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
June 15, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PM2021 Virtual ECON Senior CelebrationJoin the Department of Economics for a virtual celebration live via Zoom Webinar. The event will feature opening remarks by Department Chair, Joseph Ferrie and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Mark Witte, a keynote address from ECON alumna, Sonya Brown ’94, and student reflections by Katherine Daehler ’21, an ECON graduate. We look forward to celebrating with you!
June 14, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PM2021 ECON Senior Awards CeremonyEvery year the Economics department holds a senior awards celebration to honor the students who were granted honors for their senior theses. This year, we will celebrate these students with a small, in-person ceremony on Monday, June 14, 2021 at 2:00 PM. 
June 11, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Mario Cannella (Northwestern University) - “Two sides of the same coin: Labor market effects of party membership and government surveillance in Fascist Italy”  
June 7, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMIPR Colloquium: L. Beaman (IPR/Econ) and R. Voigt (Linguistics/IPR) - Gender Bias in Letters of Recommendation in Economics"A Computational Analysis of Gender Bias in Letters of Recommendation in Economics"* Lori Beaman, Associate Professor of Economics and IPR Fellow, and Rob Voight, Assistant Professor of Linguistics and IPR Associate This event is part of the Spring 2021 Fay Lomax Cook IPR Colloquium Series. * Designates that the presentation will involve work in progress.
June 7, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMIPR Colloquium: L. Beaman (IPR/Econ) - Gender Bias in Letters of Recommendation in Economics"A Computational Analysis of Gender Bias in Letters of Recommendation in Economics"* Lori Beaman, Associate Professor of Economics and IPR Fellow This event is part of the Spring 2021 Fay Lomax Cook IPR Colloquium Series. * Designates that the presentation will involve work in progress.
June 7, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsJuliane Begenau (Stanford University): "A Q-Theory of Banks" (Joint with Saki Bigio, Jeremy Majerovitz, and Matias Vieyra) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
June 4, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Matthew O'Keefe (Northwestern University): "Producer Integration & Wastewater Management in the Marcellus Shale"
June 4, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarMichael Porcellacchia (Northwestern University) -“Thucydides Trap: Theory and Evidence”
June 4, 20218:30 AM - 1:30 PMCSIO-TSE Conference on Industrial OrganizationJoin the Northwestern University Department of Economics and Toulouse School of Economics for a virtual IO conference.
June 3, 202112:15 PM - 1:15 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarCarl Hallmann (Northwestern University): Title TBA
June 3, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsOriana Bandiera (London School of Economics): Title TBA (Note change in time) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
June 3, 20218:30 AM - 1:30 PMCSIO-TSE Conference on Industrial OrganizationJoin the Northwestern University Department of Economics and Toulouse School of Economics for a virtual IO conference.
June 2, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Hossein Alidaee (Northwestern University): "Is Context a Mechanism Behind Social Learning? A Proposal for a Lab Experiment" Abstract: Information acquisition is central to technology adoption decisions. Two common sources of information about returns include (i) central sources, such as government information campaigns, and (ii) social learning from peers. Central sources often have greater data on returns—yet, we lack empirical evidence that social learning is less persuasive. Understanding social learning's efficacy is particularly important for technologies where returns are highly heterogeneous and information acquisition is a major barrier to adoption. I propose one potential mechanism, which I refer to as context uncertainty. I will test this mechanism via a lab-in-the-field experiment with a sample of smallholder farmers. If valid, this mechanism provides a framework to improve informational interventions from central sources.        
June 2, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Evgeni Rachkovski (Northwestern University): "Integrating to Opportunity: High School Integration and Intergenerational Mobility"
June 1, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationJingyuan Wang / Gaston Lopez / Francisco Pareschi (Northwestern University): Title TBA (30 minutes each)
June 1, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMSocial Protection and Inequality in a Pandemic: Evidence from GhanaSurvey evidence from 16 developing countries shows widespread employment loss and declines in income and food security since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. These patterns are apparent in Ghana. In this Northwestern Buffett "Building Sustainable Futures: Global Challenges and Possibilities" webinar, Chris Udry, professor of Economics at Northwestern University, and Robert Darko Osei, vice dean for the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Ghana, discuss the effect on workers of the COVID lockdown policies implemented in urban areas, and the organization of a program of mobile money transfers to individuals in poor households. They will discuss the dynamic effects of lockdowns on employment. They will show how substantial, randomized mobile money transfers affected social distancing, food security, and work patterns. Further, they will discuss how reliance on mobile money restricted the reach of the program to those with access to mobile phones but allowed for useful characterization of excluded populations. Chris Udry: Robert E. and Emily King Professor of Economics at Northwestern University. He is a development economist whose research focuses on rural economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa. His current research includes directing the first long-term, nationwide socioeconomic panel survey of individuals across Ghana (in collaboration with the University of Ghana); randomized evaluations of a variety of governmental and NGO-led development programs in West Africa; work on household organization, risk, information flows and agriculture in Mali and Ghana; and the role of psychological well-being on economic decision-making. Robert Darko Osei: Associate Professor in the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana, Legon, and also the Vice Dean for the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Ghana. Robert has published widely in edited volumes and top international journals. His main areas of research include evaluative poverty and rural research, macro and micro implications of fiscal policies, aid effectiveness and other economic development policy concerns. He is currently involved in a number of research projects in Ghana, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali.  Free and open to the public. This webinar will be available through WebEx at this LINK. Please use the following passcode when accessing: 1234. The talk will begin at 12 p.m. CDT on Tuesday, June 1. This webinar is part of the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs’ Building Sustainable Futures: Global Challenges and Possibilities series. This and other spring 2021 webinars focused on UN SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities are co-sponsored by the Northwestern University Community for Human Rights (NUCHR).
June 1, 202111:00 AM - 12:30 PMSeminar in EconometricsThierry Magnac (Toulouse School of Economics): "Convex tools for inference in set-identified linear models" (Please note alternate start time) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 28, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Marie-Louise Decamps (Northwestern University): "Agricultural Productivity and Deforestation"
May 28, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarRalf Meisenzahl (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) - “Farm to desert: How Post-Civil War Farm Tenancy Created Food Deserts” (joint with Philipp Ager and Stefan Gissler)
May 27, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsAsim Khwaja (Harvard University): Title TBA  *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 27, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationPaul Kim (Northwestern University): "Regulating Insurers in Medicare Part D"
May 27, 202112:15 PM - 1:15 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarMacro LuncH Seminar - CANCELED
May 26, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryCong Liu (Jinan University): "Military Investment and the Rise of Industrial Clusters: Evidence from China’s First Industrial Policy, 1858-1937" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 26, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Kensuke Maeba (Northwestern University): "Net influences from polling officers" 
May 26, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Alexander Doser (Northwestern University): "Decoupling Rosen-Roback: Remote Work in Spatial Equilibrium"
May 25, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationMatteo Magnaricotte (Northwestern University): "College Entry and Inequality of Access to Education in Peru"
May 24, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsNir Jaimovich (University of Zurich): "Job Hunting: A Costly Quest" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 24, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Fergal Hanks (Northwestern University): "Women and Labour Market Recoveries"
May 21, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Gaston Lopez (Northwestern University): "Entry with Demand Spillovers: Evidence from the Healthcare Industry"
May 20, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationBen Vatter (Northwestern University): "Scoring Design in Medicare Advantage"
May 20, 202112:15 PM - 1:15 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Fergal Hanks (Northwestern University): Title TBA
May 19, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development LunchMatteo Magnaricotte (Northwestern University): Title TBA        
May 19, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Lou Yiqi (Northwestern University): "Global Climate Agreements: A Dynamic Implementation Approach"
May 18, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsYuehao Bai (University of Michigan): "Optimality of Matched-Pair Designs in Randomized Controlled Trials" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 17, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsVasco Carvalho (University of Cambridge): "Bottom-Up Markup Fluctuations" (Joint with Ariel Burstein and Basile Grassi) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 17, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Ting Wang (Northwestern University): "Demand Uncertainty and Information Supply: Evidence from Chinese Online Book Market"
May 14, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Anran Li (Northwestern University): "Dynamic Inefficiency, Competition, and Market Segment in Non-Acute Care Provision"
May 14, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarNancy Qian (Northwestern University) -Title TBA
May 13, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationEilidh Geddes (Northwestern University): "Insurer Competition and Rating Areas on the ACA Exchanges"
May 13, 202112:15 PM - 1:15 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Santiago Camara (Northwestern University): Title TBA
May 12, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryMohamed Saleh (Toulouse School of Economics): "The Demand for Extraterritoriality: Religious Minorities in Nineteenth-Century Egypt" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 12, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Siddhant Agarwal (Northwestern University): "Breaking Caste Barriers: Reservations and Endogamy"  Abstract: Endogamy remains the strongest pillar supporting the caste system in India. In this paper, I propose to estimate the effect that affirmative action favouring backward castes, in the form of reserved quotas in government jobs and universities, might have on caste endogamy. I hope to use online marriage portal data to estimate any potential decreases in the demand for endogamous partners, and commonly-used survey data to estimate effects on actual marriage outcomes.        
May 12, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Maren Vairo (Northwestern University): "Optimal Delegation with Information Provision"
May 11, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsSilvia Goncalves (McGill University): "Impulse response analysis for structural dynamic models with nonlinear regressors" (Joint with Ana Herrera, Lutz Kilian, and Elena Pesavento). *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 10, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsLaura Pilossoph (Federal Reserve Bank of New York): "Latent Heterogeneity in the Marginal Propensity to Consume" (Joint with Daniel Lewis and Davide Melcangi) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 10, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Matias Bayas-Erazo (Northwestern University): "On the Effectiveness of Negative Interest Rate Policy"  
May 7, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch SeminarStefano Gagliarducci (University of Rome Tor Vergata) -"Faith and Assimilation: Italian Immigrants in the US"
May 6, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsPaul Novosad (Dartmouth College): "Intergenerational Mobility in India: New Methods and Estimates Across Time, Space, and Communities" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 6, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationJunyan Guan (Northwestern University): "Price Reference Effect and Vertical Contract in the Book Retail Market"
May 6, 202112:15 PM - 1:15 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Clement Bohr (Northwestern University): Title TBA
May 5, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistorySascha Becker (Monash University): "Scholars at Risk: Academic Networks and High-Skilled Emigration from Nazi Germany" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 5, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Eduardo Campillo Betancourt (Northwestern University): "Economic Mobility and Religious Conversions"  Abstract: Historically, India’s caste system has imposed restrictions, often violently enforced, on the occupations that people can have depending on their social status. These boundaries can hinder economic mobility, particularly for lower-caste people, and create frictions as workers attempt to reallocate across occupations. As the value of occupations outside those ascribed by their social standing grows, the incentive for people to abandon their caste status increases as well. In my analysis, I show that when low-to-middle-status occupations become more profitable, the number of low-caste converts away from Hinduism grows. Contrastingly, I find no such effect when middle-to-high-status occupations become increasingly attractive. This pattern of results supports a framework in which low-caste people are induced to convert away from Hinduism in order to take advantage of higher-paying occupations that are accessible to them in terms of social status and/or human capital.      
May 5, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Xiaoyun Qiu (Northwestern University): "Paternalistic Motive, Trust and Information Withholding"
May 4, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsStefan Wager (Stanford University): "Noise-Induced Randomization in Regression Discontinuity Designs" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 3, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsDavid Baqaee (University of California, Los Angeles): "The Supply-Side Effects of Monetary Policy" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
May 3, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Gex Guillaume (Northwestern University): "Protests, Revolutions and Introspective Equilibrium"
April 30, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Aniket Panjwani (Northwestern University) -Title TBA
April 29, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationDavid Stillerman (Northwestern University): Title TBA
April 29, 202112:15 PM - 1:15 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarJoao Guerreiro (Northwestern University): "The Slowdown in Labor Mobility" 
April 28, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryJames Fenske (University of Warwick): “The Columbian Exchange and conflict in Asia” *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 28, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Utsav Manjeer (Northwestern University): "The Effect of Export Activity on Domestic Prices: Evidence from India's Rice Sector" Abstract: How does export activity affect prices in domestic consumer markets? To explore this question, I exploit a natural experiment provided by India’s rice export restrictions during 2007-2011. I first document that the binding restrictions had a considerable negative impact on producers. However, there is little evidence to suggest that the lower prices transmitted to consumers. To estimate the causal impact of export activity on domestic consumer prices, I use a difference-in-differences framework. I show that, following the imposition of export restrictions, Indian districts with higher exposure to export trade experienced a greater increase in prices paid by consumers in local markets. To measure the intensity of exposure to trade, I use a novel strategy exploiting spatial variation in districts’ proximities to export trade routes along India’s road network. The estimated price effects are substantial – prices increased by an additional 5 to 6.5 percent in districts exposed to export activity. Further, the impact of export activity on prices is most pronounced for higher-quality products. I illustrate that the presence of increasing returns in internal trade -  strong complementarities between exports and intra-national trade are the main forces driving my results. By exploiting synergies with export activity, intra-national trade encounters lower domestic trade costs, which are then translated to lower prices faced by consumers in domestic markets. My findings suggest that promoting export activity could be a means to reduce intra-national trade barriers for large developing economies.    
April 28, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarPanagiotis Kyriazis (Northwestern University): "The Role of Strategic Mediators in Promoting Peace and War"
April 27, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsElena Manresa (New York University): “An adversarial approach to structural estimation” (Joint with Tetsuya Kaji and Guillaume Pouliot.) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 26, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsJohn Grigsby (Northwestern University): “Skill Heterogeneity and Aggregate Labor Market Dynamics” *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 26, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarThomas Wilner (Northwestern University): "Regulation Under Corruption: Evidence from Automobile Emissions in Chile"
April 23, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Marie-Louise Decamps (Northwestern University) -"Excluded Women: The Fall of Female Labour Force Participation in Post-Industrial Revolution England"
April 22, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationTai Lam (Northwestern University): Title TBA
April 22, 202112:15 PM - 1:15 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Joao Miguel da Costa Monteiro (Northwestern University): “Credit Misallocation in Exporting Firms”
April 22, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMThe Economics of Environmentalism: An Earth Day Alumni Talk with Seema Jayachandran and Mar ReguantJoin the Department of Economics for an Earth Day talk on the economics of environmentalism with Professors Seema Jayachandran and Mar Reguant.
April 21, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryZach Ward (Baylor University): "Intergenerational Mobility in American History: Accounting for Race and Measurement Error" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 21, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Utsav Manjeer (Northwestern University): Title TBA      
April 21, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarDiego Cid Ortiz (Northwestern University):
April 20, 202111:00 AM - 12:30 PMSeminar in EconometricsVishal Kamat (Toulouse School of Economics): "Estimating the Welfare Effects of School Vouchers" (Please note alternate start time) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 19, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsJohannes Wieland (University of California San Diego): "Lumpy Durable Consumption Demand and the Limited Ammunition of Monetary Policy" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 19, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJason Premo (Northwestern University): "Inference with Matrix Completion
April 16, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Rik Steckel (Ohio State University) - "Rapid Economic Growth and Type II Diabetes: Dreadful Unintended Consequences"
April 16, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMFeed Your Mind: "The lasting impacts of school shootings" with Professor Molly SchnellJoin Professor Molly Schnell on Friday, April 16 at 12:00 PM CT while she discusses her paper, "The lasting impacts of school shootings."
April 15, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationMatt O'Keefe (Northwestern University): Title TBA
April 15, 202112:15 PM - 1:15 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarRiccardo Bianchi Vimercati (Northwestern University): Title TBA
April 14, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryElena Esposito (University of Lausanne): "Reconciliation Narratives: The Birth of a Nation after the US Civil War" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 14, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJose Alvarado (Northwestern University): "The Dynamics of Tax Progressivity: A Macro-Political Economy Approach"
April 13, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMSeminar in EconometricsEric Auerbach (Northwestern University): "The Local Approach to Network Interference" (Joint with Max Tabord-Meehan) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 12, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsMatt Rognlie (Northwestern University): "Exchange Rates and Monetary Policy with Heterogeneous Agents: Sizing up the Real Income Channel" (Joint with Adrien Auclert, Martin Souchier, and Ludwig Straub) *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 12, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student Seminar Laura Murphy (Northwestern University): 
April 9, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Sebastian Ottinger (UCLA) - ‘’History’s Masters: The Effect of European Monarchs on State Performance”
April 8, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Applied MicroeconomicsErica Field (Duke University): "Title TBA"  *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 8, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationMiguel Talamas (Northwestern University): “David vs Goliath: Mexican Corner Stores Facing Convenience Chains”
April 7, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Ricardo Dahis (Northwestern University): "The Impact of 3G Mobile Internet on Educational Outcomes in Brazil" (with Pedro Bessone and Lisa Ho).  Abstract:Does the availability of mobile broadband internet affect children's test scores? We compare Portuguese and math scores before and after the staggered entry of 3G into Brazil's 5,570 municipalities using an event study design. Despite the evidence that 3G is widely adopted and used by Brazilians, we find that there is no effect of mobile internet on Portuguese or math scores, and can reject effect sizes of 0.02 standard deviations for 5th grade students, and 0.01 standard deviations for 9th grade students. Taken together, our results indicate that simply offering high-speed mobile internet is not sufficient to improve educational outcomes.      
April 7, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarJingyuan Wang (Northwestern University): "Subsidy, Market Structure Change, and Innovationdynamics in the Chinese Electric Vehicle industry"
April 5, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMIPR Colloquium: S. Jayachandran (IPR/Econ) - Designing Survey Modules by Combining Qualitative Interview Data and Machine Learning"Designing Survey Modules by Combining Qualitative Interview Data and Machine Learning"* by Seema Jayachandran, Professor of Economics and IPR Fellow This event is part of the Spring 2021 Fay Lomax Cook IPR Colloquium Series. * Designates that the presentation will involve work in progress.
April 5, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsMariacristina De Nardi (University of Minnesota): "Are Marriage-Related Taxes and Social Security Benefits Holding Back Female Labor Supply?" *All spring seminars will take place via Zoom
April 5, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarFrancisco Pareschi (Northwestern University): Environmental regulation underuncertainty: The case of Australia’s watermarket.
April 1, 20212:00 PM - 3:00 PMSeminar in Industrial OrganizationTing Wang (Northwestern University): "Title TBD" (30 minutes)
April 1, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar CANCELED
March 31, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Sean Higgins (Northwestern University): "Price Comparison Tools in Consumer Credit Markets" Abstract: Consumer credit markets feature large amounts of price dispersion, and the same consumer can be offered substantially different interest rates by different banks. Nevertheless, consumers do not search much across banks: in Chile, only 3% of consumers searched at another bank after receiving a loan offer. One reason consumers may not search is that they have inaccurate expectations about price dispersion or the benefits of search. Using administrative data on the universe of consumer loans from Chile's financial regulator, we built an interactive loan price comparison tool. The tool provides just-in-time, personalized information by showing a consumer the distribution of interest rates that similar consumers received for similar loans in the past six months. We will conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) among Chilean consumers who are searching for a loan to measure the impact of the loan price comparison tool on priors about prices and price dispersion, planned and actual search behavior, and eventual loan terms.    
March 31, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarAparna Anand- City University of New York Graduate Center
March 31, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarYoshimasa Katayama (Northwestern University): "Facilitating Positive Assortative Matching through Quality Information Disclosure in Healthcare Markets"
March 30, 202111:00 AM - 12:00 PMEconomics 501: Graduate Student SeminarAhnaf Rafi (Northwestern University): "Semiparametric Efficiency Under Covariate Adaptive Randomization"
March 26, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Sng Tuan Hwee (Northwestern University): Title TBA    
March 26, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarSidonia McKenzie- Kansas State University
March 25, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarChristopher Dobronyi- University of Toronto
March 19, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Leander Heldring (Northwestern) : “Bureaucracy as a tool for politicians: Evidence from Weimar and Nazi Germany”    
March 18, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Federico Puglisi (Northwestern University): Title TBA
March 18, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarMichael Gmeiner- Northwestern University
March 17, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Ameet Morjaria  (Northwestern University): "Acquisitions, Management and Efficiency: Evidence from Rwanda's Coffee Industry" (joint work with Rocco Macchiavello) Abstract: Markets in low-income countries often display long tails of inefficient firms and significant misallocation. This paper studies Rwandan coffee mills, an industry initially characterized by widespread inefficiencies that has recently seen a process of consolidation in which exporters have acquired control of a significant number of mills giving rise to multi-plant groups. We combine administrative data with original surveys of both mills and acquirers to understand the consequences of this consolidation. Difference-in-difference results suggest that, controlling for mill and year fixed effects, a mill acquired by a foreign group, but not by a domestic group, improves both productivity and product quality. The difference in performance is not accompanied by changes in mill technology or differential access to capital. Upon acquisition, both foreign and domestic group change mills' managers. Foreign groups, however, recruit younger, more educated and higher ability managers, pay these managers a higher salary (even conditional on manager and mill characteristics) and grant them more autonomy. These “better” managers explain about half of the better performance associated with foreign ownership. The difference in performance reflects superior implementation, rather than management knowledge: following an acquisition, managers in domestic and foreign groups try to implement the same management changes but managers in domestic groups report significantly higher resistance from both workers and farmers and fail to implement the changes. The results have implications for our understanding of organizational change and for fostering market development in emerging markets.
March 15, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsLuca Fornaro (Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional): "The Global Financial Resource Curse" *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
March 11, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Diego Huerta (Northwestern University): "Wealth Inequality and the Political Economy of Financial and Labour Regulations" (joint with Ronald Fischer)
March 10, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryCormac O’Grada (University College Dublin): "Tracking the Famine Irish in New York and Beyond: The Pitfalls and Potential of Automated Census Linkage" *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
March 10, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Joris Mueller (Northwestern University): "China's Outward Foreign Aid and Domestic Strategic Motives" Abstract: This paper tests whether China uses outward foreign aid to pursue domestic policy goals. First, I show that aid projects are allocated to firms that internalize the government's goal of stabilizing domestic employment in prefectures experiencing labor unrest. I then show that local unrest in China also influences which countries receive foreign aid and when. Finally, I exploit this variation to construct an instrumental variable for foreign aid and find positive short-term effects on recipient country GDP and consumption.
March 8, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsMorten Ravn (University College London): "Financial Frictions: Macro Vs Micro Volatility" *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
March 5, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Megumi Murakami (Northwestern University): Title TBA    
March 4, 20215:00 PM - 6:00 PMGPRL Coffee Chat with Prof. Seema JayachandranProfessor Seema Jayachandran will present her research, “Missing women”: Causes and consequences of gender ratios in developing countries. This event is co-sponsored by Circle of Women and the Economics Department. For the Zoom link, please RSVP to Shloka Shetty (shlokashetty2021@u.northwestern.edu).
March 4, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarJoao Guerreiro (Northwestern University): Title TBA
March 3, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryKatya Zhuravskaya (Paris School of Economics): "Diffusion of Gender Norms: Evidence from Stalin’s Ethnic Deportations" *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
March 3, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development Lunch Matteo Magnaricotte  (Northwestern University): presenting "Local Specialization and Growth: The Italian Land Reform" (joint work with Riccardo Bianchi-Vimercati and Giampaolo Lecce) Abstract: This paper analyzes a large-scale redistribution policy and its short- and long-term effects on industrial structure and economic development. We focus on a major land reform implemented by the Italian government in the 1950s. We assemble a novel dataset on the expropriations at the municipal level and on pre- and post-reform socio-economic characteristics. A difference in difference model provides evidence that areas with higher incidence of expropriations reported more employed workers in the agricultural sector (and less in the manufacturing one) in the aftermath of the reform. This result persists over the decades. Finally, we analyze the long-term impact of the reform and, using a matching estimator, we provide evidence of a negative effects on economic growth in the long run: municipalities exposed to the land redistribution are associated with significantly lower income growth in the period 1970-2000. 
March 1, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsCecile Gaubert (University of California, Berkeley): “Place Based Redistribution“ (Joint with Pat Kline and Danny Yagan) *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
February 25, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarJose Alvarado (Northwestern University): Title TBA
February 24, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryBelinda Archibong (Columbia University): "Prison Labor: The Price of Prisons and the Lasting Effects of Incarceration" *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
February 24, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development LunchJacopo Ponticelli (Northwestern University): The Effects of Climate Change on Labor and Capital Reallocation: Evidence from Brazil (with Paula Bustos and Christoph Albert) Abstract: We study the effect of climate change on the reallocation of labor and capital across regions and sectors. First, we estimate the effect of extreme weather events occurred in Brazil in the last two decades on the local economy of the affected areas. Second, we assess the magnitude and direction of labor and capital flows that they generate. Finally, we study their impact on destination regions.
February 22, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsRicardo Reis (London School of Economics): "Jumpstarting an International Currency" *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
February 18, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch SeminarTony Hu (Northwestern University): Title TBA
February 17, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryGuo Xu (University of California, Berkeley): "Title TBA" *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
February 17, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development LunchMiguel Talamás Marcos (Northwestern University): "David vs Goliath: Mexican Corner Stores Facing Convenience Chains"  Abstract: This paper studies how one of the most prevalent forms of microenterprises, the corner store, responds to increasing competition of large convenience chains. To address the endogenous entry problem, this paper leverages time and market fixed effects with an instrumental variable based on a cost shifter for convenience chains - regional economies of scale - and suitability for convenience chains measured by street width. Convenience chains lead to a reduction in the number of corner stores. This effect is not driven by an increase in exits of corner stores, but by deterring their entry. The managerial advantages of the corner stores being owner-operated allows them to remain productive and keep their core customers.
February 15, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsBenjamin Moll (London School of Economics): "Present Bias Amplifies the Household Balance-Sheet Channels of Macroeconomic Policy" (Joint with David Laibson and Peter Maxted) *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
February 12, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Brendon Andrews (Northwestern University): Reputation in Markets for Physician Services: Historical Evidence from a Shocking Report    
February 11, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Kristina Manysheva (Northwestern University): Title TBA
February 10, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryNiko Wolf (Humboldt University Berlin): "Testing Marx. Income Inequality, Concentration, and Socialism in late 19th century Germany" (with Charlotte Bartels and Felix Kersting) *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
February 10, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development LunchKieu-Trang Nguyen (Northwestern University): "Astrology and Matrimony: The Real Effects of Religious Beliefs about Marriage in Vietnam" (joint work with Edoardo Ciscato and Quoc-Anh Do) Abstract: This paper investigates the real consequences of a system of unscientific, illogical religious beliefs in Vietnam. They prescribe that the matching of husband and wife can be auspicious or inauspicious depending on the pair of their birth years. First, we estimate a structural model of assortative marriage matching market, and show that such beliefs in marriage fortune matter to people’s marriage matching, as much as 15% of how much the age and education profile matters. Second, based on this model, we derive a control function for selection into marriage to estimate the effect of auspicious matches on household outcomes, free of the selection bias. We find that auspicious matches increase household expenditure and income by about 3%, and reduces school dropouts without changing the number and composition of children. The likely mechanism operates on relatives’ transfers in case of a negative shock: auspicious couples receive much more transfer when, say, the family suffers from a health shock. Third, we discuss how such testable, unscientific beliefs can persist when their refutation depends on actions 2-3 steps off the equilibrium path.
February 9, 202112:00 PM - 1:00 PM "On the Use of Outcome Tests for Detecting Bias in Decision Making" with Ivan CanayJoin the Department of Economics and Professor Ivan Canay on Tuesday, February 9 at 12:00 PM CST as he discusses his new paper, "On the Use of Outcome Tests for Detecting Bias in Decision Making".
February 8, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMSeminar in MacroeconomicsFederica Romei (University of Oxford): "Why Does Capital Flow from Equal to Unequal Countries?" *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
February 5, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Leander Heldring and Mario Cannella (Northwestern University): “Wealth inequality and social mobility in industrializing England"    
February 4, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Xiaojie Liu (Northwestern University): “Growth with Two Technologies”. 
February 3, 20214:00 PM - 5:30 PMSeminar in Economic HistoryPauline Grosjean (The University of New South Wales): "Heroes and Villains: The Effects of Combat Heroism on Autocratic Values and Nazi Collaboration in France" (Joint with Julia Cage, Anna Dagorret and Saumitra Jha) *All winter seminars will take place via Zoom
February 3, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development LunchAlexey Makarin (Northwestern University): "Production Networks and War" (joint with Vasily Korovkin) Abstract: How do severe shocks, such as war, alter the economy? We study how a country's production network is affected by a devastating but localized conflict. We use novel transaction-level data on Ukrainian railway shipments, complemented by administrative data on firms, to document the effect of war on firms and interfirm trade. First, we document substantial propagation effects-trade declines even between firms outside the conflict areas if one of them had traded with the conflict areas before the war. Our estimates suggest that the magnitude of the second-degree effect of conflict is one-third of the first-degree effect. Second, we study firm-level consequences of a change in production network structure. Firms that, for exogenous reasons, become more central in the production network after the start of the conflict receive a lasting boost to their revenues and a temporary one to their profits. A temporary increase in markups suggests a rise in market power as one of the mechanisms. Finally, in a production networks model, we separate the effects of exogenous firm removal and subsequent endogenous network adjustment on firm revenue distribution. At the median of the distribution, network adjustment compensates for 72% of network destruction.
January 29, 202112:00 PM - 1:30 PMEconomic History Lunch Seminar Pawel Janas (Northwestern University): Title TBA    
January 28, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarEmily Ann Cuddy- Princeton University
January 28, 202112:30 PM - 1:30 PMMacroeconomics Lunch Seminar Cassiano Alves (Northwestern University): Title TBA
January 27, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PMEconomics Development LunchSeema Jayachandran (Northwestern University): "A five-question women's agency index created using machine learning and qualitative interviews" (with M. Biradavolu and J. Cooper) Abstract: We develop a new short survey module for measuring women's agency by combining mixed-methods data collection and machine learning. We select the best five survey questions for the module based on how strongly correlated they are with a "gold standard" measure of women's agency. For a sample of 209 women in Haryana, India, we measure agency, first, through a semi-structured in-depth interview and, second, through a large set of close-ended questions.  We use qualitative coding methods to score each woman's agency based on the interview, which we treat as her true agency. To identify the subset of close-ended questions most predictive of the "truth", we apply statistical methods similar to standard machine learning except that we specify how many survey questions are selected. The resulting 5-question index is as strongly correlated with the coded qualitative interview as is an index that uses all of the candidate questions. We also considered a second gold standard measure of agency, a real-stakes choice between money for oneself or one's husband. This lab game, however, does not measure agency cleanly in our setting. Thus, our preferred survey measure of agency is the one validated against qualitative interviews.  
January 26, 202111:30 AM - 1:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarSilvia Vannutelli- Boston University
January 25, 20213:30 PM - 5:00 PMEconomics Junior Recruitment SeminarElisa Jacome- Princeton University
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"