Research Visit to Edinburgh, Scotland, October 13-17, 2024

Posted on October 17, 2024 by admin

On the invitation of Prof. Wen Hou (University of Edinburgh Business School & Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Chinese Economics and Business Studies), GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University & FU Berlin & Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Population Economics) has visited Edinburgh/Scotland on October 13-17 to discuss research and publication issues. On October 14, both visited the hometown of Adam Smith (Kirkcaldy) and passed St Andrews University, one of the oldest universities in the world.

Hou and Zimmermann also discussed publication strategies and future research initiatives. Hou is GLO Fellow and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Zimmermann GLO President, and Senator & Section Chairperson of the Leopoldina, The German National Academy. Both are members of the Academia Europea, The Academy of Europe.

On October 15, Zimmermann spoke in a workshop in the University of Edinburgh Business School about “Publishing in Research Journals“. On October 16, he presented his research paper “Parental Gender Stereotypes and Student Wellbeing” at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Klaus F. Zimmermann & host Wen Hou after the event on October 16, 2024 in front of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Talk and exchange with PhD students of the University of Edinburgh at the University of Edinburgh Business School on October 15, 2024.

Left: Honoring the founder of economics in his birth town, Kirkcaldy. (In front of the Adam Smith Centre.) Right: Passing University of St Andrews while visiting the town.

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The 49th EBES Conference – University of Piraeus Athens, Greece, October 16-18, 2024 has started.

Posted on October 16, 2024 by admin

The 49th EBES Conference – Athens takes place on October 16th, 17th, and 18th, 2024 in Athens, Greece. The conference is hosted by the Department of Economics, University of Piraeus and is organized in Hybrid Mode (online and in-person). GLO & EBES President Klaus F. Zimmermann provides welcome remarks and moderates a session on publishing in research journals. Conference Program.

Ends;

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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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Visiting Leopoldina – National Academy of Germany, Halle, on September 24 – 27, 2024

Posted on September 27, 2024 by admin

Visiting Halle, Germany, on September 25-27, 2024: Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences. Attending an internal meeting of Class IV – Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences and the annual Leopoldina conference (“Origin and Beginning of Life”). Klaus F. Zimmermann is a Senator of Leopoldina, and Chairperson of Section 25 “Economics and Empirical Social Sciences”. The deputy chair of Section 25, Bettina Rockenbach, was elected President of the Leopoldina during the annual conference. Congratulations!

Documenting the evolution of life during the Leopoldina Annual Conference.

25 September 2024. Stranded in Frankfurt/Main, Germany (courtesy of Deutsche Bahn): waiting for the 2.49 am train to Halle/Saale.

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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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