The OMDS/VGSE Vienna Joint Economics seminar is held weekly on Thursdays during the term.
VJE-Seminars scheduled in March:
- Speaker: Zeno Enders (University of Heidelberg)
- Title: The Experience Formation Mechanism (joint work with Christian Conrad and Alexander Glas)
- Time: Thursday, March 13, 1:15 – 2:45 pm
- Location: Lecture Hall 12, OMP-1
- Abstract: We show that inflation expectations of households do not depend on experienced inflation directly; they are rather influenced by remembered inflation. This makes a difference as remembered and actually experienced inflation generally differ. We therefore investigate how inflation experiences are formed and what they depend on. Our main findings are: (i) On average, households overestimate lifetime inflation. (ii) While higher remembered lifetime inflation leads to higher expectations of future inflation rates, there is no such effect for actually experienced inflation. (iii) Negative emotions associated with inflation increase the upward bias of inflation memories, while higher actual inflation rates reduce it. We derive at theoretical model that accounts for the empirical evidence.
- Speaker: Patrick Rey (Toulouse School of Economics)
- Title: TBA
- Time: Thursday, March 20, 1:15 – 2:45 pm
- Location: Lecture Hall 12, OMP-1
- Abstract: TBA
- Speaker: Nina Buchmann (Yale University)
- Title: Paternalistic Discrimination
- Time: Thursday, March 6, 1:15 – 2:45 pm
- Location: Lecture Hall 12, OMP-1
- Abstract: We combine two field experiments in Bangladesh with a structural labor model to identify paternalistic discrimination, the differential treatment of two groups to protect one group, even against its will, from harmful or unpleasant situations. We observe hiring and application decisions for a night-shift job that provides worker transport at the end of the shift. In the first experiment, we use information about the transport to vary employers' perceptions of job costs to female workers while holding taste-based and statistical discrimination constant: Not informing employers about the transport decreases demand for female labor by 21%. Employers respond more to transport information than cash payments to female workers that enable workers to purchase transport themselves. In the second experiment, not informing applicants about the transport reduces female labor supply by 15%. In structural simulations, paternalistic discrimination has a larger effect on gender employment and wage gaps than taste-based and statistical discrimination.
