Aliénor Bisantis

(Aix-Marseille School of Economics)

will give a presentation on 

Gender and Academic Mobility

Abstract: 

What explains the gender gap in academic careers? This paper studies how geographic mobility constraints contribute to gender disparities in academic hiring, using novel administrative data covering the universe of PhD graduates in France between 2009 and 2021 across all academic fields. I link individuals to the full set of job openings in their field and year of first application to analyze job search behavior and outcomes. First, I show that women apply to fewer positions, over shorter distances, and are more likely to target universities near their PhD institution. Second, I leverage quasi-random variation in the geographic structure of the job market across fields and cohorts to show that candidates facing more distant openings apply to fewer positions and are less likely to secure a job. Women respond more negatively to geographically distant markets, making them more exposed to these spatial frictions. Finally, I quantify the extent to which mobility constraints contribute to gender gaps in hiring: conditional on facing the same job market structure, women’s stronger sensitivity to distance lowers their probability of securing a position by 1.71 percentage points relative to men, representing about 20% of the average hiring rate. Taken together, the findings highlight geographic mobility constraints as a meaningful and previously underexplored mechanism contributing to gender disparities in academic careers.

More info about the speaker

• 9:00 - Leon Rofagha 
  “A discrimination measure under coarsening”

  Abstract: “Abstract. How does one evaluate the quality of a regression model’s predictions \(f(X_1),\ldots,f(X_n)\) under coarsening of the responses \(Y_1,\ldots,Y_n\)? A coarsening of a random variable is a random set containing said random variable. We construct a simple discrimination measure estimating the concordance index in this setup, prove its root-\(n\) asymptotic normality under an i.i.d.-sum condition for the estimated distribution function of \(Y\mid f(X_i)\), and illustrate its performance through experiments by specialising the coarsening mechanism to case-\(K\) interval-censoring.”

• 9:30 - Charlotte Jamotton 
  “A multi-criteria fair Gaussian regressor for insurance premium”

  Abstract: “This article investigates how multiple fairness criteria, such as demographic parity and proxy discrimination mitigation, can be embedded within a Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) framework. We propose a single Bayesian non-parametric model that incorporates fairness interventions through kernel design and objective function modifications. Specifically, we alter the kernel to control similarity structure (e.g., to mitigate omitted variable bias) and extend the objective beyond predictive accuracy to include fairness constraints such as enforcing independence between the premium and sensitive variables. This modified GPR architecture allows us to jointly enforce multiple fairness definitions, spanning both group and individual-level criteria, within a single model. We empirically explore trade-offs with actuarial fairness, and how different fairness criteria interact when combined. The results highlight the importance of adopting a multi-criteria, context-aware approach to fairness in insurance pricing." 

• 10:00 - Guillaume Deside 
  “Errors-in-Variables Bayesian Model of Glycemic Response to Lifestyle Factors”

  Abstract: “In recent years, the volume of data collected in clinical research has increased dramatically. This trend is driven, in part, by the proliferation of wearable medical devices and sensors, which enable both healthy and ill individuals to gather extensive longitudinal data about their health and lifestyle in situ (i.e., in the context of people’s daily lives rather than in artificial clinical environments) (Paranjape 2020). Despite their clinical potential, in situ data present statistical challenges including high missing data proportions, inaccuracies, noisier measurements than traditional clinical data, and uncertainties in event timing and individual response heterogeneity (Salathe 2024). For this presentation, we focused on the example of explaining blood glucose levels, as measured with continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) wearable sensors, using self-reported nutrient intakes and lifestyle and physiological factors. The first and simplest approach considered was to discretize the observed time-series and use linear models or random forests (RF) to roughly assess the importance of the different inputs and the shape of the glycemic responses to different factors. This approach has two important limitations. First, discretization leads to information loss that may compromise inference on parameters related to rapid glucose responses. Second, it does not account for potential timing errors in input factors, which are common in real-world health monitoring data. For example, someone may forget to report a meal or report it several hours after they actually consumed that food. Consequently, we turned to a different framework, building on Zhang et al.’s interpretable error-in-variable Bayesian model (Zhang et al 2021). Specifically, we further developed and generalized that model to include factors that were absent in the initial model and identified as important by the linear and RF models, and to account for a larger diversity of potential glycemic responses. In this presentation, I will present the results obtained from the different approaches when applied to longitudinal data from the Food&You study (Héritier et al 2023), highlight their strengths and limitations, agreements and divergences, and discuss future developments."

• 10:30 - Break

• 10:45 - Mirco Lescart 
  "A flexible sub-asymptotic model for threshold exceedances"

  Abstract : Extreme rainfall, financial crises, and structural failures often involve several variables becoming extreme at once. Standard extreme-value models capture this joint behavior only in the very far tails and usually treat dependence in a rigid way, focusing either on asymptotic dependence or on asymptotic independence. Only a few recent models allow for more flexibility between the two. I present a new sub-asymptotic model that provides a gradual transition between dependence regimes, combining ideas from generalized Pareto theory and flexible mixture representations. Estimation relies on modern likelihood-free inference through the Neural Bayes Estimator, supported by simulation studies. Finally, I illustrate how the model reveals different dependence patterns in Belgian rainfall extremes, from strong joint behavior to near-independence.

• 11:15 - Kamal Gasser  
  “Heatwave attribution over Europe”

  Abstract: “We are investigating if the rise in global mean surface temperature caused by hu-man forcing has resulted in a change in temperature distribution, hence increas-ing the frequency of heatwaves. Heatwaves manifest themselves in both spatial and temporal dimensions ; nevertheless, the majority of attribution studies con-centrate on individual locations and analyze heatwaves by calculating specific indices to capture their spatiotemporal dependency. However, this technique seems inadequate since indices do not accurately represent the real events. We aim to address this gap by using advanced statistical models and concentrating our attribution analysis on the whole of Europe. We use a clustering technique using a distance measure suitable for extremes to pinpoint spatial regions where concurrent severe temperatures occur simultaneously. Then, we formulate a flex-ible non-stationary space-time extreme value model that accommodates diverse forms of asymptotic dependency. Lastly, we use our approach to climate model outputs to estimate return period of extreme event under both a factual and counterfactual world." 

• 11:45 - Edouard Motte 
  “Signature methods in mathematical finance”

  Abstract: “The signature of a path consists of the sequence of its iterated integrals. Path-signature theory has recently emerged as a powerful tool in the fields of machine learning and mathematical finance, mainly due to its universal linearization property, according to which, provided sufficient regularity, any path functional can be expressed as a linear combination of signature elements. In this talk, I will introduce the theory of signatures and discuss some applications in mathematical finance. More specifically, I will show how signatures can be used to solve the (non-linear) stochastic control problem of hedging path-dependent options in the presence of market frictions.

Alessandro Ferrari

(UPF)

will give a presentation on 

Specialization, Complexity, and Resilience in Supply Chains

Abstract

Despite growing policy interest, the determinants of supply chain resilience are still not well understood. We propose a new theory of supply chain formation in which only compatible inputs can be used in final production. Intermediate producers choose how much to specialize their goods, trading off higher value against a smaller pool of compatible final producers. We model supply chains as complex production processes requiring multiple complementary inputs. Specialization choices, production complexity, disruption frequency, and search frictions jointly determine supply chain resilience, that is, the speed at which final production recovers after a disruption. In equilibrium, production inputs are over-specialized due to a novel network externality: intermediate producers fail to internalize how their specialization choices affect the likelihood that final production takes place, and thus the unrealized value created by complementary inputs when it halts. As a result, supply chains are more productive in normal times but less resilient than socially desirable. A lump-sum subsidy to active final producers can decentralize efficient resilience in supply chains, and compatibility standards are generally welfare-enhancing.

More information about the speaker

Location

It will take place at Villers-la-Ville, which is about at 10’ driving from Louvain-la-Neuve. There is a train station in Villers-la-Ville. You will just need to walk a bit from the train station to reach the location of the activity.

We will also organize car sharing (register you via the link)

Program of the day

8.30 am– welcome coffee

9.00 am – 10.15 am – academic presentation, Prof. Catherine Legrand, LIDAM President

10.15 am – 10.45 am – coffee-break

10.45 am – 1 pm – social activity

1 pm – 2.30 pm - lunch

Registration

Please register you via the link before September 21st

• 5:00 PM – Drink for the end of the academic year

The events will take place at the Martin’s in Louvain-la-Neuve (Rue de l’Hocaille 1-3) – entrance by the hotel.

Cette année, la conférence sera donnée par Jean Drèze, avec pour thème
L'emploi garanti en action : l'expérience indienne

Jean Drèze, économiste du développement, est actuellement professeur invité à l'université de Ranchi en Inde et professeur honoraire à la Delhi School of Economics.
Il a apporté de nombreuses contributions à l'économie du développement et aux politiques publiques, en particulier concernant l'Inde. Parmi ses ouvrages récents, citons An Uncertain Glory :
India and Its Contradictions (avec Amartya Sen) et Sense and Solidarity : Jholawala Economics for Everyone. Jean Drèze est également actif dans diverses campagnes en faveur des droits économiques et sociaux.
Son travail a contribué à l'élaboration de plusieurs législations sociales importantes en Inde, notamment la loi nationale sur la garantie de l'emploi rural (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).

La conférence aura lieu le jeudi 19 décembre 2024 à Louvain-la-Neuve, au Foyer royal (Aula Magna) à 18 heures.
Deux membres de l'UCLouvain interviendront dans la foulée de sa présentation:

• Bruno van der Linden de l'IRES, UCLouvain
• Philippe van Parijs de la Chaire Hoover d'éthique économique et sociale, UCLouvain

Un drink sera proposé à 20h.

Etant donné que le nombre de personnes qui peuvent assister à la conférence est limité, l'inscription est gratuite mais obligatoire.
Pour vous inscire à cette conférence et/ou au drink, merci de compléter le lien suivant avant le 6 décembre 2024:

https://forms.office.com/e/SpmeKKmTk2

Daniele Catanzaro, Président du CORE,
William Pariente, Président de l'ESL,
Bernard Fierens Gevaert, Président de l'ADEL.

Lors de cette conférence, des photos et vidéos seront prises et utilisées sur le site internet. Si vous ne souhaitez pas apparaitre sur ces photos; merci d'envoyer un message à lidam.com@uclouvain.be

Title: Hardness and Structure in Network Optimization on Unrooted Binary Trees 

Abstract: In this talk, I will explore several properties and complexity results for network optimization problems in the setting of unrooted binary trees. Two main themes will be addressed. First, I will show that strong inapproximability results often arise from highly pathological cases and rarely occur in practical instances. Second, I will revisit the classical connection between optimization and separation, shedding new light on how it applies in this specific context. 

This is joint work with Daniele Catanzaro, Brieuc Pierre, Gwenaël Joret, and Raffaele Pesenti

Bart Cockx

(Ghent University)

will give a presentation on 

Biased Beliefs in Job Search: Structural Evaluation of Counseling and Coaching

Abstract

Using Swiss data on job search behavior and expectations about interviews, we evaluate a program combining intensified counseling and coaching to address biased beliefs, in a randomized trial. We develop a job search model with Bayesian updating of biased perceptions about the number of interviews. Job seekers are initially overoptimistic, then become over-pessimistic as past signals fade. The model replicates the non-monotonic job-finding rate and patterns in applications, (expected) interviews, and wages. It decomposes the treatment effect into key drivers—search efficiency, job search costs, and beliefs—identifying belief formation as main channel through which the program accelerates employment transitions.

Eve Colson-Sihra

(Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

will give a presentation on 

Feeding the Gap: A Test of the Gender-Intensification Hypothesis Using Food Consumption

Abstract

When do gender stereotypes emerge and intensify? Although stereotypes affect education, occupation, and parenting, those outcomes are measured only later in life, making the initial divergence hard to identify. We use food consumption as a high-frequency revealed outcome observable from childhood onward. Using U.S. household barcode panel data, we document persistent gender differences across the food basket, including a 20% gap in red meat consumption. Engel-curve estimations and supplementary online surveys indicate that these gaps are not explained by physiological needs, observables, or information differences. We then link consumption to attitudinal measures and show that gender-stereotypical views mediate a substantial share of the meat gap. Turning to panel identification, we find that the meat gender gap begins in late childhood, widens sharply during adolescence, and stabilizes thereafter. This pattern is consistent with the gender-intensification hypothesis--that gender differences widen in adolescence. We corroborate our results using secondary datasets on implicit and explicit associations between gender-career and gender-science across age. Overall, consumption offers a tractable behavioral marker on when gender stereotypes emerge and intensify, with implications for the timing of equality-oriented policies and for environmental and health interventions targeting meat consumption.

Sylvain Sardy (Université de Genève) 

The Pivotal Information Criterion 

Abstract: 
The Bayesian and Akaike information criteria aim at finding a good balance between under- and over-fitting. They are extensively used everyday by practitioners. Yet we content they suffer from three afflictions: their inherent (best subset) discrete optimization is infeasible beyond moderate dimension, their need for estimation of a nuisance parameter makes them inefficient in high dimension, and their penalty parameter λ = log n and λ = 2 are too small for feature detection. We alleviate these issues with the pivotal information criterion.

Johannes Johnen

(CORE/LIDAM, UCLouvain)

will give a presentation on 

Consumer Protection in Economies with Limited Attention

Abstract

We investigate the effects of consumer-protection regulations limiting post-purchase harm when there are many markets and consumers have limited attention to examine prices or product features. Such regulation lowers the attention necessary for valuable purchases, which can allow a consumer to purchase in more markets, or serve to induce competition. The first benefit is most important when few markets are regulated, while the second emerges when regulatory scope is sufficiently broad to create “spare” --- i.e., in equilibrium unused --- attention. Because little spare attention can enforce competition in many markets, consumer welfare can be highly non-linear in regulatory scope. The benefits of regulating a market often accrue in other markets, and there is a sense in which overly tight regulation outperforms overly lax regulation. Broad consumer protection can help the economy reach productive efficiency, and when this is achieved less regulation may suffice.

 (joint with Paul Heidhues and Botond Koszegi)

Title : French Institutional Investments, facts and trends

Yu Ji 

(Peking University)

Will give a presentation on

Boosting Exports or Picking Winners? The Role of Short-Term Export Credit Insurance in China

Abstract
 

with Cong Peng, Wei Tian (Peking University), and Yiqun Zhuang (SINOSURE)

How to attend the seminar? 

We invite graduate students and faculty with an interest in international trade to participate, and to sign up for our mailing list.

For further information on how to attend, you can contact: serena.chellini@kuleuven.be or c.depierpont@uclouvain.be

Nathan Hancart

(university of Oslo)

will give a presentation on 

The Optimal Menu of Tests

Abstract

A decision-maker can test a privately informed agent prior to making a decision. Instead of choosing the test himself, the decision-maker requires the agent to choose the test from a menu. By offering a menu, the decision-maker can use the agent’s choice as an additional source of information. The decision-maker must accept or reject the agent who always wants to be accepted. I show that the decision-maker does not benefit from commitment in this context. Using this result, I show in several economic environments when the decision-maker benefits from offering a choice of tests. When the set of feasible tests contains a most informative test, I provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the introduction of a less informative test in the optimal menu. I also show when the decision-maker benefits from a menu when tests vary in difficulty or types are multi-dimensional.

Gianmarco Luu

(CORE/LIDAM, UCLouvain)

will give a presentation on 

Deceptive Counterfeits and Consumer Protection

Abstract

Deceptive counterfeits—fake products that consumers purchase unintentionally—are an increasing concern in e-commerce, posing financial and health risks. Particularly dangerous examples include counterfeit pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, electronics, and automotive parts. We develop a model in which some consumers mistakenly believe fake products are genuine. Our first contribution is to introduce a framework where some consumers are harmed by fakes directly through unintentional purchases - the first model to directly analyze how deceptive counterfeits harm consumers. The extent of unintentional purchases depends on the degree of competition between counterfeit products and the authentic brand. We analyze two enforcement strategies: persecuting counterfeit sellers and providing authenticity aids. The effectiveness of these strategies depends on whether the brand competes for deceivable consumers. When a brand chooses to compete in this segment, both the brand and counterfeits offer the same price range. In such cases, authenticity aids can backfire—by shifting equilibrium prices, they may increase unintentional counterfeit purchases. Conversely, when a brand withdraws from competing for deceivable consumers—as in traditional counterfeit markets where fakes are more easily recognized—authenticity aids reduce counterfeit purchases. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between deceptive and non-deceptive counterfeits when designing effective anti-counterfeit policies. Finally, we study the incentives of a platform to fight deceptive fakes, arguing that more established platforms may have stronger incentives to protect consumers.

Kirill Shakhnov

(University of Surrey) 

will give a presentation on 

Short- and Long-Run News: Evidence from Giant Mineral Discoveries

Abstract

The bulk of the news shocks literature focuses on shocks materializing after four or five quarters, with limited evidence on news about longer-run events. We build a new dataset of discovery and production start dates for a wide range of giant commodity discoveries worldwide from 1960 to 2012. Standard open economy models match the empirical responses of short-run news but fail in the case of long-run news. Incorporating financial frictions in the form of collateral constraints is crucial for capturing the dynamics implied by long-run news. We also provide direct evidence on the role of these frictions.

Konstantin Egorov

(UAntwerp)

will give a presentation on 

Threat of Sanctions

Abstract

Most sanctions on imports to Russia were imposed immediately after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In that same month, the sanctioning countries promised to escalate sanctions further unless the conflict ended. In line with this threat, we estimate that the subsequent escalation was largely anticipated in advance, with trade flows declining many months before they actually became subject to sanctions. Crucially, this effect was not limited just to sanctioned trade flows: we also identify a wide range of never-sanctioned trade flows that nonetheless could have been perceived as threatened by future sanctions. Overall, our results imply that Russia lost the equivalent of about a month and a half of imports over 2022–23 due to the escalation of sanctions after April 2022, with two-thirds of this loss driven by reductions in non-sanctioned trade flows that were only under the threat of sanctions.

Antonio Vivencio Betanzo

(Maastricht University) 

will give a presentation on 

Gravity without Gravitas

Abstract

Antonio Frangioni

(Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Pisa)

will give a presentation on: 

The Segmented Pay-as-Clear Approach for (Energy) Markets

Abstract:

Motivated by the recent crisis of the European electricity markets, we propose the concept of Segmented Pay-as-Clear (SPaC) market, introducing a new family of market clearing problems that achieve a degree of decoupling between groups of participants. This requires a relatively straightforward modification of the standard PaC model and retains its crucial features by providing both long- and short-term sound price signals. The approach is based on dynamically partitioning demand across the segmented markets, where the partitioning is endogenous, i.e., controlled by the model variables, and is chosen to minimise the total system cost. The thusly modified model leads to solving Bilevel Programming problems, or more generally Mathematical Programs with Complementarity Constraints; these have a higher computational complexity than those corresponding to the standard PaC, but in the same ballpark as the models routinely used in real-world Day Ahead Markets (DAMs) to represent "nonstandard" requirements, e.g., the unique buying price in the Italian DAM. Thus, SPaC models should still be solvable in a time compatible with market operations with appropriate algorithmic tools. Like all market models, SPaC is not immune to strategic bidding techniques, but some theoretical results indicate that, under the right conditions, the effect of these could be limited. An initial experimental analysis of the proposed models, carried out through Agent Based simulations, seems to indicate a good potential for significant system cost reductions and an effective decoupling of the two markets. Implementing the approach in practice would entail nontrivial computational challenges that our community would be very happy to be confronted with, and especially a political will that does not seem to be particularly forthcoming at this time.

More info about the speaker

Kam Pui Tsang

(IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)

will give a presentation on 

Dirty Green Transition: Chinese Critical Mineral Investment and Protest in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

China has become a leading investor in critical mineral extraction, a sector central to energy transition technologies. These investments often attract heightened scrutiny and are frequently associated with rising social unrest in host regions. This paper investigates how Chinese-owned critical mineral mining projects shape local protest dynamics across fifteen sub-Saharan African countries. Leveraging a novel panel dataset of geocoded Chinese critical mineral mining investments and a triple-differences design, I show that the opening of Chinese-owned mines raises the likelihood of local protest by 15 percentage points and increases protest events by 52% compared to similar non-Chinese mines. These effects are moderated in settings with stronger democratic institutions and higher-quality governance but show no consistent variation with measures of environmental sensitivity. Suggestive evidence points to substantial negative environmental externalities as a plausible channel linking Chinese critical mineral mining investment to elevated unrest.

Leo Zhang

Portfolio Selection with Downside Risk Optimization: Distributional Robustness and Ambiguity Aversion

Downside risk and ambiguity aversion are central concerns in portfolio selection. In this paper, we measure downside risk around an $m$-order lower partial moment (LPM) and capture ambiguity aversion through a Wasserstein ball centered at a reference distribution of asset returns. We show that, in general, the distributionally robust mean-downside risk minimization (mean-DRDRM) can be formulated as a tractable convex program. Closed-form solutions are derived when the Wasserstein ball employs the Mahalanobis distance as the ground metric, which integrate the mean-variance theory and ambiguity aversion into the downside risk minimization framework. Building on these explicit portfolio solutions, we employ the target return of the LPM to characterize the risk aversion parameter in mean–variance theory and the degree of ambiguity aversion, two notions that are conceptually important yet often abstract for practical investment. More importantly, this connection links Knightian uncertainty with traditional measures of risk. Finally, a numerical study demonstrates that the proposed portfolios effectively control downside risk, mitigate the impact of market crashes, preserve upside potential, and outperform naive benchmarks.

Maya Eden

(University of Zurich)

will give a presentation on

Fixed Point Utilitarianism (very preliminary)

Abstract

How should policymakers make decisions that affect the population trajectory? I propose a choice rule which reflects the goal of maximizing the sum of utilities of those people who will end up existing. This choice rule consists of a solution to a fixed point problem. I demonstrate the implications of this choice rule in a two-period macroeconomic model.

Margaux Clarr 

(IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain) 

will give a presentation on 

Strategic Drones 

Abstract 

US drone strikes are popular with the electorate and overseen by the President. This paper investigates whether the US President uses drone strikes strategically for political gain. We document that US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen are significantly more likely before US elections, when popularity has high payoffs. We find no changes for unpopular piloted airstrikes. Consistent with unusually high drone approvals, abnormally cloudy skies before US elections lead to a postponement or redirection of strikes to other target countries. To examine whether drone strikes are used strategically to divert attention from damaging media coverage, we gather closed captions from all cable TV coverage of the President and analyze their tone using natural language processing. Drone strikes are more likely in weeks when news anchors cover the President more negatively,  a relation that holds both during and outside of election periods. We find no such relationship for piloted airstrikes or during weeks of high news pressure.

Cristina Manea

(Bank for International Settlements) 

will give a presentation on 

Targeted Taylor Rules: Some Evidence and Theory 

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of targeted Taylor rules defined as monetary policy rules which allow for different responses to demand– versus supply–driven inflation. This new concept tallies with Federal Reserve’s monetary policy strategy as reflected in its official communications. When estimated for the United States using recent decompositions of inflation in demand and supply factors, this new type of rule points to an almost fourfold stronger monetary policy reaction to demand– than to supply–driven inflation starting with Paul Volker’s Chairmanship. We show how to embed the new targeted rule into a textbook New-Keynesian model when the economy is simultaneously hit by demand and supply shocks and discuss its implications for business cycle fluctuations and welfare.

(joint with B Hofmann and B Mojon)

Charles de Pierpont de Burnot

(IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)

will give a presentation on 

The Roman roots of the Western European trade linkages

Abstract:

This research examines the persistent legacy of Roman integration in current trade linkages across Western Europe. Using a sample of 16,256 Western region pairs, it provides evidence that regions jointly integrated for a longer period within the Roman states trade significantly more with each other today. Part of this influence reflects subsequent political history, the current transport networks, which sometimes follow past Roman roads, as well as geographic features that may have induced trade without the Roman intervention, such as resource differences and geographic connectivity. However, a remaining sizable part of the estimated net effect of the Roman rule is attributable to cultural convergence measured by preference and linguistic similarities. These findings highlight a long-lasting influence of past political and network (infra)structures on the European market integration.

Tommaso Sonno

(University of Bologna and CEP-LSE)

will give a presentation on 

Large Scale Land Acquisitions: Trees, Trade, and Structural Change

Abstract: 

By 2022, large-scale land acquisitions, a key component of agricultural foreign direct investment, covered more than 4% of the world’s arable land. This paper examines their impact on agricultural production, environmental outcomes, and local communities. To identify these effects, we exploit an exogenous increase in palm oil land acquisitions driven by the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. We find a substantial increase in land dedicated to palm oil cultivation and increased imports of palm oil-specific inputs, suggesting a transition from traditional to industrial production. This is associated with a subsequent significant increase in palm oil exports. The expansion of this tradable industry generated modest positive effects on the local economy and spurred structural transformation: women transitioned from agriculture to service and sales jobs, while men shifted into manual labor positions. The expansion also entailed negative environmental consequences, including increased deforestation, air pollution, and forest fires.

with Davide Zufacchi (University College London and IFS)

The paper can be found here. 

How to attend the seminar? 

We invite graduate students and faculty with an interest in international trade to participate, and to sign up for our mailing list.

For further information on how to attend, you can contact: serena.chellini@kuleuven.be or c.depierpont@uclouvain.be

Luca Neri

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, CORE)

Beyond Validity: SVAR Identification Through the Proxy Zoo

Abstract

This paper develops a framework for robust identification in SVARs when researchers face a zoo of proxy variables. Instead of imposing exact exogeneity, we introduce generalized ranking restrictions (GRR) that bound the relative correlation of each proxy with the target and non-target shocks through a continuous proxy-quality parameter. Combining GRR with standard sign and narrative restrictions, we characterize identified sets for structural impulse responses and show how to partially identify the proxy-quality parameter using the joint information contained in the proxy zoo. We further develop sensitivity and diagnostic tools that allow researchers to assess transparently how empirical conclusions depend on proxy exogeneity assumptions and the composition of the proxy zoo. A simulation study shows that proxies constructed from sign restrictions can induce biased proxy-SVAR estimates, while our approach delivers informative and robust identified sets. An application to U.S. monetary policy illustrates the empirical relevance and computational tractability of the framework.

More information about the speaker

Cuimin Ba

(University of Pittsburgh)

will give a presentation on 

Over- and Underreaction to Information: Belief Updating with Cognitive Constraints

Abstract

This paper explores how cognitive constraints interact with the information environment to determine whether people overreact or underreact to information. In our model of belief updating, limited attention leads people to form a distorted mental model or representation of the information environment, and limited processing capacity generates cognitive imprecision when using this representation to update beliefs. The model predicts overreaction when facing complex environments, noisy or surprising signals, or priors concentrated on moderate states; it predicts underreaction when facing simple environments, precise or confirmatory signals, or priors concentrated on extreme states. A series of pre-registered experiments provide support for these predictions and direct evidence for the proposed cognitive mechanisms. Crucially, the interaction between the cognitive constraints generates the observed pattern of bias: neither constraint on its own can explain the data. These results connect prior disparate findings on whether underreaction versus overreaction arises.

Vincent Notte 

(IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)

will give a presentation on 

Exchange rate pass-through and monetary policy: a counterfactual SVAR analysis

Abstract

Understanding how exchange rate fluctuations are transmitted to inflation is critical for monetary policy design. While former literature finds that the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) varies with the underlying shocks, it largely abstracts from the role of endogenous monetary policy responses. This paper investigates the contribution of monetary policy to shock-dependent ERPT. Using a structural VAR framework, we identify a broad set of structural shocks and estimate ERPT across 26 emerging markets and advanced economies. We then construct a counterfactual scenario in which monetary policy remains unresponsive to these shocks. Our results show that 90 percent of the observed variation in ERPT across shocks stems from the monetary policy response. When policy reactions are neutralized, the ERPT becomes nearly uniform across shocks and, on average, twice as large. These findings disentangle structural from policy-driven components of the shock-dependent ERPT, thereby providing a more informative measure for central bank decision-making.
 

Nikhil Vellodi

(PSE)

will give a presentation on 

Self-Prospecting: Optimal Experimentation under Present-Bias

Abstract

A present-biased decision maker (DM) faces a two-armed bandit problem whose risky arm generates random payoffs at exponentially distributed times. Under full information, the DM's belief remains unchanged prior to payoff arrivals, generating a ``lumpy'' belief process that updates infrequently but conclusively. Our main finding is that coarsening the DM's information to foster ``gradual optimism'' - a continuously increasing path of beliefs during active experimentation - helps motivate the DM more effectively and deliver them greater welfare. We relate our findings to those in behavioral psychology relating to motivation, learning, and self-control, and apply our results to parenting and pedagogy.

Daniel Wainstock

( University of Oxford)

will give a presentation on 

Five Millennia of Nation-Building

Abstract

The relationship between states and collective identities is not straightforward. Nation-building has often failed, backfired, or produced enduring divisions, and in other settings high polarization or entrenched segregation led states to adopt power-sharing or federal arrangements. This paper investigates the long-run role of states in constructing shared identities by moving beyond isolated historical episodes and assembling systematic global evidence over the long run. I construct a grid-cell level dataset that links ethnic homelands and linguistic boundaries to five millennia of recorded state history. Leveraging an instrumental-variables strategy, the analysis establishes that grid cells with deeper historical exposure to centralized polities display substantially lower ethnic fragmentation today, with linguistic homogenization as a mediating channel. Together, the results show that states have left a durable imprint on the cultural landscape, socially constructing identities through a cumulative process unfolding over millennia rather than a phenomenon confined to the modern era.

Karine Moukaddem

(IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)

will give a presentation on 

Dreaming Beyond Borders: Aspirations, Networks, and Migration Intentions of Young Women in Lebanon

Abstract

Migration intentions are widely recognized as key precursors to actual migration. Using nationally representative data on 1,500 young women in Lebanon, we examine two stages of migration intention: the desire to migrate and the expectation of doing so. Overall, 41% express a desire to migrate internationally, while 16% expect to realize this desire within five years. Migration desire is more common among women with lower wealth and education, whereas migration expectation is higher among those who are younger, unmarried, and living with their parents. Both outcomes are positively linked to recent adverse shocks. Social exposure also matters: women with family or close friends who intend to migrate—or who have already experienced migration—are significantly more likely to express migration desire and expectation. Finally, we explore how aspirations in education, career, and family relate to migration intentions. Higher educational and career aspirations are strongly associated with a greater desire to migrate, but only aspirations that women expect to achieve—including marriage age aspirations—are linked to migration expectations. Together, these findings highlight how economic conditions, family context, and personal aspirations jointly shape young women’s migration intentions.

Ricardo Guzman

(AMSE)

will give a presentation on 

The Arrival of Patented Agricultural Technologies

Abstract

Low-income countries are increasingly establishing intellectual property rights (IPR) for plant varieties as a means to encourage innovation in crop technologies. Whether such policies spur agricultural development is unclear: On one hand, IP protection can bring new crop technologies to markets, expanding the set of plant varieties with agronomic traits that benefit farms. On the other hand, the policy can raise input prices and reshape informal markets for traditional seed. This paper studies these tradeoffs in a context of a landmark reform that strengthened IP protection for plant varieties in Tanzania. I first combine the universe of registered plant varieties released in the national market with an event study to establish that IP protection brought in new plant varieties. I then estimate the effect of the arrival of these patented technologies on agricultural outcomes using rich farm-level data and a shift-share design that leverages the staggered release of new varieties and agro-climatic variation in crop suitability across regions. I find that the policy lifted supply-side constraints: a 1SD increase in exposure to patented technologies boosted adoption of improved varieties by 6.7 percentage points. However, the resulting productivity gains were unevenly distributed: the policy delivered higher yields, crop revenues, and profits for larger and better-connected farms, while small and remote farmers experienced little to no benefit. Supporting evidence points to two channels that explain the unequal gains from adoption: rising seed prices in local markets and small farmers’ inability to adjust use of land, labour, and material inputs that complement new technologies.

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Jin Su 

(CORE/LIDAM, UCLouvain)

will give a presentation on 

Consumers’ perception of fairness on data-based personalized pricing

Abstract

Online platforms increasingly employ consumer data to infer their attributes and implement personalized pricing strategies. This practice has generated considerable debate concerning fairness.  Consumers’ perceptions of fairness vary depending on the types of data utilized and the inferred attributes upon which pricing decisions are based. Our project is to examine which types of data and inferred attributes are perceived as more acceptable by consumers, and how these perceptions are influenced by the inference process linking data to attributes. The findings are expected to provide evidence that can help policymakers and regulatory authorities in monitoring and evaluating data-based pricing practices.

Riccardo Norbiato

(Paris School of Economics)

will give presentation on 

Aligning Competitiveness and Sustainability: How Border Adjustments Can Strengthen Agricultural Policies
 

Alireza Sepahsalari

(University of Bristol)

will give a presentation on

Self-Insurance and Welfare in Turbulent Labor Markets

Abstract

We examine the impact of wealth on shaping labor market outcomes under turbulence risk—the risk of skill loss following job displacement. We develop and quantify a heterogeneous-agent search model with incomplete markets, skill dynamics, and job tiers. Wealth affects workers’ occupational mobility, generating heterogeneous wage outcomes following job displacement. Using U.S. data, we document that poor workers suffer the most significant and most persistent wage losses upon reemployment, in line with the model predictions. Though policy exercises, we show that unemployment insurance increases welfare, while job creation subsidies more effectively stimulate output and reduce unemployment spells, highlighting novel trade-offs between policy instruments.

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Thomas Goda

(Universidad EAFIT)

will give a presentation on 

You are worth that to me – Uncovering the hierarchy of central bank currency swaps

Abstract

Bilateral central bank currency swaps are crucial elements of the Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN). This paper examines whether the scale and distribution of swap provision reinforce US-dollar dominance and how the People's Bank of China (PBOC) resists dollar hegemony through its currency swap strategy. Using comparative descriptive statistics and a two-step Heckman selection model, we analyze a novel panel dataset covering all bilateral swaps between 2007 and 2023. We derive two main arguments: First, US Federal Reserve (Fed) swaps target systemically important financial core countries where dollar-denominated borrowing affects US financial stability. Second, periphery countries deemed unworthy of US Fed swaps rely on alternatives, mostly renminbi-denominated PBOC swaps. Our results show that the GDP per capita of countries receiving PBOC swaps is about half that of Fed swap recipients. China primarily targets periphery countries with which it has strong trade relationships. It appears that these swap provisions have contributed somewhat to the renminbi's internationalization; however, the PBOC's swap size is less than one-sixth of the Fed's. We conclude that the existing swap hierarchy nourishes US dollar dominance predominantly through swap scale. The current monetary system is therefore likely to persist for the foreseeable future, sustaining the dollar's international use in core financial markets.

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Alessia Lo Turco

(Università Politecnica delle Marche)

will give a presentation on 

Foreign Ownership and Occupational Safety: Evidence from France

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Lukas Mahler

(KU Leuven)

will give a presentation on 

Efficiency and Equity of Education Tracking - A Quantitative Analysis

Abstract

We study the long-run aggregate, distributional, and intergenerational effects of school tracking—the allocation of students to different types of schools—by incorporating school track decisions into a general-equilibrium heterogeneous-agent overlappinggenerations model. The key innovation in our model is the skill production technology during school years with tracking. School tracks endogenously differ in their pace of instruction and the students’ average skills. We show analytically that this technology can rationalize reduced-form evidence on the effects of school tracking on the distribution of end-of-school skills. We then calibrate the model using representative data from Germany, a country with a very early school tracking policy by international standards. Our calibrated model shows that an education reform that postpones the tracking age from ten to fourteen generates improvements in intergenerational mobility but comes at the cost of modest losses in aggregate human capital and economic output, reducing aggregate welfare. This efficiency-mobility trade-off is rooted in the effects of longer comprehensive schooling on learning and depends crucially on the presence of general equilibrium effects in the labor market. Finally, counterfactual analyses suggest that policies that reduce the parental influence in the school track choice can increase both social mobility and aggregate economic output, improving aggregate welfare.

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David de la Croix

(IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)

will give a presentation on 

Forced Displacement of Scholars and Academic Output During the Scientific Revolution

Abstract

(with Sascha O. Becker, Sebastian Ottinger, Nico Voigtländer)

Anna Jolivet

(UNamur)

will give a presentation on 

Kinship Structure and Fertility: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

We examine the relationship between the social organization of communities, in particular their emphasis on lineage organization, and fertility. In lineage-based societies descent is traced primarily through either the mother's or the father's side, which strongly determines social identity, increases cohesion, and reinforces interdependence within the lineage. We show that, across countries, unilineal societies have higher fertility levels. These results are validated within sub-Saharan Africa using a spatial regression discontinuity design along ancestral ethnic boundaries. Among mechanisms explaining this difference, we highlight the role of the motive to continue the lineage.

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  This seminar is cancelled  

Stefano Gagliarducci

(University Tor Vergata)

will give a presentation on 

Church, State and Education: School Funding and Catholic Assimilation in the U.S.

Abstract

This paper studies the consequences of Blaine Amendments — constitutional provisions barring public funding for sectarian schools — on Catholic education and immigrant assimilation in the U.S. during the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1920). We combine full-count census data with newly digitized records of Catholic parishes and schools from the Official Catholic Directory. Exploiting staggered adoption across states and variation in Catholic population across counties, we show that Blaine Amendments triggered a substantial reduction in Catholic schools and enrollment, particularly in counties with larger Catholic populations, where maintaining schooling systems may have been especially costly. Using individual-level census data, we then examine the downstream effects on assimilation. Catholic immigrants exposed to Blaine during school age were more likely to intermarry, speak English, and naturalize, while those first exposed as adults were more likely to naturalize but less likely to intermarry. However, these effects are muted in larger Catholic communities, consistent with models in which enclaves reduce incentives to assimilate. Our findings highlight how state restrictions on religious schooling reshaped the educational landscape and influenced immigrant integration, offering new evidence on the interplay between schooling, religion, and nation-building.

(with Squicciarini M. and Tabellini M.)

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Cevat Aksoy

(EBRD)

will give a presentation on 

The Value of Some Office Time

Abstract

This paper evaluates whether structured in-person contact can improve performance and retention in a fully remote workplace. We study a nine-month randomised controlled trial in the inbound customer service center operations of a multinational telecommunications firm. A sample of 248 fully remote customer-service agents was randomly assigned either to remain fully remote (control) or to attend the office one day per month (treatment), holding pay, schedules, tasks, and performance evaluation constant. The monthly office-day policy increases productivity. Calls per hour rise by about 4.4% on average, driven by roughly 5% shorter call durations, with no evidence of declines in service quality (customer ratings and audit scores) or changes in break time. The intervention also reduces attrition over the experimental horizon, with particularly strong retention effects among higher-performing agents. Evidence on mechanisms points to interaction and learning: treated agents report more frequent managerial feedback and stronger team communication, and randomised seating assignments show that brief co-location generates new peer links and productivity spillovers. Overall, predictable in-person contact can improve productivity and retention in fully remote service work.

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Chun Chee Kok

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, CORE)

will give a presentation on 

Interethnic Proximity, Complementarities, and Politics in Malaysia

Abstract 

Are there particular social structures that allow ethnic diversity to coexist with political stability and economic prosperity? This paper examines the effects of interethnic proximity on political identity and economic development. We exploit fine-grained spatial variation from a British colonial resettlement policy in Malaysia (1948-1951), which forcibly relocated over half a million ethnic minority Chinese into segregated “Chinese New Villages” (CNVs). We find that ethnic majority Malays residing in polling districts closer to CNVs exhibit lower contemporary electoral support for the ethnonationalist coalition, potentially reflecting a moderation of ethno-nationalistic political identity. We also observe moderately positive impacts on contemporary economic prosperity. Positive political effects are stronger in regions with initial, historical interethnic complementarities—even in the absence of persistent economic prosperity. Novel primary survey data reveal that Malays living in closer proximity to CNVs report greater contact with Chinese, higher interethnic trust, and weaker zero-sum beliefs. Suggestively, these effects appear to be reversed in areas with greater interethnic competition. Throughout, broader impacts on social integration remain muted. Our findings highlight the promise and pitfalls of intergroup contact in jointly underpinning political moderation and economic development.

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Georges Hübner

(HEC Liège, Université de Liège)

will give a presentation on:

Performance basée sur les objectifs des fonds communs de placement

Abstract: 

Prendre en compte les dimensions dispositionnelles et situationnelles du choix de portefeuille conduit à une approche de performance globale basée sur les objectifs. Conceptuellement, nous proposons un moyen de relier ses dimensions clés avec des déclarations qualitatives sur les objectifs d’investissement utilisées en gestion de patrimoine. Avec les données des fonds communs de placement, nous montrons également comment mettre en œuvre une estimation paramétrique fiable et parcimonieuse de la performance. Enfin, les classements des fonds produits avec des performances basées sur des objectifs sont comparés à ceux obtenus par des méthodes alternatives basées sur les préférences. Le taux de rendement cible et l’intensité relative des attitudes face aux gains versus pertes sont des facteurs clés pour relier le cadre basé sur les objectifs avec les mesures de performance traditionnelles.

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Silvia Peracchi

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, IRES)

will give a presentation on 

Violence Next Door: How Conflict Reconfigures Regional Trade and Development

Abstract

Conflicts and civil wars have major economic consequences, both domestically and beyond their borders. This paper examines a key cross-country implication of civil wars, namely their role as external shocks to trade linkages. To do so, it exploits the 2002 civil war in Côte d’Ivoire as a quasi-natural experiment for causal evidence. The conflict temporarily harmed Ivorian markets and limited access to the Port of Abidjan, prompting its landlocked trade partners, Mali and Burkina Faso, to redirect regional and overseas trade flows to other coastal countries in West Africa. We analyze whether coastal countries competing with Côte d’Ivoire benefited from this redirected trade. Treatment is defined as areas in West African coastal countries best connected to international trade routes. Our findings suggest persistently higher economic activity in areas more exposed to international corridors following the exogenous trade shock. These effects are observed in the form of land-cover indicators of human settlement and cropland extent, built-up areas, population, and nighttime lights. Evidence from the Demographic and Health Surveys further point to increases in female employment and human capital. Taken together, these results highlight how conflict-induced trade disruptions can generate significant agglomeration effects and lead to persistent spatial reallocation of economic activity.

With Evie Graus (University of Luxembourg)

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Joel Van der Weele

(University of Amsterdam)

will give a presentation on 

Rationalizations and Political Polarization

Abstract 

We present a self- and social-signaling model formalizing findings in political psychology that moral and political judgments stem primarily from intuition and emotion, while reasoning serves to rationalize these intuitions to maintain an image of impartiality. In social interactions, agents’ rationalizations are strategic complements: others’ rationalizations weaken their ability to judge critically and make their actions less revealing of (inconvenient) truths. When agents are naive about their own rationalizations, our model predicts ideological and affective polarization, with each side assigning inappropriate motives to the other. Cross-partisan exchanges of narratives reduce polarization but are avoided by the agents. In within-group ex- changes agents favor skilled speakers, whose narratives worsen polarization. Our model explains partisan disagreements over policy consequences, aligns with empirical polarization trends, and offers insights into efforts to disrupt echo chambers.

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Mario Larch

(University of Bayreuth)

will give a presentation on 

Inverted Gravity: New Targets, Same Old Models?

Abstract 

Traditional international trade analyses aim at evaluating the effects of policy changes on trade and welfare (e.g., the impact of the 2022 sanctions on Russia), and there are well-established tools (e.g., structural gravity) to perform such analyses. Recently, the need for trade policy intervention has often been motivated by outcome targets (e.g., resilience, strategic autonomy, and balanced trade). However, there are no good tools to quantify/characterize the policies that are needed to achieve the desired outcomes (e.g., what is the tariff change between Russia and China that would offset the impact of the sanctions on Russia in terms of trade and/or welfare). The main contribution of this paper is to propose such tools. A byproduct of our methods is that they also deliver novel indexes of bilateral trade costs that take general equilibrium linkages into account.

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Angel Pandit

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, IRES)

will give a presentation on 

Female Political Leaders and Women’s Labor Supply: Evidence from Close Elections in India

Abstract

 I examine whether female political representation affects women’s economic behavior in India. I combine a large nationally representative household panel tracking individual employment outcomes from 2016 to 2024 with detailed state assembly election results. To identify causal effects, I exploit close elections between male and female candidates in a regression discontinuity design. I find that when a female candidate narrowly defeats a male opponent, women in the constituency significantly increase their hours worked, conditional on already being employed. However, female leadership does not increase women’s new entry into the labor force, and overall female labor force participation remains unchanged. These findings suggest that female political representation operates along the intensive margin of labor supply rather than by expanding participation at the extensive margin.

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Luigi Boggian

(PSE)

will give a presentation on 

Financial Incentives for Diabetes Management in Primary Care: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Italy

Abstract

This study evaluates the causal impact of a pay-for-performance program on diabetes monitoring quality in primary care. Introduced in 2014 in the Province of Verona (Italy), the program offered general practitioners capitation-based bonuses for improving the completeness of electronic health records for diabetic patients aged 65 and above. Using administrative data on approximately 200 GPs across three Local Health Units over 2010–2017, we employ two complementary identification strategies: a staggered event study exploiting the temporal rollout of the policy and a difference-in-discontinuities design leveraging the age-65 eligibility threshold.

We address three research questions using five outcomes. First, we examine whether the incentive improved diabetes monitoring on the extensive margin (share of patients receiving at least one annual HbA1c test) and the intensive margin (average number of HbA1c tests per patient). Second, we assess its effect on diagnostic documentation quality, measured as the share of diabetic patients with a formal diagnosis recorded in the GP's clinical records. Third, we investigate potential spillover effects on broader healthcare utilisation, captured by average GP consultations and antidiabetic prescriptions (ATC code A10) per patient.

Both approaches yield consistent results. The incentive produced immediate and significant increases in HbA1c monitoring, raising the share of patients tested by approximately 13–14 percentage points and increasing test frequency. These effects concentrate in the first two post-treatment years and emerge precisely at the age-65 threshold. Importantly, we find no significant effects on GP consultations, diagnostic recording, or prescription intensity, indicating improved adherence to monitoring protocols without distortions to broader care patterns. Gender-stratified analyses reveal similar responses for male and female patients. Robustness checks—including donut-hole designs, spillover tests, and placebo cutoff analyses—support the identifying assumptions and suggest that mild pre-trends in some specifications reflect beneficial within-physician spillovers rather than anticipatory behavior. Our findings demonstrate that even modest administrative incentives tied to electronic record quality can meaningfully improve chronic disease monitoring in publicly contracted primary care systems.

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Ludovic Panon

(Bank of Italy)

will give a presentation on 

Superstar Buyers, Financial Crises, and Firm-to-Firm Reallocation

(with Sergi Basco (Universitat Barcelona) and Enrico Sette (ECB and CEPR)

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Sascha Becker 

(University of Warwick)

will give a presentation on 

From the Death of God to the Rise of Hitler 

Abstract

Can weakened religiosity facilitate the rise of totalitarianism? The Nazi Party set itself up as a political religion, emphasizing redemption, sacrifice, rituals, and communal spirit. This had a major impact on its success: Where the Christian Church only had shallow roots, the Nazis received higher electoral support and saw more party entry. “Shallow Christianity” reflects the geography of medieval Christianization and the strength of pagan practices, which we use as sources of exogenous variation. We also find predictive power at the individual level: Within each municipality, the likelihood of joining the Nazi Party was higher for those with less Christian first names. Data from Italy suggests that the phenomenon is not limited to the German case – more religious Italian communes supported the fascist movement less.

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Sandy Tubeuf

(UCLouvain, IRSS /IDAM, IRES)

will give a presentation on 

Recognition and discouragement: asymmetric effects of success and failure on academic performance

Abstract

We study how brief motivational shocks administered during a break in a mathematics test affect student performance. In a cluster randomized controlled trial involving 296 schools and approximately 7,400 Grade 8 students in rural Bangladesh, students were randomly assigned to one of four arms: (i) a recreational break (control), (ii) completing a maze puzzle before the break, (iii) maze completion followed by public disclosure of success after the break, and (iv) maze completion followed by public disclosure and a symbolic reward. We find that maze completion significantly increases post-break mathematics performance among students who solve the maze correctly, but reduces performance among those who fail. Public announcements amplify both effects: recognition boosts high performers while further discouraging low performers. Introducing a symbolic reward raises performance among successful students relative to the control group, though less than simple public recognition, and intensifies negative effects for unsuccessful students. These findings highlight how seemingly benign micro-interventions can magnify achievement gaps during high-stakes tasks.

(with Niaz Asadullah, Alain Trannoy, Gaston Yalonetzky)

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Reinhold Kesler

(Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics)

will give a presentation on 

Existence, Antecedents and Consequences of Non-Compliance in Mobile App Markets

Abstract

Digital platforms, now ubiquitous intermediaries in the modern economy, implement various governance rules (e.g., transparency requirements) with the purported goal of ensuring a level playing field for their participants. However, there is limited research exploring whether these rules are effective or even enforced, or whether platform participants can successfully avoid complying with platform requirements to gain unfair advantages. Therefore, this manuscript examines non-compliance in the mobile app market. The empirical study compares app developers’ disclosed versus actual behavior concerning the transfer of device IDs for advertising purposes. To this end, we analyze data for 852 apps available on Apple and Google platforms across 19 countries. The findings reveal that about 40% of apps are non-compliant, meaning they claim not to transfer device IDs despite doing so in practice. Compliance is more prevalent among apps catering to Apple (EU) users than Google (non-European) users. Notably, older apps and apps with more resources demonstrate greater compliance. However, popularity and reputation do not explain compliance. Moreover, compliance varies as a function of app category, as well as the app’s connections to specific supply-side platforms. Intriguingly, non-compliant apps earn at least 10% more advertising revenue than they would if they were compliant, thus gaining a significant economic edge.

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Rossana Scebba

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, IRES)

will give a presentation on

Network-mediated screening under uncertainty: Evidence from early modern academic publishing (1500-1800)

Abstract

In markets with limited information about individual quality, economic agents might turn to relational structures to screen unknown counterparts, even more so in times of uncertainty. I study this mechanism in the early modern academic book trade of the historical Low Countries. The Low Countries occupied a unique position in the European Reformation: as the Habsburg dynastic heartland and home to the Catholic bulwark of the University of Louvain, they were at the forefront of systematic anti-heresy censorship as Calvinist and Lutheran ideas spread rapidly across the region. This generated an unusually intense and well-documented sequence of regulatory shocks, until the Dutch Revolt (1568–1648) fractured the market into a censorial Catholic South and a tolerant commercial North, with the 1585 Fall of Antwerp marking a sharp divergence in censorship regimes. Using scholars' affiliation records from the Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae (RETE) to reconstruct collegial ties based on co-presence at European university faculties, and inferring professional ties between academic authors and printers/publishers from bibliographic records of the Short Title Catalogues of Flanders and the Netherlands (STCV; STCN), I examine whether reputational spillovers shaped access to first publication and whether censorship-induced uncertainty amplified their role.

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Cecilia García Peñalosa

(Aix - Marseille School of Economics)

will give a presentation on 

Technology Adoption and Women’s Rights: Evidence from Switzerland (with Bjorn Brey and Edoardo Cefala)

Abstract

Gender equality and economic growth have historically tended to move together yet identifying causal effects has been difficult. This paper uses data on the support for female suffrage in Switzerland in order to explore the impact of technology adoption on gender norms. We argue that the early adoption of electricity was conducive to local economic development, which in turn led to more egalitarian views on gender. To identify causality, we exploit geographic differences in the potential to generate electricity from waterpower. Our results show that early electricity adoption (by the 1910s) had a lasting impact on municipality vote shares in support of female suffrage in the groundbreaking 1959 referendum. We complement this finding with Cantonal referendums on female voting rights and federal electoral results to show that higher support for female political participation is observed in the data since the 1920s. 

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William Parienté

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, IRES)

will give a presentation on 

How Big Does a “Big Push” Need to Be? Evidence from Randomizing Asset Transfer Size

Abstract

Poverty is persistent but the evidence regarding the existence of poverty traps is mixed. In the presence of a poverty trap, only cost-intensive “big push” interventions such as the increasingly popular poverty graduation model can durably improve living standards. We carry out a cluster randomized trial of a graduation program in Upper-Egypt varying experimentally the size of the transfer (between full- and half-transfer), and evaluate these interventions up to 40 months after the start of the intervention. Positive impacts on asset ownership and consumption are sustained over time and remain sizeable at the 40-month mark, for both half- and full-transfer beneficiaries. A test comparing the effect of the half- and full-transfer treatments on post-transfer asset dynamics at different points in the baseline asset distribution yields no support for the presence of an asset-threshold poverty trap in our context.

(With R.Assaad, A.Osman and C.Valente)”

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Chair International Francqui Professorship

Prof. Ian McKeague | Lecture : "The Tukey-Dyer method"

Abstract:  
As well as coining the word software, John Tukey famously remarked that the best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s backyard.  Tukey's point was that being a statistician gives the freedom to pursue an interest in almost any field.  In this two-part talk, I will argue for what I call the Tukey-Dyer method: the inspired choice of "a slight corner on something" as the starting point for creative work, even when you are not an expert.  The first part of the talk will discuss how the method can be useful in searching for novel ideas in statistics, whether A.I. can play a role, and how the method has helped start various projects I have been involved with over my career.  The second part of the talk will focus on recent work in the areas of functional data analysis and post-selection inference in which the Tukey-Dyer method has had an influence.

REGISTRATION  (deadline for registration April 5th)

When: 10:00-12:30 on April 16th.

Where: ‘Doyen’ Building (Auditorium Doyen 21), Place des Doyens, 1348 Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve. The easiest access is by entering via Place Rabelais. The room is on the 2nd floor.

More details about associated events are available at: https://feb.kuleuven.be/research/decision-sciences-and-information-management/events/FrancquiMcKeague

For all other information and specific requests, please reach out to: nancy.guillaume@uclouvain.be - eugen.pircalabelu@uclouvain.be 

For the local organizing committee at UCLouvain,
Prof. Catherine Legrand
Prof. Eugen Pircalabelu

Giorgia Marini

(Sapienza University of Rome)

will give a presentation on 

Waiting Times and Waiting Lists in the NHS: Theory, Evidence, and the Role of Hospital Mergers

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between waiting times and waiting lists in the English National Health Service (NHS), where—contrary to standard queuing logic—we observe a not always positively correlation between the two. We first develop a theoretical model in which hospitals choose service volumes under regulated prices and semi-altruistic preferences. The model predicts that the interaction between treatment volume decisions and backlog accumulation gives rise to a non-monotonic relation between waiting lists and waiting times. We then test this prediction using a panel of English hospitals and find evidence of a not always positive relationship between waiting list size and average waiting time. Finally, we estimate the causal effects of hospital mergers on waiting lists using staggered difference-in-differences methods, showing how consolidation shapes access to care under capacity constraints.

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Marius Roland

(INRIA Lille)

will give a presentation on 

On Multidimensional Disjunctive Inequalities for Chance-Constrained Stochastic Problems with Finite Support

Abstract:

"This presentation addresses linear Chance-Constrained Stochastic Problems (CCSPs) with finite support. We begin by motivating the study of CCSPs through illustrative examples and providing intuition regarding the concept of feasibility in this context. Subsequently, we discuss the computational challenges inherent to these problems, specifically the nonconvex structure of the feasible region and the limitations of the standard big-M reformulation. These challenges necessitate the use of branch-and-cut approaches.
To this end, we review existing families of valid inequalities, such as quantile inequalities [1] and mixing inequalities [2]. This background sets the stage for the primary contribution of this work: a new class of valid inequalities termed multi-disjunctive inequalities. We construct these inequalities by exploiting a disjunctive property inherent to the mathematical formulation of CCSPs. Theoretical analysis reveals that the closure of these multi-disjunctive inequalities constitutes a proper subset of the closure generated by previously proposed families.
We perform numerical experiments within a pure cutting-plane framework to compare the closures obtained by enumerating all violated valid inequalities. The results demonstrate that multi-disjunctive inequalities significantly strengthen the continuous relaxation of the considered CCSPs compared to existing quantile and mixing-set inequalities. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of these inequalities embedded within a branch-and-cut framework. Our results indicate that the proposed approach significantly outperforms existing methods on both standard
literature instances and newly generated instances designed to be computationally challenging. 
[1] W. Xie and S. Ahmed, On quantile cuts and their closure for chance constrained optimization problems, Mathematical Programming, 172 (2018), pp. 621-64
[2]  J. Luedtke, S. Ahmed, and G. L. Nemhauser, An integer programming approach for linear programs with probabilistic constraints, Mathematical Programming 122 (2010), pp. 247- 272"

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Auguste Debroise

(Unamur)

will give a presentation on

The social image cost of motherhood. Evidence from the movie industry

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the child penalty in the movie industry. Using career data from IMDb for nearly 5,000 actors and actresses who appeared in top-grossing films between 1990 and 2022, combined with a database of approximately 30 million newspaper articles, we document how motherhood shapes both professional trajectories and public representation. We find a substantial and persistent child penalty for actresses. Ten years after their first birth, women experience a 15–20 percentage point decline in the number and quality of roles, as well as a 20 percentage point drop in total box office exposure. Notably, this penalty extends beyond on-screen work: off-screen occupations such as directing and producing are even more severely affected, suggesting that the penalty is not driven solely by audience preferences. On the media side, we document a striking divergence: controlling for career activity, mothers receive only half the newspaper mentions of fathers a decade after the birth of their first child. When they do appear in the press, coverage increasingly frames them in family-related terms rather than professional ones. Crucially, exploiting variation in gender norms across US states, we find that the drop in media coverage is significantly larger in more conservative states, holding maternal behavior constant. This provides suggestive causal evidence that the disappearance of mothers from public discourse is not solely driven by changes in their own behavior, but also reflects how society's perception of women shifts upon motherhood.

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Mariapia Mendola

(Università di Milano Bicocca)

will give a presentation on 

Hacking Anti-Immigration Attitudes and Stereotypes: a Field Experiment in Italian High-Schools

Abstract

In advanced economies, growing population diversity often fuels hostility toward immigrants and deepens social divides.  We study a short educational program for high-school students designed to promote cultural diversity and improve attitudes toward immigration through active learning. Using a randomized controlled trial involving 4,500 students from 252 classes across 40 schools in northern Italy, we find that the program fostered more positive attitudes and behaviors toward immigrants, particularly in more diverse classrooms. In terms of mechanisms, the intervention reduced students' misperceptions and shifted perceived classroom norms, but did not affect implicit bias, empathy, or social networks. Our findings indicate that anti-immigration attitudes largely stem from stereotypes and broad societal concerns, and that educational programs combining factual learning with norm-shaping elements, such as critical thinking and structured intergroup engagement, can effectively mitigate them.

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Charles de Beauffort

(National Bank of Belgium) 

will give a presentation on

Tradable Goods Demand and Fiscal Policy in HANK

 Abstract

We revisit the effects of government consumption expansions in an open-economy New Keynesian model with two production sectors—tradable goods and non-tradable services. Empirically, we show that both consumption and output rise in each sector, even though government consumption is concentrated in services. Introducing household heterogeneity helps resolve these previously puzzling sectoral co-movements. Our quantitative framework incorporates local content in distributed foreign goods and imperfect labor mobility across sectors. Disposable income increases with public demand, boosting private consumption in both sectors. Under plausible calibration, these income-driven consumption gains outweigh the adverse competitiveness effects, generating a positive response of tradable output. Finally, when we allow government consumption to contain a realistic share of tradable inputs, the heterogeneous-agent model delivers sectoral dynamics that closely align with those implied by structural Bayesian VAR estimates for the United States.

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Sumit Shrivastav

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, CORE)

will give a presentation on 

Two-sided platform competition with fixed wages 

Abstract

This paper studies how fixed, wage-like compensation affects competition between two-sided platforms. We develop a two-sided Hotelling model with heterogeneous sellers who choose between interaction-based pay and a fixed wage, while buyers value both the number and the intensity of seller interactions. Platforms decide whether to offer a wage option and set access prices on both sides. We characterize equilibria when no platform, both platforms, or only one platform offers a wage, and compare profits and participation. Fixed wages act as a screening device for seller types and can raise platform profits and seller surplus.

(with Paul Belleflamme)

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Fabio Mariani

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, IRES)

will give a presentation on 

The shadow of Rome: Fascism, nation building and the political legacy of history.

Abstract

In pre-WWII Italy, the Fascist regime mobilized the country’s shared Roman heritage for nation-building. Roman history offered a unifying identity and a rich repertoire of nationalist symbols for a country that had remained fragmented since the fall of the Roman Empire. We advance and empirically test the hypothesis that this narrative resonated more strongly in municipalities with a deeper Roman legacy, proxied by the presence of Roman settlements and inscriptions (from archaeological records).

We show that this translated into stronger support for post-Fascist nationalist parties following the return to democracy. Conversely, municipalities with a more tangible Roman past were less susceptible to centrifugal political forces and were less likely to vote for regionalist parties, particularly the Lega following its independentist turn. We explore potential mechanisms linking Roman heritage to local political identity through cultural and ideological values.

Finally, we show that in the absence of a political reactivation of history, past Roman presence does not predict the success of nationalist parties.

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The Social Origins of Economic Opportunity:
Theory and Evidence

 

Presentation: 

On June 12, 2026 at 2pm in Louvain-la-Neuve (Aula Magna) Raj Chetty will give a presentation on:
 

The Social Origins of Economic Opportunity:
Theory and Evidence

Children from low-income families often have poor economic opportunities -- a fact that underlies many social and political challenges today. Canonical economic theories of income dynamics emphasize liquidity constraints in investing in human capital as the key factor that hinders upward income mobility across generations.  This talk will first present a summary of recent empirical evidence showing that social connections shape both individuals’ long-term outcomes and the peer groups people join (such as neighborhoods or schools), thereby influencing the formation of social capital itself. It will then present a new equilibrium theory of income dynamics across generations in which social capital influences both the choice of peer groups and individuals' outcomes.  The model explains several features of aggregate trends in economic inequality and mobility that are challenging to explain with existing theories. The talk will conclude by characterizing the impacts of policy interventions to promote economic mobility. The model predicts that redistributive financial transfers and loans for human capital investment have little impact on economic mobility in equilibrium. Policies that promote social integration (e.g., social support for moving to mixed-income neighborhoods) and place-based investments that increase employment among adults in low-income neighborhoods (e.g., targeted job training programs) have greater promise for expanding economic opportunity.

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Matt Lowe

(Vancouver School of Economics)

will give a presentation on 

Identity Uncertainty

Abstract

Social identity is not always directly observable: individuals may choose to mask identity markers, and these strategic decisions may or may not succeed in shifting others’ beliefs about their identity. We study the economic and social effects of identity concealment in the context of caste in India—a social identity that is not visibly discernible. We paired high- and low-caste men for data entry tasks and randomly assigned these pairs to interact under one of three conditions: with knowledge of full names, including caste-distinctive surnames (Revealed); with first names only, giving participants the freedom to hide or reveal identity (First Name Only); or with instructions to keep caste identity hidden (Hidden). The First Name Only and Hidden conditions have strong negative effects on whether a participant correctly guesses their partner's caste at endline, and increase uncertainty in their guesses. These identity-concealment conditions reduce trust and weaken social relations, with little effect on productivity. Additional analyses suggest that the key mechanism is uncertainty about caste identity. Our findings are contrary to the conventional wisdom that group boundaries hinder social relations—we find that disclosure of group identity brings partners together.

(with Anujit Chakraborty (UC Davis), Arkadev Ghosh (Duke), and Gareth Nellis (UPenn))

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Artur Doshchyn

(University of Bristol)

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Fiscal inflation and monetary policy under preferred habitat

Abstract

We integrate the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level with a preferred-habitat model of the bond market, in which yields are determined by the interaction of habitat investors and risk-averse arbitrageurs rather than by a consumption-smoothing representative household. Combining these frameworks lets us study fiscal inflation in an environment where term premia and bond prices reflect intermediary risk-bearing capacity as well as the level and the maturity composition of public debt. We use the framework to revisit how monetary, fiscal, and debt management policies jointly shape inflation.

(with Rigas Oikonomou and Martin Ellison)

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Adeola Oyenubi

(University of the Witwatersand Johannesburg)

will give a presentation on 

Country and firm-level heterogeneity in gender gaps during a crisis: Does pre-existing inequality matter?

Abstract

Nascent literature on individual-level gender gaps reveals that the gap is heterogeneous, such that it is possible to identify individual characteristics associated with very large, as well as very small (or even reversed) gender gaps. This indicates that women are not a homogeneous group when it comes to the gender gap. This study is the first to apply similar logic to gender gaps at the firm level under the hypothesis that women-owned informal firms are not homogeneous regarding gender inequality in labour productivity.
The study is based on the most comprehensive cross-country data on informal enterprises in urban developing contexts. First, using an interaction model, I explore the relationship between pre-COVID-19 pandemic country-level gender-related inequality (measured by the UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index (GII)) and the gender gap in labour productivity during the pandemic. Second, I generalize the interaction model using the Sorted Effects analysis which provides a complete mapping of heterogeneity in firm-level gender productivity gap by ordering the full distribution of the partial effects from largest to smallest.
Results show a robust negative relationship between pre-pandemic GII and productivity during the pandemic. Further, female-owned informal enterprises in less egalitarian (or high GII) countries experienced larger gender gaps than their counterparts in more egalitarian countries. The result also supports the hypothesis of heterogeneity in gender gaps. Specifically, I found that the gender gap is heterogeneous in owner, firm and country-level characteristics. Result suggests that improving gender equity is a prudent way to prepare for economic crisis.

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Uma Kollamparambil

(University of Witwatersrand Johannesburg)

will give a presentation on 

Life Satisfaction and Basic Public Service Delivery Satisfaction: A Trend and Decomposition analysis

Abstract

This longitudinal study (2011-2024) analyses the relationship between satisfaction with basic public services and life satisfaction in Gauteng, South Africa. It addresses a critical gap in the literature, being the first such longitudinal exploration of the role of basic amenities in driving life satisfaction trends. Trend analysis reveals a significant co-movement: a recent, rapid deterioration in satisfaction with amenities (water, sanitation, electricity, roads, costs) parallels a non-linear trend in life satisfaction that peaked in 2015 before declining. This pattern was consistent across sub-populations by gender and political generations. However, pronounced disparities emerged across socioeconomic status, with the highest wealth quintile reporting consistently higher satisfaction, albeit showing a steeper decline in recent years. A concerning generational gap has also materialized, with the post-apartheid generation reporting significantly lower life satisfaction in the most recent period of study.
Regression and decomposition analyses confirm basic service delivery as a universal driver of well-being. Satisfaction with core services significantly influenced life satisfaction trends, acting as a positive driver during improvements and a negative driver during decline. The socioeconomic life satisfaction gap is primarily attributed to disparities in the levels of public service satisfaction, not differential returns to it. The generational gap is chiefly explained by wealth inequalities.
The findings underscore that enhancing overall life satisfaction requires improved delivery of basic amenities. Furthermore, bridging persistent gaps necessitates targeted service delivery to disadvantaged groups and a focused effort on the structural inequalities driving generational discontent.

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