| 2022/23 | Speaker | Affiliation | Title |
| 21/06/23 | Max Gillman | University of Missouri – St. Louis | A Human Capital Explanation of Real Business Cycles |
| 24/05/23 | Yousef Jasem | DR Brunel University London | Modelling Earnings Quality the Impact of Board Composition: Evidence from the FTSE 100 |
| 17/05/23 | Peter Spencer | University of York | Measuring the impact of unconventional monetary policies on the US banking and bond markets at the lower bound. |
| 15/05/23 | Tho Pham | University of York | Central Bank Communication on Social Media: What, To Whom, How? |
| 10/05/23 | Hugh Colaco | Brunel University London | Underwriter networks and the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act |
| 03/05/23 | Pasqualina Arca | University of Sassari | Does the liquidation value of collateral discourage firms from borrowing? |
| 29/03/23 | Jessica Wang | Brunel University London | Do traders save for a raining day? |
| 22/03/23 | Katri Sieberg | Tampere University | Decoding the Dynamic Interplay between Payment Systems, Supplier Induced Demand, and Service Quality in Credence Goods Markets: Results from a Laboratory Experiment |
| 22/03/23 | Carlos Aller Arranz | Grenada University | Spanish Households Debt portfolios: a decomposition analysis |
| 15/03/23 | Nelson Ruiz | University of Essex | Can political fiscal cycles be stopped? Evidence from a public spending ban near elections |
| 08/03/23 | Evangelos Dioikitopoulos | Athens University | Aspirations, the Transition towards Sustained Growth and Comparative Economic Development |
| 01/03/23 | Jan Van Ours | Erasmus University Rotterdam | International Assortative Matching in the European Labor Market |
| 22/02/23 | Mounu Prem | Einaudi Institute, Rome | Fear to Vote: Explosions and Elections in Colombia (with J. F. Vargas, M. E. Purroy, F. Coy, and S. Perilla) |
| 15/02/23 | Francesco Moscone | Brunel University London | The Impact of Ecuadorian Health Reform on Public Hospital Admissions |
| 08/02/23 | Giovanni Sulis | University of Cagliari, Italy | Managerial Practices and Student Performance: Evidence from Changes in School Principals (with A. Di Liberto, L. Giua, F. Schivardi and M. Sideri) |
| 01/02/23 | Marta Karaś | Wrocław University of Economics and Business | E-factor augmentation – a method to quantify the environmental factor in systemic risk analysis. |
| 25/01/23 | Jan Fidrmuc | University of Lille and Brunel | Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and attitudes toward European integration (with N. Steiner, R. Berlinschi, E. Farvaque, P. Harms, A. Mihailov) |
| 18/01/23 | Jan Auerbach | Brunel University London | Productive Office and Political Elitism |
| 07/12/22 | Aniol Llorente-Saguer | Queen Mary University London | Weighting Votes: Rule Complexity and Information Aggregation |
| 30/11/22 | Michele Di Maio | Sapienza Univeristy, Italy | Firms amid conflict: Performance, production inputs, and market competition |
| 23/11/22 | Alejandro Riono Londono | City, University of London | Child Mortality and the Unexpected Effect of Deep Trade Agreements |
| 16/11/22 | Ines Viela | Royal Holloway University London | Countering Islamic Radicalization in Northern Mozambique through Radio Campaigning |
| 09/11/22 | Jeffrey Karp | Brunel University London | Explaining Public Support and Opposition to Voting Rights |
| 02/11/22 | Martin Andersen | University of Oslo | The importance of escape clauses: Firm response to thin capitalization rules |
| 26/10/22 | Diego Zambiasi | Newcastle University | Political competition and Racial Discrimination |
| 19/10/22 | Oluwaseun Dada | Brunel University London | Factor Based Pension Portfolio Strategies for Sustainable Withdrawals |
| 12/10/22 | Dany Jaimovich | University of Talca, Chile | The grievances of a failed reform: Chilean land reform and conflict with indigenous communities |
List of Abstracts
Max Gillman (University of Missouri – St. Louis)
A Human Capital Explanation of Real Business Cycles
The paper specifies a two-sector real business cycle model with a human capital investment technology that is tied down with business cycle accounting methods. With inputs of education expenditure and tertiary student time in the production of human capital investment, the model explains a set of business cycle facts including the countercyclical aspect of these inputs. Using the time share in labor, both labor time and its productivity moments are explained along with consumption, as seen in the related intangible capital literature. The human capital investment sector provides an extensive margin for labor time and the goods sector includes a variable utilization rate of physical capital. With correlated productivity shocks and with the goods sector relatively less human capital intensive, recessions see human capital deepening that reallocates human capital augmented time shares away from the goods sector. During expansions, the reallocation of inputs moves towards the goods sector. Extension includes moment analysis of the main components of National Income and Product Accounts and discussion of the Frisch elasticity
Peter Spencer (University of York)
Measuring the impact of unconventional monetary policies on the US banking and bond markets at the lower bound.
The effects of credit and monetary policy shocks at the lower bound are analysed using a shadow rate term structure model of the Euro-Dollar interest rate futures and Treasury bond markets. This model uses three factors that are common to both markets and two spread factors that capture the term structure of the rate differential. It shows that, as intended, the policy initiatives that followed the Lehman default in 2008 were much more effective in restraining risk premiums in banking markets than in the Treasury market, which has been the focus of previous studies. Modeling these two markets jointly rather than just the Treasury market greatly increases the precision with which the shadow policy rate is estimated close to the ZLB. Our results chime with those of Wu and Xia (2016)
and others, which show that the shadow policy rate is a useful indicator of the effect of monetary policy on the economy. They also show that the shadow Eurodollar rate is a useful indicator of the effect of default risk.
Tho Pham (University of York )
Central Bank Communication on Social Media: What, To Whom, How? (with Y. Gorodnichenko & O. Talavera)
This study provides answers to 3 questions about central bank communication on Twitter: what was communicated, who were listeners, and how they reacted. Using various natural language processing techniques, we are able to identify 7 main topics discussed by the Fed (monetary policy, economic growth, inflation, unemployment, financial risk, fiscal policy, and community) and 6 groups of the audience (economists, media, other academics, firm managers, financial sector, and the general public). We find that while the tweets related to central banking topics attract greater attention from Twitter users, only the extensive margin is economically meaningful. Among all groups of users, the media accounts are most active in engaging with the Fed via both replying to the Fed’s messages and initiating a central banking-related conversation with the Fed. Further analysis shows that such media-Fed interactions are more likely to be noticed by other users. Overall, the findings suggest that central bankers should take advantage of intermediated channels such as media to communicate with the wider public.
Hugh Colaco (Brunel University London)
Underwriter networks and the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act
Using difference-in-differences, I examine the impact of the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act on underwriter network centrality for initial public offerings (IPOs) as measured by Degree, Betweenness, Closeness, and Eigenvector. The Act has resulted in greater information asymmetry which greater underwriter centrality should help to counter. However, the desire to avoid collaboration coupled with underwriter syndicate formation efficiency after the Act suggest that underwriter centrality should be lower. Which effect dominates? Based on a sample of US IPOs from 2001 to 2019 I find that Degree, Betweenness, Closeness, and Eigenvector have reduced for emerging growth companies (EGCs) following the Act. My results are overall robust to measuring centrality over different periods and using various specifications including propensity score matching. I also find that, following the Act, IPO co-managers are playing a smaller role in IPOs and that they are less likely to become a book manager in the first seasoned equity offering (SEO).
Pasqualina Arca (University of Sassari)
Does the liquidation value of collateral discourage firms from borrowing? (G. Atzeni and L. Deidda)
The discouragement from applying for a loan for firms needing credit is pervasive. Evidence suggests that the fraction of discouraged firms is as significant as rationed ones from more to less developed economies. Still, no uniform consensus exists on whether discouraged firms can be assimilated to rationed ones. Using the BEEPS dataset that collects information on Eastern European and Central Asia firms, we study the channel through which the liquidation value of collateral discourages firms from applying for a loan. We do so by looking at the reasons why a firm decides not to apply for a loan. We find that the liquidation value of collateral affects firms’ decision to apply for a loan, but this effect changes depending on the discouragement reason. We also calculate the firm’s probability of being financed for financed, denied and discouraged firms and compare the distributions of this probability. Discouraged firms always appear different from financed firms. In contrast, by comparing them with denied firms, we find that some categories of discouraged differ from denied in that their probability of being financed is always higher.
Katri Sieberg (Tampere University)
Decoding the Dynamic Interplay between Payment Systems, Supplier Induced Demand, and Service Quality in Credence Goods Markets: Results from a Laboratory Experiment (with Manela Karunadasa and Toni Jantune)
We conducted an economic laboratory experiment to test the relationship between payment systems and the quality and quantity of services provided in credence goods markets. We designed a neutrally framed real-effort task to stimulate the decision-making of service providers in a controlled environment. Overall, our findings suggest that payment systems influence the quantity and quality of services provided. Specifically, we found that providers in fee-for-service systems tend to over-provide services while those in salary systems tend to under-provide services. We observed a notable lack of alignment between the services provided under fee-for-service and the actual needs of customers, resulting in a substantial loss of customer benefits. As a result, we see substantial differences in customer benefit losses between fee-for-service and salary. Looking at the occurrence of faulty tasks, we notice that providers in fee-for-service systems perform more faulty tasks than those in salary. This implies that providers in fee-for-service systems may prioritize quantity over quality in their services, leading to more mistakes. We also looked at the effect of insurance on service decisions make under fee-for-service. We observed that insurance did not have any significant effect on the number of services. However, we found that customers without insurance received more faulty tasks. Overall, our study contributes to the existing literature on the association between payment systems and service provision in credence goods markets.
Nelson Ruiz (University of Essex)
Can political fiscal cycles be stopped? Evidence from a public spending ban near elections (with Luis R. Martínez)
Political fiscal cycles are pervasive across democracies; there is the use of the public purse close to election dates. Can political fiscal cycles be stopped? Using contract-level microdata for the entire Colombian state, we study the effects of a regulation that forbids contracting at all levels of government in the four months before the 2018 national elections. We find that there is substantial bunching in spending in the weeks immediately before the regulation comes into effect. These last-minute contracts: (i) disproportionately benefit previous local political candidates. Using text analysis for matching, we find that: (ii) these contracts disproportionately go to contractors without previous experience, and (iii) have more time extensions and over-costs. As part of our analysis of mechanisms, we show that the bunching is more prevalent in municipalities with previous vote-buying reports and that contracts in the bunching period are increasingly targeted to high vote-performing politicians. Overall, we find that forbidding contracting actual creates a displacement of the political fiscal cycle rather than stopping it.
Evangelos Dioikitopoulos (Athens University)
Aspirations, the Transition towards Sustained Growth and Comparative Economic Development
This study highlights the role of materialistic aspirations, i.e., the set of values and personality traits that prioritize the pursuit of material goals, as a cultural phenomenon of significance in relation to economic transformation and development. It presents a model that shows why an endogenous cultural change towards more widespread adherence to materialistic aspirations is both a cause and an effect of productivity growth. This cultural-economic complementarity is a powerful mechanism of endogenous productivity growth; it also determines the prevalence of different cultural values vis-à-vis the prominence of material objectives. In accordance to historical evidence, our model’s calibration reveals that its outcomes offer a reasonably good fit for the evolution of income per capita and the materialistic culture, captured by the number famous “materialists” around the globe. Also, we provide numerical examples that show the role of unfavourable institutions to materialism on the timing of take-off from the pre-industrial world. Finally, we extend our analysis to empirically investigate the origins of deep-routed aspirations and their effect on contemporary economic development such as GDP per capita and patents per capita at country level and light density at ethnic group level.
Jan Van Ours (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Assortative Matching in the European Labor Market (with T. Peeters)
We investigate whether national borders within Europe hinder the assortative matching of workers to firms in a high skilled labor market. We characterize worker productivity as the ability to contribute to physical output and define firm productivity as the capacity to transform physical output into revenues. We rank workers and firms according to their individual productivity estimates and study the ensuing rank correlation to gauge the degree of assortative matching within and across countries. We find strong evidence for positive assortative matching at the national level, and even more so at the international level. This suggests national borders do not prevent workers and firm from pursuing profitable complementarities in production.
Mounu Prem (Einaudi Institute Rome)
Fear to Vote: Explosions and Elections in Colombia
(with J. F. Vargas, M. E. Purroy, F. Coy, and S. Perilla)
Violence in conflict settings is seldom random, making its effects indistinguishable from the intentions of the perpetrator. We leverage on the quasi-randomness of accidental landmine explosions to study how violence shapes electoral outcomes in Colombia. We combine the geo-location of landmine blasts with the coordinates of voting polls in a regression discontinuity design that compares polls close to which a landmine exploded just before the election to those close to which it did just afterward. Blasts within a month from election day depress turnout by 23 percent. In addition, those who do vote penalize the democratic left for the explosions and are more likely to support political parties with ties with illegal paramilitary groups. We provide evidence that the reduction in turnout is driven by fear, and that the post-explosion voting patterns are not driven by changes in composition of voters but rather by changes in voting preferences that are consistent with blaming the democratic left for the actions of illegal left-wing insurgents. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that demining campaigns increase turnout, this partially offsetting the effect of explosions.
Francesco Moscone (Brunel Business School)
The Impact of Ecuadorian Health Reform on Public Hospital Admissions
In Ecuador, a new constitution came into force in 2008 aimed at promoting universal health coverage, affecting all hospitals managed by the Public Ministry of Health, while leaving remaining hospitals unaffected. This gave us a novel opportunity to examine the impact of health policy reform on public hospital admissions using a difference-in-difference approach. Exploiting data of 177 public hospitals between the period 2006 and 2009, we found that, after the reform, the increase in the demand of free medical services was mainly driven by patients that required specialized treatment.
Marta Karas (Wrocław University of Economics and Business)
E-factor augmentation – a method to quantify the environmental factor in systemic risk analysis.
We develop a new method that quantifies environmental risk in systemic risk measurement. We take the exposure approach using an existing E-score as the source of information about bank exposure to environmental risks. We extract the environmental factor (E-factor) from each bank’s environmental score (part of the ESG score) and augment systemic risk measurement with it. Our method allows basing the impact of environmental risk exposure on individual characteristics of banks and their systemic risk levels. We apply econometric systemic risk models to quantify systemic risk, and for each, we add the E-factor using a conditional sensitivity function. We demonstrate our method empirically on two systemic risk models: SRISK and ΔCoVaR, using a sample of 20 systemically important European banks from 12 countries between 2006 and 2021. The application exercise shows that the impact of the environmental risk factor is bigger in three periods of instability: the global financial crisis, the European public debt crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the E-factor has a higher impact on more fragile banks. This observation holds for banks from developed and emerging countries, for both global and local systemically important financial institutions. Based on the E-SRISK and E-ΔCoVaR rankings, we observe a geographic variability between Western Europe and the CEE region. Higher environmental risk is quantified for the latter, with 2 Russian banks and one Rumanian bank at the bottom of the environmental risk ranking – signifying the severity of environmental risk generated in these countries. Our solution is universal in the technical sense and applicable to other systemic risk measures and other environmental scores, while the ranking methods may be of value for the regulators as they allow to identify the banks that are most prone to losses based on their systemic-risk-based environmental exposure.
Jan Auerbach (Brunel University London)
Productive Office and Political Elitism
Many representative democracies experience political elitism in the sense that virtually all members of the national legislature are high-income citizens. However, evidence suggests that electoral prospects are independent of income in the sense that voters do not consider low-income candidates less competent or less likely to get their vote. I explore a financial-rewards channel through which political elitism can arise by self-selection when citizen-candidates’ electoral prospects are independent of income. Elitism arises if and only if the office is attractive and the difference in differences in income between holding office, collecting a salary and outside income, and being a private citizen is large enough. Higher income premia or more productive outside activity for high-income citizens are not necessary or sufficient. Outside income limits can always prevent elitism, while salary reform often cannot. The results offer context to rationalize some mixed evidence on the association between politician pay and politician background.
Series Organizers:
Dr. Sven Fischer and Dr. Matteo Pazzona