Klaus F. Zimmermann

2020 Kuznets Prize Awarded to Gautam Hazarika, Chandan Kumar Jha & Sudipta Sarangi

Gautam Hazarika (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), Chandan Kumar Jha (Le Moyne College, Madden School of Business), and Sudipta Sarangi (Virginia Tech) will receive the 2020 Kuznets Prize for their article (please click title for FREE READ LINK)

“Ancestral ecological endowments and missing women“

which was published in the Journal of Population Economics (2019), 32(4), pp. 1101-1123. The annual prize honors the best article published in the Journal of Population Economics.

The award will be given to the authors during the ASSA 2020 meeting in San Diego, USA, at a reception on Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, at the Marriott Marquis San Diego, Coronado Room, hosted by the Institute for Economic and Social Research (IESR) of Jinan University.

Biographical Abstracts

Gautam Hazarika is presently Associate Professor of Economics at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, the newest branch of the University of Texas system. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Delhi’s St. Stephen’s College, and his Ph.D. at the University of Rochester. His research has spanned labor and development economics. He is presently conducting research in economic anthropology. Dr. Hazarika’s research has appeared in such journals as American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Review of Income and Wealth, the Journal of Development Studies, and, recently, the Journal of Population Economics.

Chandan Kumar Jha is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Madden School of Business, Le Moyne College. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. from Louisiana State University. His research interests lie in the areas of economic growth and development, political economy, and finance and development. His current research topics include corruption, gender inequality, financial risk, and economic and financial reforms. He has published several research articles in many reputed journals such as the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, the Journal of Population Economics, International Review of Finance, and Information Economics and Policy.

Sudipta Sarangi is currently Department Head and Professor of Economics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His research interests range from network theory to development economics. He studies how gender differences affect economic activity, as well as the origins of gender inequality. His work on networks focuses on the strategic formation of social and economic networks and how participation in multiple networks affects social outcomes. He is a research associate of DIW Berlin, GATE, University of Lyon-St. Etienne and the Lima School of Economics. He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Public Economic Theory and Studies in Microeconomics.

Abstract of the Winning Paper

“This paper examines the relationship between ecological endowments in antiquity and contemporary female to male sex ratios in the population. It is found that there are proportionately more missing women in countries whose ancestral ecological endowments were poorer. This relationship is shown to be strong even after ancestral plough use, the timing of the Neolithic Transition, and many other potentially confounding factors are controlled for. Similar results are also obtained using district-level data from India.”

About the Kuznets Prize

The Journal of Population Economics awards the ‘Kuznets Prize’ for the best paper published in the Journal of Population Economics in the previous year. Starting from 2014 the Prize has been awarded annually. Papers are judged by the Editors of the Journal.

Simon Kuznets, a pioneer in population economics, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and the 1971 Nobel Prize laureate in economics, died on July 10, 1985. Professor Kuznets was born 1901 in Pinsk, Belarus, and came to the United States in 1922. He earned his Bachelor of Science in 1923, a Master of Arts degree in 1924 and his doctorate in 1926, all from Columbia University. During World War II he was Associate Director of the Bureau of Planning and Statistics on the War Production Board, and he served on the staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1927 to 1960. Mr. Kuznets was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania for 24 years and Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University from 1954 until he joined Harvard University in 1960. He retired in 1971 and was given the title of George F. Baker Professor Emeritus of Economics. He was a former president of the American Economic Association and the American Statistical Association.

Previous Winners

The Kuznets Prize (please click titles for READ LINKS FOR FREE) has previously been awarded to:

2019: Yoo-Mi Chin (Baylor University) and Nicholas Wilson (Reed College) for their article “Disease risk and fertility: evidence from the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” Journal of Population Economics 31(2): pp. 429-451.

2018: Chunbei Wang and Le Wang (University of Oklahoma) for their article “Knot yet: Minimum marriage age law, marriage delay, and earnings,” Journal of Population Economics 30(3): pp. 771-804.

2017: Binnur Balkan (Stockholm School of Economics) and Semih Tumen (Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey) for their article “Immigration and prices: quasi-experimental evidence from Syrian refugees in Turkey,” Journal of Population Economics 29(3): pp. 657-686.

2016: Loren Brandt (University of Toronto), Aloysius Siow (University of Toronto), and Hui Wang (Peking University) for their article “Compensating for unequal parental investments in schooling,” Journal of Population Economics 28: 423-462.

2015: Haoming Liu (National University of Singapore) for his article “The quality–quantity trade-off: evidence from the relaxation of China’s one-child policy”, Journal of Population Economics 27: 565-602.

2014: Paolo Masella (University of Essex) for his article “National Identity and Ethnic Diversity“, Journal of Population Economics 26: 437-454.

Period 2010-2012: Richard W. Evans (Brigham Young University), Yingyao Hu (Johns Hopkins University) and Zhong Zhao (Renmin University) for their article “The fertility effect of catastrophe: US hurricane births“, Journal of Population Economics 23: 1-36.

Period 2007-2009: Makoto Hirazawa (Nagoya University) and Akira Yakita (Nagoya University) for their article “Fertility, child care outside the home, and pay-as-you-go social security“, Journal of Population Economics 22: 565-583.

Period 2004-2006: Jinyoung Kim (Korea University) received the Kuznets Prize for his article “Sex selection and fertility in a dynamic model of conception and abortion,” Journal of Population Economics 18: 041-067.

Period 2001–2003: Olympia Bover (Bank of Spain) and Manuel Arellano (CEMFI), for their article “Learning about migration decisions from the migrants: Using complementary datasets to model intra-regional migrations in Spain”, Journal of Population Economics 15:357–380.

Period 1998–2000: David C. Ribar (The George Washington University), for his article “The socioeconomic consequences of young women’s childbearing: Reconciling disparate evidence”, Journal of Population Economics 12: 547–565.

Period 1995–1997: James R. Walker (University of Wisconsin-Madison), for his article “The effect of public policies on recent Swedish fertility behavior”, Journal of Population Economics, 8: 223–251.

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The 2020 Annual Congress of the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES/SGVS) on June 18-19 takes place at the University of Zürich organized by the Department of Economics. GLO Fellow and GLO Country Lead Switzerland Rainer Winkelmann heads the Organizing Committee that includes also GLO Fellow David Dorn.

Paper submission deadline: February 1, 2020. All fields of economics and statistics are welcome. PDF Call for Papers.

There will be keynote lectures and special sessions on the topic of Digital Transformation with speakers including: Christina Caffarra (CRA), Hal Varian (Google) and John van Reenen (MIT).

CALL FOR PAPERS: 2020 Annual Congress of the Swiss Society for Economics and Statistics, June 18-19, 2020, Zurich, Switzerland.

The Department of Economics at the University of Zürich is proud to host the Annual Meeting of the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES/SGVS) on June 18 (Thursday) and June 19 (Friday), 2020.

Topics

Submissions of papers across all fields of economics and statistics are welcome. In addition, there will be keynote lectures and special sessions on the topic of Digital Transformation. Speakers include: Christina Caffarra (CRA), Hal Varian (Google) and John van Reenen (MIT).

Paper submission

Authors are invited to submit their preliminary or complete papers electronically (PDF files only) to: https://www.sgvs.ch/conferences/sses2020
Paper submission deadline: February 1, 2020.

Papers will be selected by a Program Committee consisting of a panel of scholars from member institutions of the SSES. The submitting authors will be notified of the Program Committee’s decision by April 1, 2020, at the latest.

The registration deadline for the conference is May 1, 2020.

Contributed Sessions

In addition, there will be a possibility to propose contributed sessions (with 3-4 speakers each) on a specific topic. If you are interested, please write an email with the topic and the names of the contributors by December 31, 2019 at the latest to: rainer.winkelmann@econ.uzh.ch. These proposals will be evaluated and you will be informed about the decision by January 15, 2020.

SSES Young Economist Award

Authors who wish to be considered for the 2020 SSES Young Economist Award should indicate this when submitting their paper.

Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics

A selection of contributions related to the special theme will be published in a proceedings volume of the Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (http://www.sjes.ch).

Organizing Committee
Rainer Winkelmann (Chair), David Dorn, Marek Pycia, Florian Scheuer, Ulrich Woitek

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The second day of the Second GLO – Renmin University of China Conference on Labor Economics in Beijing finished on 8 December 2019. More details and full program; report on day 1; place: North Hall, Century Hall, RUC.

December 8, 2019.

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The first day of the Second GLO – Renmin University of China Conference on Labor Economics in Beijing finished on 7 December 2019. More details and full program; place: North Hall, Century Hall, RUC. Conference organizers are GLO Fellows Corrado Giulietti and Jun Han. The event is part of the GLO China Research Cluster, which is lead by Corrado Giulietti, who is also a GLO Research Director.

The conference was opened by Corrado Giulietti, Jun Han, GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann, and Deputy Dean and GLO Fellow Zhong Zhao.

Keynote speakers of the event were GLO Fellows Shi Li of Zhejiang University and Xi Chen of Yale University. The conference saw 8 further paper presentations.

GLO Director Matloob Piracha will give one of the 5 papers scheduled on Sunday, the second day of the event.

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On his one-week trip to Beijing/China, Klaus F. Zimmermann, President of the Global Labor Organization (GLO) and Bonn University, arrived on December 5 to participate in a one-day event:

For the Future: International Conference on Vocational Education and Training Development

The event took place in the Conference Center, Beijing International Hotel, Beijing/China. It was hosted by the China Development Research Foundation (CDRF) and The Chinese Society of Technical and Vocational Education (CSTVE) and supervised by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and the Development Research Center of the State Council.

Next to following an intensive program with over 300 participants, Zimmermann was the Luncheon Keynote Speaker on the topic “Vocational Education & Training: Socio-Economic Sustainable Development“.

Key topics:

• Vocational systems and youth unemployment
• A roadmap to vocational education and training
• General education versus vocational education
• Challenges in the digital age

Central messages:

• The Youth-to-Adult Unemployment Ratio of Germany With Its Dual Vocational Training System is Far Below Others in the Western World.
• Vocational systems are a valued alternative beyond the core of general education.
• Vocational high school graduates have better employment outcomes than general high school graduates.
• The dual system is more effective in helping youth transition into employment than alternative academic or vocational training.
• In the digital age, ICT skills are obviously important, but success comes with the development of non-cognitive skills.

Selective references:

• Klaus F. Zimmermann, Costanza Biavaschi, Werner Eichhorst, Corrado Giulietti, Michael J. Kendzia, Alexander Muravyev, Janneke Pieters, Núria Rodríguez-Planas & Ricarda Schmidl (2013), Youth Unemployment and Vocational Training”, Foundations and Trends® in Microeconomics (2013), 9: 1-157.
• Werner Eichhorst, Núria Rodríguez-Planas, Ricarda Schmidl & Klaus F. Zimmermann, A Roadmap to Vocational Education and Training in Industrialized Countries, Industrial and Labor Relations Review (2015), 68: 314-337.
• Pierre Cahuc, Stéphane Carcillo, Ulf Rinne & Klaus F. Zimmermann, Youth Unemployment in Old Europe: The Polar Cases of France and Germany, IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, (2013), 2:18
• Huzeyfe Torun & Semih Tumen, Do Vocational High School Graduates Have Better Employment Qutcomes Than General High School Graduates?, International Journal of Manpower (2019), 40: 1364-1388.
• Shubha Jayaram, Tara Hill & Daniel Plaut, Training Models for Employment in the Digital Economy, Results for Development Institute (2013).

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The new European Union Commission under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen started to work on December 1, 2019 with the aim to re-vitalize Europe. On this occasion, GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann was visiting Brussels on December 3 to prepare a European strategy of his organization.

After a Christmas shopping tour on the Grand Place, he was visiting Bruegel, the economic think tank, to discuss research and policy projects with GLO Fellow Martin Kahanec. Kahanec, who is a Professor at the Central European University (CEU) in Vienna & Budapest and a Mercator Senior Visiting Fellow at Bruegel, acts also the GLO Cluster Lead for EU Mobility.

Zimmermann, a Honorary Professor of Maastricht University and Co-Director POP at UNU-MERIT, was further visiting the Campus Brussels of Maastricht University to participate in a book launch and moderate a respective policy panel. The new book Una segunda oportunidad para Europa (A Second Chance for Europe) calls upon to rethink and reboot the European Union, obviously right in time for the fresh start of Europe, Ursula von der Leyen attempts to organize.

The book is authored by GLO Fellow Jo Ritzen, a Professorial Fellow of UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance. UNU-MERIT is a joint institute of the United Nations University (UNU) and Maastricht University. Ritzen is a former Minister of Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands, served in the Dutch Cabinet at the Maastricht Treaty, a former Vice President of the World Bank and former President of Maastricht University.

The book was presented in Spanish by Salvador Pérez-Moreno, Professor of Economic Policy, University of Malaga, and discussed in Spanish by Javier López, Member of the European Parliament. Zimmermann moderated also the panel discussion between Jo Ritzen, Salvador Pérez-Moreno and Javier López.

The video of this panel event is available HERE.

Group photo below from the right: López, Ritzen, Pérez-Moreno and Zimmermann. MORE DETAILS.

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