2nd Annual Washington Area Labor Economics Symposium (WALES)

February 28th, 2020
8:30 am to 5:00 pm
Linder Family Commons, Suite 602
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E St NW
Washington, D.C. 20052

WALES is a one-day labor economics conference that brings together researchers from DC-area institutions. The goal is to provide an outlet to share work in progress and get to know other researchers. Breakfast, lunch and coffee will be served.

Click here to find an archive of the previous WALES conferences.

Agenda 

8:15am- 8:50am: Breakfast & Welcome

8:45am-9:00am: Welcome Bryan Stuart and TBD

Session 1: Recessions and the Labor Market

9:00am-9:30pm: “The Long-Lived Cyclicality of the Labor Force Participation Rate”, Joshua

Montes, Federal Reserve, with Tomaz Cajner and John Coglianese

9:30am-10:00am: “Did Timing Matter? Life Cycle Differences in Exposure to the Great Recession”,

Kevin Rinz, Census Bureau 

10:00am-10:30am: “Excess Capacity and Heterogeneity in the Fiscal Multiplier: Evidence from the

Obama Stimulus Package”, Thomas Hegland, Agency for Healthcare Research and

Quality with Arindrajit Dube, Ethan Kaplan, and Ben Zipperer

10:30am-11:00am: Coffee Break

Session 2: Discrimination

11:00am-11:30am: “Gender Bias and Intergenerational Educational Mobility: Theory and Evidence

from China and India”, Forhad Shilpi, World Bank with M. Shahe Emran and

Hanchen Jiang

11:30am- 12:00pm: “In-group Bias and the Police: Evidence from Award Nominations”, Nayoung

Rim, US Naval Academy, with Bocar Ba and Roman Rivera

12:00pm- 1:30pm: Lunch & Poster Session

Session 3: Public Sector Employment

1:30pm-2:00pm: “Managers and Productivity in the Public Sector”, Alessandra Fenizia, GWU

2:00pm-2:30pm: “Recruitment, effort, and retention effects of performance contracts for civil

servants: Experimental evidence from Rwandan primary schools”, Andrew Zeitlin,

Georgetown University, with Clare Leaver, Owen Ozier, and Pieter Serneelsz

2:30pm-2:50pm: Coffee Break

Session 4: Labor Supply

2:50pm-3:20pm: “Rural Labor Market Responses to Large Lumpy Cash Transfers: Evidence from

Malawi”, Kate Ambler, International Food Policy Research Institute, with Alan de

Brauw and Susan Godlonton

3:20pm-3:50pm: “Hope for the Family: The Effects of College Costs on Maternal Labor Supply”,

Breno Braga, Urban Institute, with Olga Malkova

3:50pm-4:00pm: Break

Session 5: Education and the Labor Market

4:00pm-4:30pm: “Inequality and Wage Dynamics by Academic Majors”, Natalia Radchenko,

American University, with Natalia Kyui 

4:30:pm-5:00pm: “Do Postsecondary Training Programs Respond to Changes in the Labor Market?”,

Michel Grosz, FTC

5:00pm-6:00pm: Reception

Posters

Miriam Bruhn, World Bank, “The Impact of Mobile Money on Poor Rural Households: Experimental Evidence from Uganda” (with Christina Wieser, Johannes Kinzinger, Christian Ruckteschler, Soren Heitmann)

Elizabeth Anna Weber Handwerker, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Variation in the Impact of Explicit Oligopsony by Occupation” (with Matthew Dey)

Kelly Jones, American University, Reducing Maternal Labor Market Detachment: A role for Paid Family Leave (with Britni Wilcher)

Joshua Mask, University of Illinois Chicago, “Consequences of Immigrating During a Recession: Evidence from the US Refugee Resettlement Program”

Daniela Morar, Yale University, “Foreign TAs and student STEM outcomes”

Dani Sandler, Census Bureau, “Maternal Labor Dynamics: Participation, Earnings, and Employer Changes” (with Nichole Szembrot)

Tara Sinclair, George Washington University, “Mismatch in Online Job Search” (with Martha Gimbel)