Calendrier du 25 avril 2024
Macroeconomics Seminar
Du 25/04/2024 de 16:00 à 17:15
PSE- 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris, salle R2-21
RUGGIERI Alessandro (CUNEF Universidad)
Misallocation and Inequality
écrit avec N.Guner (CEMFI)
We document how inequality in wage and salary earnings varies with GDP per capita for a large set of countries. The mean-to-median ratio and the Gini coefficient decline as we move from poorer to richer countries. Yet, this decline masks divergent patterns: while inequality at the top of the earnings distribution falls, inequality at the bottom increases. We interpret these facts within a model economy with heterogeneous workers and firms, featuring industry dynamics, search frictions, and skill accumulation of workers through on-the-job learning and training. The benchmark economy is calibrated to the UK. We then study how the earnings distribution changes with distortions that penalize high-productivity firms and frictions that reduce match formation. Distortions and frictions reduce employment, average firm size, and GDP per capita. They also affect how much firms are willing to pay workers, how well high-skill workers are matched with high-productivity firms, and how much training workers receive. The model generates the observed cross-country relation between GDP per capita and earnings inequality and a host of cross-country facts on firm size distribution, firms’ training decisions, and workers’ life-cycle and job tenure earnings profiles.
Travail et économie publique externe
Du 25/04/2024 de 12:30 à 13:30
PSE- 48 boulevard Jourdan, 74014 Paris, salle R2-21
MACHIN Stephen (London School of Economics)
Government Contracting and Living Wages > Minimum Wages
écrit avec Nikhil Datta
Government procurement accounts for a significant share of GDP, and environmental,
social and corporate governance (ESG) clauses in government contracts have become
common across developed economies. This paper studies one of these clauses: living wages
that are set considerably higher than mandated minimum wages. When a local government
in the UK signs up to become a living wage employer, as a significant number did in the
time period we study, firms that have procurement contracts with them have to pay workers
the living wage. This variation is studied with rich matched data on workers in
establishments for a service sector company with many establishments located across the
country. Just under half of the firm’s establishments were made to comply with the living
wage as a consequence of the local government becoming a living wage employer in the
period between 2011 and 2019. In a staggered difference-in-differences research design,
low wage workers are shown to receive a significant wage boost from the living wage
introduction. Consistent with a model of monopsony power and where bottom-of-the-rung
workers and supervisors are gross complements, the living wage induced labour-labour
substitution in favour of the former. Further adjustment to the wage bill increase from the
introduction of the living wage took place through within-establishment internal changes to
the establishment pay policy structures. The overall result was that the Company was able
to absorb the wage cost shock embodied in living wage adoption in a way that significantly
narrowed establishment wage inequality.
Texte intégral
TOM (Théorie, Organisation et Marchés) Lunch Seminar
Du 25/04/2024 de 12:30 à 13:30
R1-13
SATPATHY Aviman (PSE)
Navigating Complexity in Choice under Uncertainty: Coarse Payoff-Assessment Learning Model
écrit avec Philippe Jehiel
We introduce the novel Coarse Payoff-Assessment Learning (CPAL) model that describes reinforcement learning in agents who tend to simplify the choice problems they face by focusing on the aggregate consequences of choosing over different clusters of alternatives (pre-arranged into exogenously defined similarity classes) instead of assessing each alternative individually. This technique is especially relevant in choice problems with uncertainty where the overall set of alternatives is too large to be considered extensively. We consider a smooth version of such a learning model and apply it to families of decision problems that differ in the set of available similarity classes. We first note that the steady-states of the learning dynamics correspond to a smooth (quantal) version of the Valuation Equilibrium [Jehiel and Samet, 2007]. We present examples of choice problems that reveal the possibility of multiple equilibria and verify the local asymptotic stability of pure equilibria. In contrast, we also identify conditions under which a unique, fully mixed equilibrium emerges - characterized by identical valuations across all similarity classes involved in the mixing, although the agent almost surely selects the alternative with the highest valuation. In particular, when the trivial decision problems involving a single similarity class lead to sufficiently high payoffs, we show that the latter arises, and we prove that the unique steady-state (that involves uniform randomisation) is globally asymptotically stable in the learning dynamics.
PEPES (Paris Empirical Political Economics) Working Group
Du 25/04/2024 de 12:30 à 14:00
Room H405 at Sciences Po
REYNAL-QUEROL Marta (UPF)
The Colonial Origins of State Capacity: Evidence from Spanish Conquerors in Latin America
écrit avec Tim Besley
This paper documents a link between the colonial conquerors of specific areas in Latin America and modern development as measured by luminosity in 2010. The findings suggest that the level of education of the conqueror is a potential determinant of this link. The relationship holds when looking solely at within-country variation and when we look at spatially contiguous areas in the same country that have different conquerors. We also find evidence supporting the idea that durable investments in the organization of the state that built state capacities is the main source of persistence by looking at measures of state capacity at three different dates.
Behavior seminar
Du 25/04/2024 de 11:00 à 12:00
R2-21
COLSON-SIHRA Eve (Department of Economics and PPE Program, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
How Sticky are Consumption Stereotypes? Evidence from the Meat Gender Gap
Using consumer surveys and barcode data, this study reveals a persistent 20% gap in red meat consumption between single men and women in the US. Investigating whether this disparity stems from gender stereotypes, we collect survey data to assess the influence of attitudes, beliefs, and implicit biases on meat consumption. Findings suggest that the gap is largely due to preferences and perceived needs rather than differences in beliefs about environmental, health, or ethical impacts. Moreover, an Implicit Association Test uncovers a strong bias linking meat with masculinity. The study further examines the stickiness of these consumption stereotypes through an experiment with identity priming and a de-biasing treatment, analyzing their effects on meat consumption expectations and conjoint analysis outcomes.
Behavior Working Group
Du 25/04/2024 de 10:00 à 11:00
R2-21
MAYAUX Damien(PSE)
MAYAUX Damien(PSE)
Utility and Contrast in Evidence Accumulation Models
Combining response times to choice data helps reveal preferences when decision-makers make mistakes. Evidence accumulation models, such as the Decision Diffusion Model (DDM) or the Linear Ballistic Accumulator, generate a joint distribution of choice and response times given a set of alternatives and their utility. These models have been shown to fit equally well empirical data for a given choice set. However, they generate diverging predictions about the effect of changing the utility of an alternative. In this paper, I clarify theoretically how utility enters these models and how they can be used for revealing preferences.
I characterize evidence accumulation models by their range – the set of all distributions that can be generated - and their contrast - the extent to which increasing the utility of one alternative slows down the choice of another. Evidence accumulation models have a similar range, but disagree on the contrast. One implication is that all these models would be equally suitable for revealing preferences if their contrast was properly calibrated.. I propose a tractable framework for this aim and give general conditions under which it is applicable. I illustrate my theoretical results with simulated data from a DDM model.