Economics Research

PhD Seminar by Elly Twineyo
2023-10-02 13:00 - 14:00 (Europe/London) | Edith Morley 175

External seminar by Camille Terrier (QMUL)
2023-10-04 14:30 - 16:00 | Edith Morley 126, United Kingdom
We are delighted to welcome Camille Terrier to the Department on 4th October, to give the first Department of Economics invited speaker seminar of our Autumn term.

Title: Confidence and College Applications: Evidence from a Randomized Intervention

Abstract: This paper investigates the role played by self-confidence in college applications. Using incentivized experiments, we measure the self-confidence of more than 2,000 students applying to colleges in France. The best female students and students from low socioeconomic status (low-SES) significantly underestimate their rank in the grade distribution compared to male and high-SES students. By matching our survey data with administrative data on real college applications and admissions, we show that miscalibrated confidence affects college choice controlling for grades. We then estimate the impact of a randomized intervention that corrects students’ under- and overconfidence by informing them of their real rank in the grade distribution. The intervention fully offsets the impact of under- and overconfidence for college applications. Providing feedback also makes the best students, who were initially underconfident, apply to more ambitious programs with stronger effects for female and low-SES students. Among top students, our intervention closes 72% of the gender gap in admissions to elite programs, and 95% of the social gap. We conclude that confidence is an important behavioral consideration for the design of college admission markets.

Camille’s latest research and the working paper for this talk are here: https://sites.google.com/view/camilleterrier/accueil

ROSES Seminar by Matteo Picchio (Marche Polytechnic University)
2023-10-06 14:30 - 16:00 | Microsoft Teams
Please join us for our 141st Reading Online Sport Economics Seminar at 9:30am Eastern US, 2:30pm UK, 3:30pm Central Europe, and 9:30pm in Western Australia. We meet on Microsoft Teams.
Speaker: Matteo Picchio, Marche Polytechnic University,
Title: “The Impact of High Temperatures on Performance in Work-related Activities” (work with Jan van Ours)
Abstract: High temperatures can have a negative effect on work-related activities. Labor productivity may go down because mental health or physical health is worse when it is too warm. Workers may experience difficulties concentrating or they have to reduce effort in order to cope with heat. We investigate how temperature affects performance of male professional tennis players. We use data about outdoor singles matches from 2003 until 2021. Our identification strategy relies on the plausible exogeneity of short-term daily temperature variations in a given tournament from the average temperature over the same tournament. We find that performance significantly decreases with ambient temperature. The magnitude of the temperature effect is age-specific and skill-specific. Older and less skilled players suffer more from high temperatures than younger and more skilled players do. The effect of temperature on performance is smaller when there is more at stake. Our findings also suggest that there is adaptation to high temperatures: the effects are smaller if the heat lasts for several days.
Link: https://docs.iza.org/dp16431.pdf

ROSES Seminar by Alex Krumer (Molde University College)
2023-10-13 14:30 - 16:00 | Microsoft Teams

External Seminar by Agnes Kovacs (King's College London & IFS)
2023-10-18 14:30 - 16:00 | Edith Morley 126, United Kingdom
We will be delighted to welcome Agnes Kovacs to the Department on 18 October 2023, to give a Department of Economics invited speaker seminar.

Title: Financial Innovation, the Decline in Household Savings, and the Trade-off between Flexibility and Commitment

Abstract: This paper investigates the trade-off between two opposing views of financial innovation: the benefit of improved flexibility and the potential cost of weakened commitment.
To disentangle their relative importance, we estimate a model of household behavior that allows for the possibility that housing acts as a savings commitment device. Identification is achieved using novel evidence on consumption growth dynamics. We then use the estimated model to study the macroeconomic and welfare implications of giving households greater access to home equity. We find that the welfare cost of weakened commitment is substantial: approximately 1.7 times larger than the benefit of improved consumption smoothing. Both channels contribute equally to a 2.5 percentage point decline in the personal saving rate. Welfare could be improved using alternative mortgage policies that better balance the trade-off between flexibility and commitment.

Agnes’ latest research is here: https://sites.google.com/site/agneskovacs13/

External Seminar by Xiaochun Meng (University of Sussex)
2023-10-25 14:30 - 16:00 | Edith Morley 126, United Kingdom
We will be delighted to welcome Xiaochun Meng to the Department on 25 October 2023, to give a Department of Economics invited speaker seminar.

Title: Generalized linear pools for combining probabilistic forecasts

Abstract: For many applications, combining the individual probabilistic forecasts can improve their accuracy. The existing literature has extensively explored linear pools of forecasts of cumulative distribution functions or quantile functions. A general framework of combining methods is proposed, which encompasses the existing linear pools. We analyse the statistical properties of the proposed generalized linear pools. The framework and theoretical findings enable the provision of recommendations regarding the choice of combining methods and scores to use in practice. An empirical illustration is provided on simulated and real data.

You can check out Xiaochun’s latest research here: https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p449675-xiaochun-meng

ROSES Seminar by Raphael Flepp (University of Zurich)
2023-10-27 14:30 - 16:00 | Microsoft Teams
Raphael Flepp, University of Zurich, “Replication: Do Coaches Stick With What Barely Worked? Evidence of Outcome Bias in Professional Sports”
