Events
Seminars in Economics of Innovation and Knowledge Josh Whitford (Columbia University, New York)
"Pragmatism, practice, and the boundaries of organization" Abstract The article uses a longitudinal qualitative analysis of key transitions in the relationship between Fiat Auto and a major supplier to challenge conventional approaches to the study of activities at the boundary between organizations. It shows, in particular, that scholars focused on the importance of "modular" product…
Seminars in Economics Sebastian Galiani (Washington University in St. Louis)
"Estimating Neighborhood Choice Models: Lessons From The Moving to Opportunity Experiment"
Monday Lunch Seminars Elisa Luciano (Collegio Carlo Alberto & Università di Torino)
"Equilibrium price of immediacy and infrequent trade" abstract The paper studies the equilibrium value of bid-ask spreads and time-to-trade in a continuous-time, intermediated financial market. The endogenous spreads are the price at which brokers are willing to offer immediacy. In case intermediaries pay trading costs, it includes them too. We determine equilibrium trading policies, returns…
Seminars in Statistics Natalia Bochkina (University of Edinburgh)
The Bernstein - von Mises theorem: relaxing its assumptions and extending it to nonregular models The Bernstein - von Mises theorem is an important result in Bayesian asymptotics, giving conditions under which the posterior distribution of a finite-dimensional parameter can be approximated by the Gaussian distribution. On one hand, this result quantifies consistency and efficiency…
Monday Lunch Seminars David Rivers (University of Western Ontario)
"On the Identification of Production Functions: HowHeterogeneous is Productivity?" (Note: the seminar is on Thursday) abstract The estimation of production functions suffers from an unresolved identification problem caused by flexible inputs, such as intermediate inputs. We develop an identification strategy for production functions based on a transformation of the firm’s short-run first order condition that solves…
Seminars in Economics Antonella Trigari (Università Bocconi)
"Financial Markets and Unemployment" abstract We study the importance of financial markets for (un)employment fluctuations in a model with matching frictions where firms issue debt under limited enforcement. Higher debt allows employers to bargain lower wages which in turn increases the incentive to create jobs. The transmission mechanism of `credit shocks' is different from the typical…
Seminars in Statistics Alessandra Giovagnoli (University of Bologna)
Design of experiments: from physical to simulated Since Fisher’s times, the principles for planning scientific experiments correctly have been at the heart of the statistical debate. This is particularly important in a clinical context, for ethical as well as inferential reasons. After a brief excursus through the history of experimental design, this presentation will deal…
Seminars in Economics of Innovation and Knowledge Adam Jaffe, Brandeis University; NBER
"Technology policy and climate change"
Monday Lunch Seminars Giovanni Mastrobuoni (Collegio Carlo Alberto)
"Crime is Terribly Revealing: An Evaluation of Predictive Policing" abstract An increasing number of police departments around the world are trying to use predictive policing as a way to improve clearance rates at times of shrinking budgets. The police department of Milan has been working on a software that predicts future crime since 2008. This…
Seminars in Economics Bill Sandholm (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
"Sampling Best Response Dynamics and Deterministic Equilibrium Selection" Abstract We consider a model of evolution in games in which a revising agent observes the actions of a random number of randomly sampled opponents and then chooses a best response to the distribution of actions in the sample. We provide a condition on the distribution of…
Seminars in Statistics David Knowles (University of Cambridge)
Diffusion trees as priors The Dirichlet diffusion tree has attractive theoretical properties and empirical performance on various tasks. We present an extension which removes the restriction to binary trees allowing arbitrary branching structure, the Pitman Yor diffusion tree. We show this process is exchangeable and projective. Both the DDT and PYDT can be constructed as…
Seminars in Economics of Innovation and Knowledge Stefano Lucarelli, University of Bergamo
"A stock-flow analysis of a Schumpeterian innovation economy" (at Dipartimento di Economia S. Cognetti de Martiis, Sala Seminari)
Seminars in Economics Roman Inderst (Goethe University Frankfurt)
"Preserving Debt or Equity Capacity?" abstract In a dynamic model of optimal security design, we show when firms should preserve "equity capacity" through choosing high target leverage or "debt capacity" through choosing low target leverage. Thereby, firms reduce a problem of underinvestment or overinvestment when they must raise future financing under asymmetric information. Which problem…
Seminars in Economics Giovanni Peri (University of California, Davis)
"The Effect of International Trade and Migration on Income" abstract This paper explores the relationship between economic openness and income per person using crosscountry data. To address endogeneity concerns we extend the instrumental-variables strategy first usedby Frankel and Romer (1999). First, we show that geographic characteristics, relative to the location of acountry are successful in…
Monday Lunch Seminars Paolo Buonanno (University of Bergamo)
"On the Historical and Geographic Origins of the Sicilian Mafia" Abstract This research attempts to explain the large differences in the early diffusion of the mafia across different areas of Sicily. We advance the hypothesis that, after the demise of Sicilian feudalism, the lack of publicly provided property-right protection from widespread banditry favored the development…