ban" Abstract: Restrictive and uncertain trade regimes are prevalent in developing countries. While trade restrictions are often intended to shield the economy from volatility in global markets, such distortions can have unintended consequences for economic agents across the supply chain in domestic markets. I investigate the local economic effects of India’s wheat and rice export ban during 2007-2011. Using data from almost 2 million transactions, I first show that farmers received lower prices particularly in, but not limited to, areas that the ban is more likely to affect. I then show that there is limited evidence of transmission of the low prices to consumers. Using a novel approach with trade routes, I argue that the export ban worsens domestic market integration. One driving force I find is that farmers restrict supply. I also discuss next steps and other potential mechanisms at play, including the uncertainty surrounding agriculture policy and grain procurement policies of the government.  
May 27, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarDeborah Kim (Northwestern University): "Inference in conditional two-sample problems"
May 25, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMVirtual Seminar in MacroeconomicsLukasz Rachel: "An Analytical Model of Covid-19 Lockdowns" 
May 22, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarMario Cannella (Northwestern University): "The Effects of Forced Annexation: Evidence from Nazi Operational Zones in Italy"
May 22, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarMatteo Magniaricotte (Northwestern University) - "Local Specialization and Growth: The Italian Land Reform " (joint with Bianchi Vimercati and Giampaolo Lecce) The talk will be held from 12.00 to 1.30 pm (CST) on Zoom.  A link to the talk will be provided a few minutes before noon.  
May 21, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Riccardo Vimercati (Northwestern University) - "Title TBD"  
May 20, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Economic HistoryKatherine Eriksson (University of California, Davis): "Title TBD"
May 20, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar Matteo Magnaricotte (Northwestern University) - "College Entry and Local Market Outcomes in Perú, joint with José Flor-Toro" Abstract: We study the effects of entry of universities on local outcomes in the context of Peru. Especially in developing countries, the opening of a university is seen as a harbinger of economic prosperity. However, proper identification of such effects poses notable challenges, and reliable empirical evidence remains scant. Thanks to favorable institutional characteristics of the political and higher education context in Peru, we propose an identification strategy new to the literature addressing the research question, and present preliminary results.
May 20, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarNicole Ozminkowski (Northwestern University): "Rent Control and Domestic Violence"
May 19, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMThe Undergraduate Economics Society Presents: The Global Impacts of COVID-19 with Martin Eichenbaum & Matthias DoepkeJoin Economics Professors Martin Eichenbaum and Matthias Doepke as they discuss the global economic implication of COVID-19. 
May 19, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in EconometricsMichal Kolesar (Princeton University): "Title TBD"
May 18, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Industrial OrganizationBob Town (The University of Texas at Austin): "Title TBD"
May 18, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in MacroeconomicsMark Gertler (New York University): "Title TBD"
May 18, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarYong Cai (Northwestern University): "A Permutation Test for the Level of Clustering"
May 15, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarLukas Rosenberger (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) - "Knowledge, Education, and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Enlightenment in France"  
May 14, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Bence Bardoczy (Northwestern University) - "Title TBD"  
May 13, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Economic HistoryRowena Gray (University of California, Merced): "Title TBD"
May 13, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar Silvia Vanutelli (Boston University) - "Monitoring and Local Governance: Evidence from Italy" Abstract: Monitoring by external auditors is a ubiquitous practice in complex organizations. Frequently, the audited entity appoints the external auditor. While locally-appointed auditors might have better local knowledge, leaving discretion in the hands of the audited party might impair monitoring quality. In this paper, I exploit a unique setting which allows me to evaluate this trade-off in the context of auditing of municipal budgets of local governments. In 2011, Italy introduced a reform that removed the discretion of the appointment of municipal auditors from mayors and introduced a random-assignment system. The objective of the reform was to strengthen monitoring and ensure fiscal sustainability of municipal budgets. I study the consequences of increased monitoring on public finance outcomes of local governments. My identification exploits the staggered introduction of the reform across municipalities in an event-study setting. I obtain three main findings. First, the reform greatly increased compliance with fiscal rules: treated municipalities increase their surpluses by 20% and their debt repayments by 2%. Second, improvements largely come from municipalities in which the mayor had control of the appointment of the previous auditor and from those local governments that were running deficits before the reform. Third, the improvement in compliance with fiscal rules comes at a cost: treated municipalities significantly cut investment expenditures by over 7% and increase local taxes by 8%. 
May 13, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJose Flor Toro (Northwestern University): "The Welfare Impacts of the Allocation of Human Capital: Evidence from Peru’s Centralized Allocation of Health Professionals"
May 12, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in EconometricsLixiong Li (Johns Hopkins University): "Title TBD"
May 11, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Industrial OrganizationLouis Kaplow (Harvard University): "Competition Policy in a Simple General Equilibrium Model"
May 11, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMCANCELLED- Seminar in MacroeconomicsMichael Woodford (Columbia University): "Title TBD"
May 11, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarMegumi Murakami (Northwestern University): "Coevolution of Culture and Institution"
May 8, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarCarl Hallman (Northwestern University): "Payment Shocks"
May 8, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarRiccardo Marchingiglio (Northwestern University) - "The Economics of Gender-Specific Minimum-Wage Legislation" Abstract: During the 1910's, twelve states passed and implemented the first minimum-wage laws in the history of the United States. These laws covered specific industries and only applied to female employees. We study the employment impact of these gender-specific minimum-wage laws, using full count Census data from 1880 to 1940. First, applying a triple-difference strategy exploiting variation across states, industries, and time to both the full sample of U.S. counties and the restricted group of contiguous county pairs, we estimate separate models for men and women, and we find that these laws led to a decrease in female employment and an increase in the employment of adult men. Second, guided by a simple labor demand setting, we estimate the average elasticity of substitution between male and female labor, and show that the two inputs were, on average, gross substitutes. Third, using a newly constructed longitudinal sample of linked Census records of women, we show that (1) married women were more likely to exit the labor force as a result of the decline in demand; (2) unmarried women switched to untreated industries; (3) the decline in labor demand did not induce significant migration patterns. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence of a long-run impact of gender-specific minimum-wage laws on female labor force participation, after the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
May 7, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Kristina Manysheva - "Title TBD"  
May 6, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar Joris Mueller (Northwestern University) - "China’s Development Assistance and the Role of its Firms " Abstract: Many countries provide foreign aid to facilitate economic stability and development in poor countries. I posit that donors may also use development assistance to other countries to stabilize demand within their own economies. I study the context of China, which provides much of its official development assistance (ODA) in the form of physical infrastructure, thereby subsidizing and generating business for Chinese contractors and suppliers. Using a novel firm-level dataset, I find that the Chinese government smoothens demand across state-owned firms in strategic sectors by allocating ODA projects to firms that face relatively lower, exogenous demand from other sources. As a placebo check, I show that unsubsidized official loans to the same set of countries and firms do not follow this pattern. I also address potential confounders at the home prefecture-, sector-, and recipient country-level and provide robustness to several other checks.
May 6, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarEilidh Geddes (Northwestern University): "Insurer Competition and Rating Areas on the ACA Exchanges"
May 5, 20205:30 PM - 6:30 PMOrientation for Economics Graduate Students on the Job MarketDiscussion of procedures for graduate students thinking about entering the job market next year
May 5, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in EconometricsStephane Bonhomme (University of Chicago): "Title TBD"
May 4, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Industrial OrganizationGautam Gowrisankaran (University of Arizona): "Title TBD"
May 4, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in MacroeconomicsCharles Engel (University of Wisconsin): "Title TBD"
May 4, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarKelly Gail Strada (Northwestern University): "Premarital Testing and Family Structure"
May 1, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarGiampaolo Lecce (University of Groningen) - "Religiosity and Science (with Ogliari and Squicciarini)"    
May 1, 202011:30 AM - 12:00 PMMeeting for Third Year Economics Graduate StudentsMandatory meeting.  Director of Graduate Studies will discuss important deadlines, degree requirements and funding availability, and will answer questions.
May 1, 202011:00 AM - 11:30 AMMeeting for Second Year Economics Graduate StudentsMandatory meeting.  Director of Graduate Studies will discuss important deadlines, degree requirements and funding availability, and will answer questions.
April 30, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Federico Puglisi - "Title TBD"  
April 29, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Economic HistoryDouglas Allen (Simon Fraser University): "Title TBD"
April 29, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar Ricardo Dahis (Northwestern University) - "Development via Autonomy and Funds: Evidence from Brazil" Abstract: Countries may promote regional development by allowing localities to self-select into emancipation and by providing intergovernmental grants to those who split. In large countries, where multiple districts exist within administrative units, the net benefits of splitting into a new unit may be largest for those that are physically isolated, rural, and poor. This paper tests this idea in the context of Brazil, where a window of opportunity between 1988-96 generated an increase of 24% in the number of municipalities. We first show that districts requesting to split are on average smaller, more rural and poorer than the rest of the country. Second, using as control group the districts that request to split but have their case denied, we show that splitting causes increases in agglomeration and night luminosity for new municipalities, but no effects on remaining districts. At the municipality level, splits cause (1) a spike in local capital investment, (2) steady growth in the bureaucracy size, (3) improvements in education and public services provision. Finally, we also estimate and discuss returns to fiscal investment via an IV exercise.  
April 29, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarEduardo Campillo Betancourt (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
April 28, 20204:00 PM - 5:30 PMCANCELLED: Susan Bies Lecture Presented by Darrell Duffie: "Financial Market Fragmentation"This event has been cancelled.  We hope to reschedule in the fall. --- The Susan Bies Lecture on Economics and Public Policy was launched in 2008 in honor of Northwestern alumna Susan Schmidt Bies. Bies, who earned her doctorate in economics from Northwestern University in 1972, served in various capacities during a long career, including on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2001 until 2007. The lecture alternates between microeconomic and macroeconomic topics. Darrell Duffie (Stanford): https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/darrell-duffie
April 27, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Industrial OrganizationShoshana Vasserman (Harvard University): "Title TBD"
April 27, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in MacroeconomicsAlessandra Peter (Princeton University): "Owning Up: Closely Held Firms and Wealth Inequality"
April 27, 202012:00 PM - 12:45 PMMatthias Doepke (Economics/IPR) - The Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Equality."The Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Equality" by Matthias Doepke, HSBC Research Professor of Economics and IPR Associate The Spring 2020 IPR Monday Fay Lomax Cook (FLC) Colloquium Series will be held online using Zoom.  Northwestern faculty, staff, and students: Please be sure to log into Zoom using your authenticated Northwestern netid and password (Sign In with SSO). This will allow you to enter the colloquium directly at 11:50 a.m. CDT.  If you are signed in as a guest or on a personal account, this might cause delays in admitting you to the colloquium. __________________________________________________________ No Northwestern netid? External participants are required to register for this colloquium here and cannot join without having registered by 10:00 a.m. CDT on Monday, April 27. If you have already registered for this or other IPR talks, you do not need to do so again. To avoid delays in admitting you to the colloquium, please be sure to use the same first name and last name that you used to register when you join the colloquium in Zoom. __________________________________________________________ Please make sure that you are running the latest version of Zoom.    
April 27, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarBoli Xu (Northwestern University): "A Dynamic Model of Free Riding"
April 24, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarSiu Hong Lee (Northwestern University): "Building sustainable school-based agricultural extesion systems: Randomized Experiment(s) in rural Liberia"
April 24, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarYiling Zhao (Northwestern University) "Home Economics and Women’s Path to Science "    
April 23, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMWaldron Connections Program: Recent Graduate PanelStudents will hear from young women who recently graduated from Northwestern. These alumnae will talk more about their experiences at Northwestern, how they picked their majors and career paths, and they will talk more about what they do in their work today. You won't want to miss their insights and advice about how to take advantage of your time at Northwestern to explore different career options!
April 23, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Jane Olmstead - Rumsey - "Title TBD"  
April 22, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Economic HistoryFelipe Valencia Caicedo (Vancouver School of Economics): “Trust Unraveled: The Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War”
April 22, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMWaldron Connections Program: Featured Career Talk with Junta Nakai '04Students will hear from Junta Nakai '04 (Economics) who leads Financial Services at Databricks and spends a lot of time thinking about and working with customers who are defining the future of finance. He is also a part-owner of Brooklyn Kura, the first Sake Brewery in New York and the biggest craft sake brand in America.
April 22, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar Alison Andrew (UCL, IFS) - "Preferences and Beliefs in the Marriage Market for Young Brides" joint work with Abi Adams-Prassl (University of Oxford)   Abstract: Rajasthani women typically leave school early and marry young. We develop a novel discrete choice methodology using hypothetical vignettes to elicit average parental preferences over a daughter's education and age of marriage, and subjective beliefs about the evolution of her marriage market prospects. We find parents have a strong preference for delaying a daughter's marriage until eighteen but no further. Conditional on a marriage match, parents place little intrinsic value on a daughter's education. However, they believe the probability of receiving a good marriage offer increases strongly with a daughter's education but deteriorates quickly with her age on leaving school. 
April 22, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarAleksandra Paluszynska (Northwestern University): "What I used to want: the effect of cognitive decline on health care utilization at the end of life"
April 21, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in EconometricsVira Semenova (Harvard University): "Title TBD"
April 21, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMWaldron Connections Program: Alumni Panel on Working in PolicyStudents will hear from alumni who work in health care, education, and public policy. Alumni will talk about their time at Northwestern along with the impactful classes and mentors who helped them find their way to policy work.
April 20, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Industrial OrganizationChris Neilson (Princeton University): "Title TBD"
April 20, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in MacroeconomicsThomas Winberry (University of Chicago Booth School of Business): "The Investment Network, Sectoral Comovement, and the Changing U.S. Business Cycle" (Joint with Christian vom Lehn)
April 20, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarSantiago Camara (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
April 17, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarUdayan Vaidya (Northwestern University): "Experts ExPost Information"
April 17, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarNatalya Naumenko - "Was the 1933 Soviet Famine a Genocide? We know so Much and we Still Can’t Tell"
April 16, 20203:00 PM - 4:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsNilesh Fernando (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
April 16, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarTBD
April 15, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar - CANCELLEDAmeet Morjaria (Kellogg School of Managment) - "Title TBD"
April 15, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJoao Guerreiro (Northwestern University): "The Slowdown of Labor Mobility"
April 14, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in EconometricsTetsuya Kaji (University of Chicago Booth School of Business): "Title TBD"
April 13, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Industrial OrganizationDevesh Raval (Bureau of Economics): "Title TBD"
April 13, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in MacroeconomicsAndrei Levchenko (University of Michigan): "International Comovement in the Global Production Network"
April 13, 202012:00 PM - 12:45 PMCharles Manski (IPR/Economics) - Estimating the COVID-19 Infection Rate: Anatomy of an Inference Problem"Estimating the COVID-19 Infection Rate: Anatomy of an Inference Problem" by Charles F. Manski, Board of Trustees Professor of Economics and IPR Fellow The Spring 2020 IPR Monday Fay Lomax Cook (FLC) Colloquium Series will be held online using Zoom. You will need an active Northwestern netid and a password to participate in the IPR Monday FLC colloquia. Your netid should be authenticated if it hasn’t been already. Also please make sure that you are running the latest version of Zoom. No Northwestern netid? External participants are required to register for the colloquia here and cannot join without having registered by 10:00 a.m. CDT the day of the colloquium.  
April 13, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarEmre Enes Yavuz (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
April 10, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarPaul Kim (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
April 10, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarRalph Meisenzahl - Chicago Fed and visiting professor in the department of Economics at Northwestern, "The Research University, Industry and Invention: Evidence from Germany 1760-1900"  
April 9, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarMarty Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo (Northwestern University): "The Macroeconomics of Epidemics"
April 8, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch SeminarHussein Alidaee (Kellogg School of Managment) - "Title TBD"
April 8, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarFederico Puglisi (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
April 7, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in EconometricsKenichi Nagasawa (University of Warwick): "Title TBD"
April 6, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Industrial OrganizationAlex MacKay (Harvard Business School): "Competition in Pricing Algorithms"
April 6, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in MacroeconomicsDmitry Mukhin (University of Wisconsin-Madison): "Title TBD"
April 3, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarBruno Caprettini, (University of Zurich) - Title "TBD" Zoom Meeting link: TBD
April 1, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Economic HistorySuresh Naidu (Columbia University): “Title TBD”
March 30, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMCANCELLED: Seminar in Industrial OrganizationMarc Rysman (Boston University): "Demand for Performance Goods: Import Quotas in the Chinese Movie Market"
March 19, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarClement Bohr (Northwestern University): "Title TBD" Zoom Meeting link: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/885120180
March 12, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarBence Bardoczy (Northwestern University): "Working Women, Spousal Insurance, and the Business Cycle"
March 11, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar hosted by the Global Poverty Research LabFrancesco Loiacono (Northwestern University): "Improving Labor Market Outcomes for Refugees: Evidence from Uganda" (joint with Mariajose Silva Vargas)
March 11, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMApplied Microeconomics LunchKelly Gail Strada (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
March 10, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsDmitry Arkhangelsky (University of Chicago): "On Policy Evaluation with Aggregate Time-Series Shocks"
March 9, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationChad Syverson (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business): "Monopsony Power in Higher Education: A Tale of Two Tracks"
March 9, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMatthew Notowidigdo (IPR/Econ) - The Economic Consequences of Bankruptcy Reform"The Economic Consequences of Bankruptcy Reform" by Matthew Notowidigdo, Associate Professor of Economics and IPR Faculty Fellow Abstract: A more generous consumer bankruptcy system provides greater insurance against financial risks, but it may also raise the cost of credit to consumers. We study this trade-off using the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which raised the costs of filing for bankruptcy. We identify the effects of BAPCPA on borrowing costs by exploiting variation in the effects of the reform on bankruptcy risk across credit-score segments. Using a combination of administrative records, credit reports, and proprietary market-research data, we find that the reform reduced bankruptcy filings, and reduced the likelihood that an uninsured hospitalization received bankruptcy relief by 70 percent. BAPCPA led to a decrease in credit card interest rates, with an implied pass-through rate of 60–75 percent. Overall, BAPCPA decreased the gap in offered interest rates between prime and subprime consumers by roughly 10 percent. This event is part of the 2020 Fay Lomax Cook IPR Colloquium Series.
March 9, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsHelene Rey (London Business School): "Financial Cycles with Heterogeneous Intermediaries"
March 6, 202012:00 PM - 5:30 PMWinter Econ History RetreatPresenters: Nicola Bianchi, Matthias Doepke, Filippo Mezzanotti, Michele Rosenberg, and Edoardo Teso
March 5, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarEgor Kozlov (Northwestern University): "The Economics of Shotgun Marriage"
March 4, 20206:30 PM - 8:00 PMAlumni Event Series with Joel Mokyr: "Can Technology save the World? Lessons from Economic History” Our next event will be held on Wednesday, March 4 from 6:30-7:30 PM at the Kellogg Global Hub with Professor Joel Mokyr. His talk is entitled: "Can Technology save the World? Lessons from Economic History." RSVP forthcoming. 
March 4, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch Seminar hosted by the Global Poverty Research LabMiguel Talamas (Northwestern University): "David vs Goliath: Mexican Corner Stores Facing Convenience Chains"
March 3, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMApplied Microeconomics Lunch Francesca Truffa (Northwestern University) "Maternity Leave and Unemployment Insurance," and Matteo Magnaricotte (Northwestern) "Effects of Public Entry in Higher Education: the Case of Peru."  
March 2, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationAndrey Simonovv (Columbia Business School): "What Drives Demand for Government-Controlled News? Evidence from Russia"
February 28, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarGuillaume Blanc (Brown University): "Modernization Before Industrialization: Cultural Roots of the Demographic Transition in France"
February 28, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMLunch & Learn: Tim Schmidt (Discover Financial Services)The Department of Economics in conjunction with the Harvey Kapnick Center for Business Institutions present this special Lunch & Learn.  Our guest is Tim Schmidt, Senior Vice President and Treasurer of Discover Financial Services.  Tim Schmidt is Senior Vice President and Treasurer of Discover Financial Services, one of the largest U.S. banks and a payment services company with more than $100 billion of assets.  As Treasurer, Tim is responsible for managing the company’s balance sheet to support loan growth, expand consumer banking products and grow global network volume while executing strategies to maximize shareholder returns.  This entails managing Discover’s funding, capital, liquidity and interest rate risk, as well as its investment and derivatives portfolio and cash management activity.  Tim joined Discover in 2014 as Vice President and Assistant Treasurer, leading the company’s funding and capital markets activities.  Prior to becoming Treasurer in 2017, Tim served as head of Discover’s Investor Relations, managing the company’s relationships with institutional equity investors and Wall Street equity analysts.  Before joining Discover, he served as head of Liquidity and Capital in the Treasury group at SunTrust Bank in Atlanta, and as Senior Portfolio Director in the Investments and Capital Markets Division at Freddie Mac in Washington, D.C.  Tim began his career working at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City where he served five years in the Economic Research department, most recently as an associate economist.  Tim completed a bachelor’s degree in economics from Northwestern University in 1990 and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan in 1992.  He earned his CFA Institute charter in 2001.  You must register for “Lunch & Learn” here: bit.ly/kapnick-lunch The Kapnick Lunch & Learn is a casual lunchtime chat event for Northwestern undergraduate students. Lunch & Learn is hosted by the Harvey Kapnick Center for Business Institutions.
February 27, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarRiccardo Bianchi Vimercati (Northwestern University): "Evolution of Corporate Borrowing Constraints: The Role of Covenants"
February 25, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMApplied Microeconomics LunchPawel Janas (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
February 24, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsPetros Milionis (University of Groningen): "Perceived Mortality Risk, Gender Differences and Schooling Investments"
February 21, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarPawel Janas (Northwestern University): "Public Goods Under Financial Distress: Evidence from Cities in the Great Depression"
February 20, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarAna Danieli (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
February 19, 20201:00 PM - 1:30 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch SeminarJoris Mueller (Northwestern University): "Forced Coexistence, Public Education and Nation-building: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Tanzania " (with R. Carlitz and A. Morjaria) Eduardo Campillo Betancourt (Northwestern University): "The Effect of Increasing Statistical Capacity: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Uganda"
February 18, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMApplied Microeconomics LunchOla Paluszynska will present "Measuring the mismatch between patients' preferences and the treatment they receive at the end of life,"  and Olivia Healy will present "Parenthood, Health, and Job Performance: Measuring the Effects of Family Support Policies".
February 17, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsJesus Villaverde (University of Pennsylvania): "Financial Frictions and the Wealth Distribution"
February 14, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarMichele Rosenberg (Northwestern University): "Local Institutions and Industrial Development: The Political Economy of the Industrial Revolution"
February 12, 20202:00 PM - 3:00 PMTeaching Track Junior Recruitment Seminar/LecturePaola Boel- Junior Recruitment Candidate
February 12, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch SeminarErika Deserrano (Northwestern University): "Aid Crowd-Out: The Effect of NGOs on Government-Provided Public Services" (joint work with Nancy Qian)
February 11, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMApplied Microeconomics LunchFrancesca Truffa (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
February 10, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsNuno Palma (University of Manchester): "The Vagaries of the Sea: Evidence on the Real Effects of Money from Maritime Disasters in the Spanish Empire"
February 7, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarYutaro Izumi​ (Northwestern University): "Agrarian Contract and Peasant Protest: Evidence from Colonial Korea"
February 6, 20204:00 PM - 5:00 PMTransportation Center SeminarMarlon Boarnet (University of Southern California): "Gentrification and Displacement Near Los Angeles Rail Transit Stations: New Evidence from Micro-Data"
February 6, 20203:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryNuno Palma (University of Manchester): "Comparative European Institutions and the Little Divergence, 1385-1800"
February 6, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarKristina Manysheva (Northwestern University): “Policy Distortions and Resource Allocation in Developing Countries: Macroprospective”
February 5, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch SeminarHossein Alidaee (Northwestern University): "Recovering Network Structure from Aggregated Relational Data using Penalized Regression" (Joint work with Eric Auerbach and Michael Leung)
February 5, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMPAS L+L: Ashley Wong & Francesca Truffa - Effect of Beliefs and Gender Roles on Girls' Math EducationJoin the Program of African Studies as we provide lunch and a lecture. Ashley Wong & Francesca Truffa, Northwestern University Effect of Beliefs and Gender Roles on Girls' Math Education Abstract: In Ghana, a large gender gap in participation exists across fields of study in senior secondary school; in home economics, 89.6% of students are girls while in general science, only 34% are girls (Ministry of Education, 2013). Recent literature suggests that schooling choices of girls are particularly influenced by societal beliefs about their math ability, labor market opportunities, and the role of women in the society (Agbley, 2015; Ajayi and Buessing, 2015). If parents’ and girls’ beliefs result from a lack of information, then providing information about potential math abilities and returns to math education in terms of labor market and family outcomes may increase investments in girls’ math education. We conduct an RCT in Ghana to investigate how providing these different types of information affect parents’ and children’s investments in math education in terms of time, schooling expenditures, girls’ aspirations, secondary school enrollment rate, and the field of study.  Bios: Ashley Wong is a fourth-year PhD student in Economics. Her research interests are in development, labor and gender economics. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2014. Prior to coming to Northwestern, she worked as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.   Francesca Truffa is a fourth-year PhD student in Economics. Her research interests are in labor, development, and gender economics. She graduated with a Research Masters in Economics from Universie' Catholique de Louvain. Prior to coming to Northwestern, she worked as teacher and research assistant at Louvain.
February 4, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMApplied Microeconomics LunchBrendon Andrews (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
February 4, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMTeaching Track Junior Recruitment Seminar/LectureChristopher Surro- Junior Recruitment Candidate
February 3, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsRudi Bachmann (University of Notre Dame): "Uncertainty and Change: Survey Evidence of Firms’ Subjective Beliefs"
January 31, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarFrançois R. Velde (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago): "Monetary crisis and reform in 17th c. Naples"
January 30, 202012:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarSantiago Camara (Northwestern University): "Sudden Stop Crises and Export Dynamics: Evidence and Theory"
January 29, 20201:00 PM - 2:00 PMDevelopment Economics Lunch SeminarMichele Ugo Rosenberg (Northwestern University): "Technological Change, Organizational Capacity and Conflict: Land Occupations in Brazil"
January 28, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMApplied Microeconomics LunchJoe Long (Northwestern University): "Title TBD"
January 28, 202011:00 AM - 12:00 PMTeaching Track Junior Recruitment Seminar/LectureTsu-ting (Tim) Lin- Junior Recruitment Candidate
January 27, 202012:00 PM - 1:00 PMMatthias Doepke (Economics) - Economics of Parenting with Neighborhood and Peer Effects"It Takes a Village: The Economics of Parenting with Neighborhood and Peer Effects" by Matthias Doepke, Professor of Economics and IPR Associate This event is part of the 2020 Fay Lomax Cook IPR Colloquium Series.
January 27, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsNitzan Tzur-Ilan (Northwestern University): "Unintended Consequences of LTV Limits on Credit and Housing Choices"
January 24, 202012:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarMatti Mutten (University of Chicago): "Title TBD"