CESR Events Archive

Monday, January 27
12pm – 1pm
VPD 203 and Zoom
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Abstract: This paper examines the adoption and diffusion of a computer-assisted learning (CAL) platform. Using a large-scale randomized control trial involving over 1,600 teachers and 50,000 students in 188 low-performing public schools in Lima, Peru, we evaluated three treatments: (i) school-wide workshops, (ii) workshops for selected teachers, and (iii) workshops plus personalized coaching for selected teachers. Treated teachers and their students showed significantly greater engagement with the platform compared to non-treated teachers; teachers who received both workshops and coaching had significantly more students connecting regularly and completing exercises than those who only received workshops. At endline, treated teachers reported having more information, more knowledge, and more favorable attitudes about technology. Treatment effects were heterogeneous by gender, age, digital skills, and attitudes towards technology. In schools where only selected teachers were treated, we also find positive spillovers among non-treated teachers. Platform use declined markedly in subsequent years, but supplementary workshops were significantly more effective at boosting utilization for teachers who had received our interventions. We conclude that scalable low-cost training programs can significantly improve the adoption of technology by teachers.

Bio: Ofer Malamud is Professor of Human Development and Social Policy and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

Malamud is an economist focused on education policy from an international perspective. His research is concentrated in three substantive areas: educational investments over the life course, the role of technology in the formation of human capital, and the effect of general and specific education on labor market outcomes. He has studied these topics in a wide range of institutional settings across countries such as Chile, England, Israel, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Scotland, and the United States.

Malamud is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the CESifo Research Network. He also serves as a research consultant for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Before joining Northwestern, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Monday, February 3
12pm – 1pm
VPD 203 and Zoom
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Abstract: Older adults with low income face a complex set of decisions regarding safety net programs and have particularly low take-up rates. We examine how means-tested public health insurance for working-age adults affects their choices once on Medicare. We find that people in low-income areas of Medicaid expansion states choose the Medicaid supplement more often than their non-expansion state counterparts; use more healthcare; and spend less out-of-pocket. Higher Medicaid supplement take-up increases Part Dand LIS take-up through automatic enrollment. Our results suggest that Medicaid exposure before 65 causes meaningful behavioral responses among the lowest-income beneficiaries when they age into Medicare.

Bio: M. Kate Bundorf is the J. Alexander McMahon Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and a core faculty member at Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy.  She is an economist, and her research focuses on public and private health insurance and health care provider markets.

Tuesday, February 4
11am – 12pm
TCC 227 and Zoom
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Abstract: This paper estimates the degree of substitution between personal and small business credit for U.S. entrepreneurs between 2009 and 2018 using a novel, individual-level dataset. We identify the effect of business credit supply shocks by exploiting geographic variation in the market share of large banks, which sharply reduced credit supply to small businesses after the 2008 financial crisis. This contraction decreased total business credit by$13,572 per firm in our sample, and we find that entrepreneurs on average were able to substitute for about 68% of this decline with personal credit, driven by mortgages. However, entrepreneurs with subprime credit scores, below-average income, and high credit utilization do not meaningfully substitute lost business credit with personal credit. Thus, we find that the personal financial characteristics of entrepreneurs play an economically important role in overall access to external finance for small businesses.

Bio: Jialan Wang is an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Research Associate at the NBER. She holds a B.S. in mathematics from Caltech and a Ph.D. in financial economics from MIT, and has previously held positions at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St Louis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Wharton School. Her research focuses on household finance, behavioral economics, and fintech. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, and Journal of Financial Economics.

Monday, February 10
12pm – 1pm
VPD 203 and Zoom
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Abstract: What are the long-term political consequences of economic crises? We assess the enduring impact of the Great Recession on U.S. political outcomes. In line with prior work, we employ a difference-in-differences approach, leveraging geographic variation in unemployment shocks. Contrary to claims that major recessions primarily boost anti-incumbent, far-right candidates, we find that counties more severely affected by the recession experienced a sustained increase in Democratic vote shares, particularly in Congressional elections. These effects persisted through 2022. Probing mechanisms, we demonstrate that these results are unlikely to be due to persistent economic decline, demographic changes, shifts in candidate ideology, or fiscal compensation spending. Instead, survey evidence suggests that the recession lowered expectations for upward mobility, likely increasing support for redistribution and thereby benefiting Democratic candidates. Our findings expand the literature by showing that (i) severe economic shocks do not necessarily favor right-wing populists, and (ii) major downturns can continue to influence electoral outcomes long after direct economic consequences have subsided.

Bio: Dr. Hilbig graduated from the Department of Government at Harvard University in 2022. and is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. His research lies at the intersection of Comparative Politics and Political Economy. He examines how economic transformations, such as labor market shifts, the transition to renewable energy, regional inequality, and housing crises, shape politics in established democracies. His work leverages a range of research designs and data sources, including natural experiments, large-scale surveys and administrative data. Previously, He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University.

*Thursday, February 20
*1pm – 2pm
VPD 302 and Zoom
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Abstract: It has long been known that people report to have strong distaste for inflation. This is evident from analyzing direct survey reports on preferences for inflation, as well as indirectly, by showing a relationship of inflation with subjectivewellbeing and voting behavior. Most recently, it is argued that inflation caused a wave of anti-incumbent election results in Western democracies in 2024. Analyzing rich data form the Understanding America Study, a nationally representative panel survey, we find that people with indexed income understand the relationship between their income and inflation but still show a strong distaste for inflation. Other population groups who gain from inflation, such as holders of debt with fixed interest rate, also show strong distaste for inflation. Since Shiller (1997), the leading explanation for inflation aversion rests on workers failing to appreciate that inflation is behind their nominal wage increases. However, our results imply this reason cannot be the sole explanation for the pervasive inflation distaste, as it is prevalent among non-workers, and among those who know their income is inflation protected. We then discuss evidence that people misinterpret the meaning of inflation, in particular, people conflate inflation with a decrease in real income and with negative (real) economic outcomes more generally. We show, experimentally, that hearing the term “inflation” causes people to more negatively evaluate their and the country’s financial situation.  The misunderstanding of inflation has several implications for how we interpret people’s reported distaste for inflation, which has implications for macroeconomics and political economy. It can also be a piece in the puzzle to explain the “vibecession” conundrum posed by the economic data of 2023-2024, where increasing real incomes and good overall economic indicators coexisted with persisting negative perceptions of the economy.

Monday, February 24
12pm – 1pm
VPD 203 and Zoom
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Abstract: Recent work argues that the American mass opinion space is organized not only by an overarching left-right dimension (e.g., liberal-conservative ideology, Democrat-Republican partisanship), but also an orthogonal anti-establishment dimension involving conspiratorial, populist, and Manichean thought. I apply this two-dimensional framework to the study of multiple U.S. elections between 2020 and 2024, examining the relationship between left-right and anti-establishment orientations over time and estimating the relative effect of these orientations on attitudes toward political candidates and various political issues. First, I find that, while distinct anti-establishment and left-right dimensions emerge across time, they increasingly depart from the orthogonality observed in 2020––by 2024 there is a moderate correlation. Second, I find that the relative magnitude of the association between each dimension and attitudes toward various issues and candidates changes over time. For example, prior to 2020, beliefs about the safety of vaccines were correlated only with anti-establishment orientations; by 2024, the correlation with left-right orientations was just as strong. Anti-establishment orientations also differentially distinguish presidential candidates over time.

Bio: Adam Enders is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville. He is also an instructor in the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research at the University of Michigan where he teaches advanced methodology courses on measurement and scaling techniques.

Thursday, February 6
9am – 1am US Pacific Time
VPD 203 and Zoom
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BIO: I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Barcelona and a researcher at the Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB). As an applied microeconomist, my research focuses on family economics, health, and labor economics. A significant part of my work also incorporates genetic data into economic analysis.