THEMA

Alessia PACCAGNINI - UNIVERSITY College Dublin

cmoncelon — 2023-03-27T08:05:00Z

" Gender Bias in Entrepreneurship : what is the Role of Founder's Entrepreneurial Background " ? will present : and Luca Pistilli (University College Dublin) with Stefano Breschi (Bocconi University) and Franco Malerba (Bocconi University) Œ

- Webinaire Economie du Genre et de la Famille

Alexia DELFINO - BOCCONI UNIVERSITY

cmoncelon — 2023-02-13T11:00:00Z

"Female entrepreneurship and trust in the market" (joint with N. Ashraf and E. Glaeser)

- Webinaire Economie du Genre et de la Famille

Manuel BAGUES - UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

cmoncelon — 2023-01-24T15:00:00Z

"Term limits and women's political representation" joint with Carolina Kansikas

Abstract : The generational change enabled by term limits could help historically under-represented groups such as women in gaining access to political power. Exploiting a quasi-natural experiment in Italy, where mayoral term limits were extended from 2 to 3 consecutive terms in municipalities with less than 3000 inhabitants, we find that term limits strongly accelerate the access of women to top political positions. In municipalities not affected by the extension of term limits, the share of female mayors increased by 5 p.p., relative to a baseline of 10%. The effect is stronger in municipalities where women were more represented in lower levels of the political hierarchy, highlighting the relevance of supply considerations in assessing the effectiveness of term limits in increasing women's representation.

Melanie Wasserman - UCLA Anderson School of Management

Idefferrard — 2022-10-01T08:00:00Z

Melanie Wasserman (UCLA Anderson School of Management) will present "The Summer Drop in Female Employment" (joint with Brendan Price).

Abstract :
We provide the first systematic account of summer declines in women's labor market activity. From May to July, the employment-to-population ratio among prime-age US women declines by 1.1 percentage points, whereas male employment rises ; women's total hours worked fall by 11 percent, twice the decline among men. School closures for summer break—and corresponding lapses in implicit childcare—provide a unifying explanation for these patterns. The summer drop in female employment aligns with cross-state differences in the timing of school closures, is concentrated among mothers with young school-age children, and coincides with increased time spent engaging in childcare. Decomposing the gender gap in summer work interruptions across job types defined by sector and occupation, we find large contributions from both gender differences in job allocation and gender differences within jobs in the propensity to exit employment over the summer. Summer childcare constraints may contribute to gender gaps in career choice and earnings : women—particularly those with young school-age children—disproportionately work in the education sector, which offers greater summer flexibility but lower compensation relative to comparable jobs outside of education.

Erin HENGEL - London School of Economics, Department of Social Policy

Idefferrard — 2022-09-10T08:00:00Z

Erin Hengel (London School of Economics, Department of Social Policy) will present “Gender and the time cost of peer review”.

Abstract :
In this paper, we investigate one factor that can directly contribute to—as well as indirectly shed light on the other causes of—the gender gap in academic publications : time spent in peer review. Using administrative data from an economics field journal, we find that in each round of review, referees spend 4.4 more days reviewing female-authored papers and female authors spend 12.3 more days revising their manuscripts. However, both gender gaps decline—and eventually disappear—as the same referee reviews more papers. This pattern suggests novice referees initially statistically discriminate against female authors, but are less likely to do so as their information about and confidence in the peer review process improves. More generally, our results suggest that women may be particularly disadvantaged when evaluators are less familiar with the objectives and parameters of an assessment framework.

Bastian SCHULZ - Aarhus University

Idefferrard — 2022-07-01T08:00:00Z

Bastian Schulz (Aarhus University) will present "Marriage and Divorce under Labor Market Uncertainty"

Abstract :
We extend transferable-utility search-matching model of the marriage market by allowing men and women to make labor search intensity decisions both on and off the job based on their current and future marriage market status. For singles, reservation wages depend on current wages/transfers, home production, and the marriage market option value. For couples, reservation wages additionally depend on the type and labor market status of both spouses, a match-specific shock, and the propensity to divorce upon transitioning in the labor market. Thus, divorces are triggered by either match-specific shocks or labor market transitions, but not all shocks/transitions lead to divorce. We structurally estimate the model using German micro data. The estimated model allows us to decompose the observed divorce flow into divorces due to match-specific shocks and “labor market divorces”. Preliminary findings suggest that the share of labor market divorces rose to more than 20% during the 2000s in Germany. Much of this increase is driven by previously unemployed married women who start working, a trend that can be linked to the labor market reforms of the mid 2000s.

Huali WU - ESSEC

Idefferrard — 2022-04-28T08:00:00Z

Huali Wu (ESSEC) will present "Does early marriage shape gender role attitudes ? Evidence from a schooling reform in China"

Abstract :
Experiences early in life durably shape individual attitudes. Since gender is a prominent part of an individual's identity and culture, and marriage determines both the incentive structure and available choice sets for women in the family, this study asks whether early marriage is one of these experiences that influences the formation of gender roles. However, identifying the impact of early marriage on attitudes is challenging because attitudes may affect the decision to marry early. To address this reverse causality concern, I employ the Compulsory Schooling Law of 1986 in China, which provides exogenous variation in the decision to postpone marriage for both men and women. To capture the dynamic matching process in marriage, the Compulsory Schooling Law of spouses is an additional instrumental variable. I identify a robust negative causal relationship between early marriage and progressive gender role attitudes. By manipulating the schooling channel on marriage among groups with heterogeneous effects of the law, I identify the causal relationships between exposure to marriage and gender role attitudes. By examining the effects of years of schooling reform on non-gender-related attitudes, I rule out the direct effect of schooling on attitudes. This paper sheds light on the dynamic interplay between marriage as a formal institution and gender role attitudes as an informal institution. Further, it provides evidence of an additional channel through which an increased length of schooling for young girls, particularly from disadvantaged households, can improve their future welfare by postponing their age at first marriage and, by doing so, developing more progressive gender role attitudes.

Joanne HADDAD - ECARES

Idefferrard — 2022-04-14T08:00:00Z

Haddad Joanne (ECARES) will present "Settlers and Norms".

Abstract :
The distinctive traits of early settlers at initial stages of institutional development may be crucial for cultural formation. In 1973, the cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky postulated this in his doctrine of “first effective settlement”. There is however little empirical evidence supporting the role of early settlers in shaping culture over the long run. This paper tests this hypothesis by relating early settlers' culture to within state variation in gender norms in the United States. I capture settlers' culture using past female labor force participation, women's suffrage, and financial rights at their place of origin. I document the distinctive characteristics of settlers' populations and provide suggestive evidence in support of the transmission of gender norms across space and time. My results show that women's labor supply is higher, in both the short and long run, in U.S. counties that historically hosted a larger settler population originating from places with favorable gender attitudes. My findings shed new light on the importance of the characteristics of immigrants and their place of origin for cultural formation in hosting societies.

Karmini SHARMA - University of Warwick

Idefferrard — 2022-02-17T09:00:00Z

Karmini Sharma (University of Warwick, Stanford King Center on Global Development) will present "Tackling Sexual Harassment : Experimental evidence from India".

Abstract :
Sexual harassment imposes substantial economic costs on the victims, yet there is limited evidence on how to effectively deter it. I present experimental evidence on the effects of a sexual harassment awareness training for college students in New Delhi, using a randomized controlled trial. I find that sexual harassment awareness training for men reduces sexual harassment reported by women in their peer groups by 0.06 standard deviations. However, the training also reduces inter-personal relationships between men and women. I find that this is driven by women's choices, using a
lab-in-the-field experiment in which women prefer to cooperate with women rather than men on an experimental task. Using a theoretical framework of signalling, I show that this is consistent with some men undertaking ``good'' behaviours even though they would prefer to harass women, to avoid disapproval from their peers. Empirically, I find that there is an increase in men's perception of peer disapproval against sexual harassment and no change in their intrinsic attitudes towards it, consistent with the theoretical predictions. I cannot reject a null effect on sexual harassment and opposite sex relationships of a similar intervention that was delivered exclusively to women in a separate college. Thus, this paper shows that it is possible to engage men for women's empowerment.

Egor MALKOV - University of Minnesota

Idefferrard — 2022-02-11T09:00:00Z

Egor Malkov (Department of Economics, University of Minnesota) will present "Optimal Income Taxation of Singles and Couples".

Abstract :
How different should income taxation be across singles and couples ? I answer this question using a general equilibrium overlapping generations model that incorporates single and married households, intensive and extensive margins of labor supply, human capital accumulation, and uninsurable idiosyncratic labor productivity risk. The degree of tax progressivity is allowed to vary with marital status. I parameterize the model to match the U.S. economy and find that couples should be taxed less progressively than singles. Relative to the actual U.S. tax system, the optimal reform reduces progressivity for couples and increases it for singles. The key determinants of optimal policy for couples relative to singles include the detrimental effects of joint taxation and progressivity on labor supply and human capital accumulation of married secondary earners, the degree of assortative mating, and within-household insurance through responses of spousal labor supply. I conclude that explicitly modeling couples and accounting for the extensive margin of labor supply and human capital accumulation is qualitatively and quantitatively important for the optimal policy design.