Visiting University of Groningen to join the Inaugural Lecture of Prof. Milena Nikolova on “The Economics of Happiness”

Posted on October 13, 2024 by admin

In her inaugural lecture on October 11, 2024 at the University of Groningen, Professor Milena Nikolova explored the Economics of Happiness, tracing its historical roots and modern relevance while drawing on her research in the field.

As the Aletta Jacobs Professor in the Economics of Well-being at the University of Groningen, Milena Nikolova also serves as an Editor of the Journal of Population Economics (JOPE), a Section Editor of “Welfare, Well-Being, Happiness” of the Springer Nature Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, and a Cluster Lead for Happiness of the Global Labor Organization.

On the occasion of the event, JOPE Editor Nikolova also met with JOPE Associate Editor Viola Angelini (University of Groningen) and JOPE Editor-in-Chief Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University) to discuss journal business issues. JOPE invites submissions for its Collection Wellbeing and Happiness.

In 2017, Nikolova & Zimmermann had published: Nikolova, Milena, Monica Roman & Klaus F. Zimmermann. Left Behind but Doing Good? Civic Engagement in Two Post-Socialist Countries. Journal of Comparative Economics, 45 (2017) 658–684; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2016.04.006

At the occasion of the conference, Zimmermann has met various GLO Fellows, authors and co-authors, including those who made significant contributions to the Springer Nature Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, he is editing as the Editor-in-Chief. Among those was Jo Ritzen, a colleague at UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University; Jo is a former Minister of Education of the Netherlands, a former Vice-President of the Worldbank, and a former President of Maastricht University. Ritzen & Zimmermann collaborated over the past on various research articles.

The Grote Markt, Groningen.

(c) Pjotr Wiese
Milena Nikolova, Klaus F. Zimmermann & Viola Angelini
Klaus F. Zimmermann & Jo Ritzen

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Japanese Garden in Bonn

Posted on October 10, 2024 by admin

Always great to visit & relax! My favorite place in the Rheinaue in Bonn (October 10, 2024).

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EEA-ESEM joint meeting at Erasmus University Rotterdam

Posted on August 29, 2024 by admin

August 26-29, 2024: Erasmus University Rotterdam, EEA-ESEM joint conference of the Econometric Society (ESEM) and the European Economic Association (EEA). Annual Conference of the European Economic Association (EEA). Klaus F. Zimmermann presented his paper on “Parental Gender Stereotypes and Student Wellbeing in China” (joint work with Shuai Chu & Xiangquan Zeng of Renmin University of China) and chaired a session. He attended various interesting sessions and spoke with many authors and colleagues about the Journal of Population Economics. EEA-ESEM 2024 has about 1,200 participants, and the event is very well organized in the impressive setting of the university. Zimmermann was at Rotterdam University before in June 2024 at ESPE 2024 and in 1986 when the European Society of Population Economics (ESPE) was created.

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Estimating the wage premia of refugee immigrants: Lessons from Sweden. New paper published & available free access.

Posted on August 1, 2024 by admin

Christopher F. Baum, Hans Lööf, Andreas Stephan & Klaus F. Zimmermann (2024), “Estimating the wage premia of refugee immigrants: Lessons from Sweden”. 
Industrial and Labor Relations Review. PDF of published version. OPEN ACCESS.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00197939241261640

Experimental: a NotebookLM-generated Podcast about this paper

Abstract:

This article examines the wage earnings of refugee immigrants in Sweden. Using administrative employer–employee data from 1990 onward, approximately 100,000 refugee immigrants who arrived between 1980 and 1996 and were granted asylum are compared to a matched sample of native-born workers. Employing recentered influence function (RIF) quantile regressions to wage earnings for the period 2011–2015, the occupational-task-based Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition approach shows that refugees perform better than natives at the median wage, controlling for individual and firm characteristics. This overperformance is attributable to female refugee immigrants. Given their characteristics, refugee immigrant females perform better than native females across all occupational tasks studied, including non-routine cognitive tasks. A notable similarity of the wage premium exists among various refugee groups, suggesting that cultural differences and the length of time spent in the host country do not have a major impact.

Keywords: #refugees, wage earnings gap, #occupations, #gender, #employer–employee data, #job-tasks, recentered influence function (#RIF) quantile regressions

Featured image: Ra-Dragon-on-Unsplash

Media coverage:

Swedish daily news magazine Dagens Nyheter & and the economics magazine Ekonomisk Debatt:
https://www.dn.se/debatt/flyktingars-hogre-loner-visar-integrationens-kraft/
https://www.nationalekonomi.se/artikel/hur-konkurrenskraftiga-ar-flyktingar-pa-svensk-arbetsmarknad/

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Famous scientist Marc Nerlove died at age 90

Posted on July 15, 2024 by admin

Marc Nerlove, legendary economist and econometrician, died at age 90 on July 10, 2024. He was an inspiring figure and has heavily influenced many research areas in economics and econometrics. See the Marc Nerlove Memoriam Page honoring his legacy of the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland, his last university affiliation. See also my notes in the context of celebrations around his 80th birthday.

  • I worked for Marc and my doctoral thesis supervisor Heinz König in the 1980s for their joint project on “Business Survey Data Analysis”. The project made categorical business test data available for innovative IO research.1,2 This gave me access to categorical data, proper econometric methods, and ideas that made a major part of my early career and population success.3
  • He also encouraged me to work on my thesis on “Population Economics”, bringing Gary Becker‘s ideas about family economics into the German academic debate.4
  • Marc brought me to the University of Pennsylvania, where I taught classes in macroeconomics and population economics as a Visiting Associate Professor during the calendar year 1988.
  • He also supported me creating the European Society of Population Economics (ESPE) and the Journal of Population Economics (JOPE). He was a founding member of ESPE and one of the keynote speakers of the First ESPE Congress in Rotterdam. His lecture on “Population Policy and Individual Choice” was published in the first issue of JOPE in 1988.5 The conference picture (see link) has him upper left next to R.K. von Weizsäcker. Many of the activities for the creation of ESPE and JOPE in 1988 were conducted from my Penn office close to his.
  • Marc Nerlove was a wonderful person, an inspiring scientist and a great colleague. Thanks & RIP.

References

(1) König, H., Nerlove, M., and Oudiz, G. (1981). On the formation of price expectations: An analysis of business test data by log-linear probability models, European Economic Review 16, 103-138.

(2) Nerlove, M. (1983). Expectations, Plans, and Realizations in Theory and Practice. Econometrica 51, 1251-1279.

(3) Zimmermann, K. F. (1997). Analysis of Business Surveys, in: M. H. Pesaran and P. Schmidt (Eds.), Handbook of Applied Econometrics, Volume II – Microeconometrics, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 407-441.

(4) Zimmermann, K. F. (1985). Familienökonomie. Theoretische und empirische Untersuchungen zur Frauenerwerbstätigkeit und Geburtenentwicklung. Springer-Verlag. Berlin. Heidelberg. New York. Tokyo.

(5) Nerlove, M. (1988). Population Policy and Individual Choice. Journal of Population Economics 1, 17–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00171508.
Free to read: https://rdcu.be/dNO3b

Ends;

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The EBES 2024 Istanbul Conference Started on July 4, 2024

Posted on July 4, 2024 by admin

The 48th EBES Conference – Istanbul takes place on July 4 – 6, 2024 in Istanbul, Turkey (conference details), and is hosted by the Istanbul Ticaret University.

The highlight of the first day was the appointment of John Rust (Georgetown University) to EBES Fellow 2024 to honor his lifetime achievements in the area of structural econometrics and microeconomics, particularly for the structural estimation of dynamic discrete choice models. EBES President Klaus F. Zimmermann also outlined the broad body of research that Rust conducted throughout his career on many challenging applied micro issues. He mentioned John Rust’s early support for EBES, his engagement in supporting conference making by providing the Conference Maker software, and the organization of jobmarket activities for young economists. Zimmermann called John Rust a role model for economists and a “good citizen”.

John Rust delivered his keynote speech on “Can the Earth Support 10 Billion People by 2100?”. Fertility decline, population ageing, climate change, and demographic imbalances in Asia, Europe, and Africa will make the future challenging. His analysis was well received and discussed intensively by the EBES audience. 

Arrived at the conference venue: John Rust, Klaus F. Zimmermann, Jonathan Batten, Cristiano Antonelli & Christos Kollias.

Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin speaking
Editor Panel: Antonelli, Batten, Kollias, Rust
Mehmet Bilgin, Christos Kollias, Klaus F. Zimmermann, John Rust,
Cristiano Antonelli, Ender Demir & Jonathan Batten
Celebrating Success

Charming Istanbul

Ends;

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Conference Participation ESPE 2024 in Rotterdam

Posted on July 1, 2024 by admin

The 37th Annual Conference of the European Society for Population Economics (ESPE) was hosted by Erasmus University Rotterdam from 27 to 29 June 2024 in Rotterdam. 

More on my ESPE history.

At ESPE 2024: Presenting joint work with Shuai Chu & Xiangquan Zeng of Renmin University of China.

  • Parental Gender Stereotypes and Student Wellbeing in China

Abstract: A prominent gender stereotype claims that “boys are better at learning mathematics than girls”. Confronted with such a parental attitude, how does this affect the wellbeing of 11 – 18 years old students in Chinese middle schools? While wellbeing has often been shown to be not much gender-diverse, the intergenerational consequences of such stereotypes are not well studied. Expecting too much from boys and too little from girls might damage self-esteem among school kids. Using large survey data covering districts all over China reveals that one quarter of the parents agree with the math stereotype. It is shown that this has strong detrimental consequences for offspring’s wellbeing. Students are strongly more depressed, feeling blue, unhappy, not enjoying life, and sad with no male-female differences, while parental education does not matter for this transfer. Various robustness tests including other than math stereotypes and an IV analysis confirm the findings. Moderating such effects, which is in line with societal objectives in many countries, not only supports gender equality but also strengthens the mental health of children.

From the left with Milena Nikolova, Yannis Galanakis & Leena Bhattacharya

Meetings with devoted collaborators & GLO network activists: Milena Nikolova is Editor of the Journal of Population Economics, Yannis Galanakis & Leena Bhattacharya are GLO VirtYS Scholars (of 2019-2020 & 2022-2023, respectively), Leena Bhattacharya is also the Managing Editor of GLO’s Discussion Paper Series, Yannis Galanakis edits the GLO Video Channel.

The colleagues were presenting at ESPE 2024:

  • Milena Nikolova, University of Groningen: Just Another Cog in the Machine? A Worker-Level View of Robotization and Tasks
  • Yannis Galanakis, King’s College London: Mind the (Gender Pay) Gap: The role of Board Gender Composition
  • Leena Bhattacharya, Tilburg University: Time allocation of daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law in India: The role of education as bargaining power

After the hour, partying…..

With my Free University Berlin colleagues at ESPE 2024. From the left with Natalia Danzer, Anja Luzega, Max Steinhardt, Lisa Hanzl and Sebastian Garcia-Torres.

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How worrying is the rapid rise of Chinese science?

Posted on June 20, 2024 by admin

The Economist this week asks: “How worrying is the rapid rise of Chinese science?” In a related academic article in the China Economic Review, the rise of China in economics research was analyzed:

Matloob Piracha, Massimiliano Tani, Klaus F. Zimmermann and Yu Zhang.
“Higher Education Expansion and the Rise of China in Economics Research”.
China Economic Review 74 (2022) 101813. OPEN ACCESS: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X22000712

Abstract

China has seen a massive higher education expansion, which the literature has dated to the 1999–2008 period with quantitative and qualitative outcomes. However, the consequences for the publication success of Chinese authors worldwide are not well studied. We review the respective Chinese higher education policies and document the dramatic rise in publication success, with a focus on the field of Economics. A substantial set of regressions and robustness checks confirm the understanding that the higher education expansion has indeed let to a substantial worldwide rise in scientific publications in refereed economics journals fueled by the general incentives of the reform, through research collaborations and other quality improving factors.

Fig. 2. Ratio of Chinese to non-Chinese authored articles in top 5, 10 and 20 Economics journals from 1990 to 2017. Source: Piracha et al. (2022).

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Global Insights and EU Elections: Fiscal restraint and the political economy of Europe. The popularity of the European idea was instrumented to enforce fiscal discipline. What has happened?

Posted on June 7, 2024 by admin

Once upon a time, there was a European dream: Joining Europe and the European Monetary Union would bring prosperity, fiscal stability, and a strong European currency to master the challenges of the continent. The forthcoming elections this Sunday are held in the face of rising unhappiness about Europe, although the need to deal with the substantial challenges would require more collaborations and a stronger, not weaker Europe. Among the challenges are the Russian aggression, climate change, terrorism, illegal immigration, labor shortages, US-China tensions, public health issues, and the rise of the right across European member countries, among many more issues. Hence, voting is an obligation in the current European elections.

Fiscal restraint and the political economy of Europe: In the past, member states instrumented the popularity of the European idea to enforce national fiscal discipline and implement important reform policies. Looking back at what happened over a quarter of a century:

The paper “Fiscal Restraint and the Political Economy of EMU” by Ralph Rotte and Klaus F. Zimmermann, published in Public Choice in 1998, discussed the impact of the Maastricht Treaty on fiscal policies.

The authors argued that the Maastricht Treaty provided a unique international commitment that enabled governments to follow restrictive fiscal policies by attributing their negative effects to Europe. This allowed them to implement austerity measures despite rising unemployment or declining growth.

The authors suggested that the popularity of the European idea was used to enforce fiscal discipline. While the principle of delegation had become well established on the national level for monetary policy, fiscal policies remained in the hands of policymakers depending on rent-seeking interest groups.

The study outlined the political-economy framework and presented new econometric evidence. The findings provided insights into the dynamics of fiscal restraint within the context of the European Monetary Union.

Abstract: “While the principle of delegation has become well established on the national level for monetary policy, fiscal policies remain in the hands of policy makers depending on rentseeking interest groups. We argue that the Maastricht Treaty provides a unique international commitment that enables governments to follow restrictive fiscal policies by attributing their negative side-effects to Europe, and to implement austerity measures despite rising unemployment or a decline in growth. Hence, the popularity of the European idea is instrumented to enforce fiscal discipline. The paper outlines the political economy framework and presents new econometric evidence.”

From the conclusions: “Our empirical evidence shows that there is a distinguished effect of the Maastricht commitment on fiscal policies in Europe, and strengthens the conjecture that it is the support for the EU and the character of EMU as a genuinely European project which has made a fundamental change in economic policy all over Western Europe possible. The unique combination of the international character of the Maastricht commitment and the Europeans’ persistent support of the EU project thus provide the framework for fiscal reform in Europe.”

Rotte, R., Zimmermann, K.F. Fiscal restraint and the political economy of EMU. Public Choice 94, 385–406 (1998).
https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005042015560

Featured image: arnaud-jaegers-unsplash

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Klaus F. Zimmermann Appointed Honorary Professor at IESR, Jinan University

Posted on May 18, 2024 by admin

Deeply honored by the appointment to Honorary Professor at IESR, Jinan University, in the middle of the exciting Seventh IESR-GLO Joint Workshop (includes program & event pictures) which took place on May 16 – May 17, 2024 at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. Supported by the Journal of Population Economics, the event investigated the challenges of “Aging Societies: Healthy Aging, Grandparenting, and Parent-Adult Offspring Relationships“. Thanks to Dean Shuaizhang Feng for support and collaborations over many years!

Left: With Shuaizhang Feng, Dean of IESR; Jinan University.
Right: With Chunchao Wang, Dean of School of Economics, Jinan University; and Prof. Feng.

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