Calendrier du 20 juin 2019
Macroeconomics Seminar
Du 20/06/2019 de 15:45 à 17:00
PSE - 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris, salle R2-01
STORESLETTEN Kjetil (University of Oslo)
Business Cycle during Structural Change: Arthur Lewis' Theory from a Neoclassical Perspective
écrit avec Bo Zhao, Fabrizio Zilibotti
We document that the nature of business cycles evolves over the process of development and
structural change. In countries with large declining agricultural sectors, aggregate employment is
uncorrelated with GDP. During booms, employment in agriculture declines while labor productivity
increases in agriculture more than in other sectors. We construct a unified theory of business
cycles and structural change consistent with the stylized facts. The focal point of the theory is the
simultaneous decline and modernization of agriculture. As capital accumulates, agriculture becomes
increasingly capital intensive as modern agriculture crowds out traditional agriculture. Structural
change accelerates in booms and slows down in recessions. We estimate the model and show that it
accounts well for both the structural transformation and the business cycle fluctuations of China.
Texte intégral
Travail et économie publique externe
Du 20/06/2019 de 12:30 à 13:45
LINDNER Attila (University College London)
Technological Change and Skill Demand in Non-Competitive Labor Markets
écrit avec Co-author: Balazs Murakozy // NOTE - Room change: R2-01
This paper investigates the consequences of technological change in the presence of non-competitive labor markets. We propose a model of technological progress where firms invest in innovation in the hope of developing new technologies. A successful innovation elevates firm-level labor demand, and so firms have to raise wages to hire more workers. Unlike in models where wages are set competitively, in this framework firm-level wage responses reveal information about the nature of technological change. We show that one can infer the extent which technological change is skill biased by jointly investigating the effect of innovation on the firm-level skill ratio and on the skill wage premium. We apply this idea by exploiting unique firm-level innovation surveys linked to employee-employer data from Hungary and Norway. We show that firm-level technological change raises the skill ratio and also the skill premium in both countries. The increase in the skill-premium is not driven by the change in composition of the workforce and, in line with the predictions of the non-competitive labor markets, wages of new entrants are also affected. Both high- (e.g. R&D based) and low-novelty value innovations are equally skill biased. Among low-novelty innovation types, technological innovation are the most skill-biased, while organizational innovation is less so.
Behavior seminar
Du 20/06/2019 de 11:00 à 12:00
salle R2-01, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris
MEIER Armando (University of Basel)
Emotions, Risk Attitudes, and Patience
Previous work has shown that preferences are not always stable across time, but surprisingly little is known about the reasons for this instability. I examine whether variation in people’s emotions over time predicts changes in preferences. Using a large panel data set, I find that within-person changes in happiness, anger, and fear have substantial effects on risk attitudes and patience. Robustness checks indicate a limited role of alternative explanations. I further address potential endogeneity concerns by exploiting information about the death of a parent or child. This identification strategy confirms a large causal impact of emotions on preferences.