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 speakingEditor Panel: Antonelli, Batten, Kollias, RustMehmet Bilgin, Christos Kollias, Klaus F. Zimmermann, John Rust, Cristiano Antonelli, Ender Demir & Jonathan Batten Celebrating Success
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.
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
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.
The Economistthis 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:
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).
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.”
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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.
The Seventh IESR-GLO Joint Workshop takes place on May 16 – May 17, 2024 in Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. Supported by the Journal of Population Economics (JOPE), the event investigates Aging Societies: Healthy Aging, Grandparenting, and Parent-Adult Offspring Relationships; topics JOPE is strongly interested to publish top research articles. The (in-person only) workshop intends to explore the research potentials. GLO President and JOPE Editor-in-Chief Klaus F. Zimmermann will open the event, which is jointly organized with IESR Director and JOPE Editor Shuaizhang Feng and JOPE Associate Editor Sen Xue of Jinan University.
Posted inEvents, News|Comments Off on The 7th IESR-GLO Workshop on Aging Societies starts today with a focus on Healthy Aging, Grandparenting, and Parent-Adult Offspring Relationships.
EBES 47 and GLO Berlin 2024, a larger joint conference hosted by FOM University of Applied Sciences in Berlin took place during April 18-20, 2024. EBES and GLO are very grateful for the wonderful setup and effective support of FOM, in particular by Manuela Zipperling, FOM’s Berlin Head.
Conference welcome by GLO Director Matloob Piracha, EBES Vice President Mehmet Bilgin and FOM Berlin Head Manuella Zipperling.
FOM HeadManuella Zipperling during the conference opening
On the initiative of EBES and its Vice-President Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin, a session in honor of Klaus F. Zimmermann, President of EBES and GLO, was organized and took place on April 18. The panel session was a guided tour of some parts of Zimmermann’s academic life of Zimmermann and a review of some of his academic contributions.
Networking and Evidence-based Policymaking: Zimmermann was strongly involved in networking, the creation of infrastructure for research and policy advice, and supporting evidence-based policymaking. Examples include (see LINK for more). 1986: Creation of the European Society of Population Economics (ESPE), first Secretary, and later President of ESPE. 1991-2001: Program Director of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) for first “Human Resources” and later for “Labour Economics”. 1998-2016: Director of IZA, building up of IZA’s research network. 2000-2011: President of Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (German Institute for Economic Research, DIW Berlin). 2014 – 2020: Chair of the Section for Economics, Business and Management Sciences of the Academia Europaea, the Academy of Europe. Since 2017: President of Global Labor Organization (GLO) gGmbH. About 2100 members in over 131 countries. Since 2023: Leopoldina: Senator and Chair (“Obmann”) of Section 25 “Economics and Empirical Social Sciences” of Leopoldina, the National Academy of Sciences of Germany. Zimmermann has also created the Journal of Population Economics (JOPE) and manages it since 37 years. Its impact factor makes JOPE the leading academic journal in demography and a top field journal in economics. For a review of his publications on evidence-based policymaking, see LINK. Contributions include K. F. Zimmermann: “Advising Policymakers through the Media”, Journal of Economic Education (2004); 35, 4; 395-405. K. F. Zimmermann: “Der Berater als Störenfried: wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Politikberatung”, Wirtschaftsdienst, 88 (2008), 101-107. R. Ketzler; K. F. Zimmermann: “A Citation-Analysis of Economic Research Institutes”. Scientometrics, 95 (2013), 1095-1112. K. F. Zimmermann: Evidenzbasierte wissenschaftliche Politikberatung, Schmollers Jahrbuch, 134:3 (2014), 259-270. Zimmermann created with Alexander Kritikos the IZA World of Labor project, see “Evidence-based Policy Making in Labor Economics. The IZA World of Labor Guide 2015.”, Bloomsbury London, New York 2015. Kritikos is a member of the Board of DIW Berlin and a Professor at the University of Potsdam.
Labor Market Reforms (Agenda 2010 & beyond): As DIW President, IZA Director and Chairman of the Society of the German Economic Research Institutes (ARGE), Zimmermann was a close advisor of the Federal Government including the chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the responsible reform minister of economics and labor (Wolfgang Clement) as well as the CEO of the German Federal Agency for Employment (Frank-Jürgen Weise). In addition, frequent exchanges with Alan Krueger, chief economist (Council of Economic Advisors) of Barack Obama in Washington, as well as with policy advisors in Beijing. Before the reforms: Only four of the about 80 labor market instruments in place could be shown to have some effect (“And Then There Were Four … How Many (and Which) Measures of Active Labor Market Policy Do We Still Need?,Applied Economics Quarterly, 53, 2007, 243-272; Zimmermann with W. Eichhorst). After the successful reforms, Germany’s labor market responded only mildly to the Great Recession. Important factors for this development include a strong economic position due to recent labor market reforms, the crisis mainly affecting export-oriented companies, the extension of short-time work, time buffers due to working time accounts, the behavior of social partners, and automatic stabilizers (“Another Economic Miracle? The German Labor Market and the Great Recession”, IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 1 (2012), Article 3; Zimmermann with U. Rinne). Short-time work was a core instrument to fight unemployment during the Great Recession (“Short-Time Work: The German Answer to the Great Recession, International Labour Review, 152, 2013, 287-305; Zimmermann with K. Brenke and U. Rinne). Germany became the role model for an effective labor market policy (“Is Germany the North Star of Labor Market Policy?”, IMF Economic Review, 61, 2013, 702-729; Zimmermann with U. Rinne). Alessio Brown is co-director of POP at UNU-MERIT and has been Director of Strategy and Research Management and Member of the Board at IZA. He was the Founding Director of GLO.
Migration and EU-Enlargement: Richard Portes of CEPR had appointed Zimmermann in 1991 as the Program Director Human Resources to initiate migration economics in Europe through networking and the organization of a larger number of research conferences. The project output included stock taking books like “Migration. The Controversies and the Evidence” (1999, Zimmermann with R. Faini & J. de Melo), Cambridge University Press, and “European Migration: What Do We Know?” (Zimmermann, 2005), Oxford University Press. These initiatives have had a very strong and lasting effect on the development of the field. Zimmermann continued this work later in his role as IZA Director in Bonn, collaborating closely with Martin Kahanec on the migration consequences of EU East enlargement starting in May 2004, two decades ago. Leading international research teams, both published a series of books and research reports including “EU Labor Markets After Post-Enlargement Migration” (2010, Zimmermann with Kahanec), Springer-Verlag and “Labor Migration, EU Enlargement, and the Great Recession” (2016, Zimmermann with Kahanec) Springer-Verlag. In 2013, Zimmermann received the Outstanding Contribution Award of the European Investment Bank for his research on migration. Martin Kahanec was a senior researcher at IZA. He is a Professor at the Department of Public Policy at the Central European University (CEU) in Vienna and director of the Shattuck Center for Human Rights. Previously, Martin Kahanec acted as the Dean of CEU’s School of Public Policy. He is the Chair of the Section for Economics, Business and Management Sciences of the Academia Europaea, the Academy of Europe.
From the left: Dorothea Schäfer, Klaus F. Zimmermann, and Lucie Merkle
Lucie Merkle was one of the first doctoral students of Zimmermann during his tenure at the University of Munich. They co-authored 1992 “Savings, Remittances, and Return Migration” in Economics Letters 38, 77-81 (301 Google citations), a seminal paper on the savings behavior of migrants. A civil servant of the State of Bavaria, Merkle, has since served in the United States, China, Bruxelles, and Berlin.
During Zimmermann‘s period as President of DIW Berlin, Dorothea Schäfer was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Vierteljahrshefte der Wirtschaftsforschung (Quarterly Journal of Economic Research), the oldest publication format of DIW Berlin founded in 1926. This outlet played an important role in communicating evidence-based advice for policymaking. During the financial market crisis, Schäfer and Zimmermann co-authored a bad bank proposal (Bad Bank(s) and Recapitalisation of the Banking Sector, Vox of 13 June 2009) in the spirit of the later employed reforms in the United States. Their 2010 joint book “Finanzmärkte nach dem Flächenbrand” reflected the crisis and draw lessons for policymaking. Dorothea Schäfer is the Editor-in-Chief of the Eurasian Economic Review.
Highlights of joint collaborations (from the left):
Klaus F. Zimmermann & Alexander S. Kritikos (eds.): Evidence-based Policy Making in Labor Economics. The IZA World of Labor Guide 2015. Bloomsbury London, New York 2015.
Klaus F. Zimmermann & Dorothea Schäfer: Finanzmärkte nach dem Flächenbrand. Warum es dazu kam und was wir daraus lernen müssen. Gabler Wiesbaden 2010.
Martin Kahanec & Klaus F. Zimmermann (eds.): EU Labor Markets After Post-Enlargement Migration. Springer. Berlin. Heidelberg 2010.
From the left: Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin, Martin Kahanec, Dorothea Schäfer, Klaus F. Zimmermann, Lucie Merkle, Alessio Brown, and Alexander Kritikos
Special dinner eventon April 18:
Berlin Zoo April 21, 2024: Post-conference experiences
“Sapere aude, habe den Mut, dich deines Verstandes zu bedienen” war der Leitspruch der Aufklärung. Am 300-ten Geburtstag von Immanuel Kant war es deshalb angemessen, damit das Seminar von Klaus F. Zimmermann im SS 2024 an der Freien Universität Berlin zu „Forschung und Politikberatung“ zu beginnen. Die eigenständige Bedienung des Verstandes bei der wissenschaftlichen Politikberatung ist essenziell.
In front of Boltzmannstr. 20, Berlin, the home of economists at the Free University Berlin.
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Back to Berlin for EBES 47 and GLO Berlin 2024 to organize a strong academic conference in collaboration with FOM University of Applied Sciences and the Journal of Population Economics (JOPE) on April 18-20. For the final GLO – JOPE program see GLO Berlin 2024 and the full joint program see EBES 47 Berlin. Klaus F. Zimmermann will also start his student seminar on Research & Policymaking at the Free University Berlin in his role as Honorary Professor there.
February 29 to March 2: Zürich, Switzerland. Verein für Socialpolitik, Ausschuss für Bevölkerungsökonomik (Section Population Economics). Annual conference participation. Nice to meet many excellent labor and population economists and to follow excellent new research papers.
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