• Speaker: A. Doñate Buendía (UJI)
• Title: Gender identification and stake size effects in the Impunity Game
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: In the impunity game, responders, unlike the ultimatum game, cannot affect proposer’s outcomes. Proposers in this game, like in the dictator game, have full control over their own outcome, as rejection from the responder has no effect on their payoff. Thus, the theoretical prediction of this game states that the responder should accept any offer. An experiment is designed aiming at analysing both players’ behaviour in the impunity game when subjects are aware of the gender of their partner. Additionally, we examine the effect of different stake sizes. An online experiment with eight different treatments is implemented, with a total number of 1,210 observations. The main findings are that proposers give to responders an important (around 35%) share on average, and that both the stake size and gender identification affect their decisions. Moreover, responders’ rejection patterns follow the game theoretical prediction, although the hypothesis that knowing your counterpart sex/gender affects responders’ behaviour cannot be rejected. Finally, subjects’ behaviour in this game is found to be determined by their personality and psychopathy traits, as well as by their emotional intelligence level. Other sociodemographic characteristics like place of birth or their employment status are found to also influence their decisions.

• Speaker: Dirk Foremny (UB)
• Title:  Preferences for Redistribution, Regional Identities, and Decentralized Taxation
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper provides novel evidence on the impact of tax decentralization on citizens preferences for redistribution. In a large-scale survey experiment implemented in Spain, an information treatment explains respondents the normative tax power which regions can exercise in personal income taxation. First stage results show that the treatment increases the salience of this feature by 40 percentage points. The treatment increases respondents awareness of inequality, but decreases their support for higher taxes on the rich. Both results are explained by respondents' identities. The effect on the inequality aversion is driven by individuals with a stronger regional than national identity, while the rejection of higher taxes on the rich is driven by participants which identify more with the nation than the region. These results provide evidence that redistributive policies work as a local public good for the regional identity group, but not the national one.

• Speaker: M. Caporin (U. of Padova)
• Title: Estimating Financial Networks by Realized Interdependencies
• Invited by: J-A. Jimenez-Martin (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: We develop a network-based vector autoregressive approach to uncover the interactions among financial assets by integrating multiple realized measures based on high-frequency data. Under a restricted parameter structure, our approach allows the capture of cross-sectional and time ependencies embedded in a large panel of assets through the decomposition of these two blocks of dependencies. We propose a block coordinate descent (BCD) procedure for the least square estimation and investigate its theoretical properties. By integrating realized returns, realized volume, and realized volatilities of 1095 individual U.S. stocks over fifteen years, we illustrate that our approach identifies a large array of interdependencies with a limited computational effort. As a direct consequence of the estimated model, we provide a new ranking for the systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) and carry out an impulse-response analysis to quantify the effects of adverse shocks on the financial system.

• Speaker: Ana-María Fuertes (Bayes Business School, City, U. of London)
• Title: Commodity Hedging: Traditional or Selective? joint with J. Miffre (U. of Nantes) and A. Fernandez-Perez (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand) 
• Invited by: L. Robles (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Commodity selective hedging is, in principle, desirable as it is aimed at both covering the risk of the spot position and earning a speculative premium by incorporating the hedger’s view of commodity price movements. This paper appraises empirically the selective hedging notion by comparing the traditional pure hedging strategy that exclusively targets portfolio variance and various selective hedging strategies that are able to incorporate different hedger’s risk attitudes. Among the selective hedging methods we consider those deployed in extant studies that rely on forecasts of futures price changes obtained from (V)AR models, and alternatives not studied as yet based on the historical average forecast, or forecasts based on a large information set such as equal-weighted univariate forecast combinations inspired from the asset predictability literature or optimally integrated commodity signals as suggested in the style integration literature. Deploying the strategies out-of-sample individually for 24 commodities, it turns out that the hedgers’ expected utility gains versus no hedging are largest with the traditional minimum-variance hedging, namely, when the speculative component of the selective hedge is ignored and the focus is on risk minimization. The superiority of the minimum variance hedging strategy intensifies in bad times, that is, periods of high commodity market volatility or US recessions, and is robust to transaction costs, alternative specifications of the selective hedges, rolling or expanding estimation windows or different hedging rebalancing frequencies.

• Speaker: Clara I. González (Banco de España)
• Title: The role of a green factor in stock prices. When Fama & French go green
• Invited by: L. Robles (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Concerns about climate change are now widespread, and the risks for financial assets have become more evident. Investors are increasingly aware of the need to incorporate climate-related considerations in their investment decisions. All this has had an impact on market valuations. In this paper, we extend the framework of the factor models that explain the expected return of stock models to include a climate change exposure factor. To do so, we built a portfolio that is long on companies with low carbon emissions, and short on companies with high carbon emissions. We show that this factor is relevant in the market and allows for an approximation of the climate change exposure of firms with poor disclosure of their green performance. Thus, the betas of this factor could be a useful tool for investors that wish to incorporate these aspects in the management of their portfolios and analysts interested in corporate exposure to climate change risks.

• Speaker: A. Tondini (Research Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies (IRVAPP))
• Title:  Firm-Level Effects of Reductions in Working Hours (with  M. Lopes (UC3M))

   

• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM) 
• Abstract: How do legislative reductions in hours impact firms? In this paper, we use matched employer-employee data to evaluate a policy reform in Portugal that unexpectedly reduced the usual weekly working hours from 44 to 40 hours. Using a difference-in-differences approach that exploits initial heterogeneity across collective agreements covering workers in the retail sector, we show that the reform led to a significant drop in working hours in treated firms, while salaries did not adjust, resulting in higher wages per hour. We observe only a small and insignificant negative effect on employment, as treated firms are able to maintain or even increase sales despite the fall in labor input (total hours worked within a firm). We argue that this is likely to reflect higher prices rather than higher (or constant) volumes, whereby firms are able to shift the higher labor costs onto consumers.

• Speaker: J.M. Sánchez-Cartas (Zio Analytics)
• Title: Political Polarization, Algorithmic Bias, and Competition

   

• Invited by: C. De la Iglesia (UCM)
• Abstract: Does competition reduce the polarization of social media? Digital platforms may find it optimal to bias their recommendations to keep users engaged, but it is not obvious whether more competition leads to less polarized media. We provide general and robust results on the effects of competition on recommendation biases when heterogeneous consumers have opposite interests. We show that any market intervention that increases competition never increases prices and bias simultaneously. Either they move in different directions, or both are reduced. Therefore, competition may increase political polarization and reduce prices in some cases, but decrease polarization and prices in others. Public policies in digital markets should be tailored to specific markets. Generic policies may increase welfare in some markers but reduce it in others. In this regard, we analyze the impact on welfare and highlight that there exist cases in which increased competition may reduce welfare. These results shed light on empirical strategies to assess the impact of competition on algorithmic biases.

• Speaker: Carlos Vidal (U. Valencia)
• Title: 

  Life care annuities to help couples cope with the cost of long-term care

• Invited by: T. Pérez-Amaral (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper examines the possibility of including cash-for-care benefits in life care annuities (LCAs) to help retired couples cope with the cost of long-term care (LTC). It aims to assess how much it would cost to add an extra stream of payments to annuities for couples should either or both require LTC. We present an actuarial method based on array calculus to value this type of LCA. The impact of introducing the LTC contingency on the annuity is assessed by comparing the initial benefits in both cases. The difference in the initial benefit arises due to the annuity factors used to compute the benefits. We also analyse how willing couples would be to choose this type of LCA. Using Australian LTC transition probability data for a realistic calibration and assuming independence of the risks involved, we numerically illustrate the model and the theoretical findings implied. The paper highlights the importance of reporting the expected years both spouses will be alive (joint life expectancy) and the expected years the surviving spouse will be a widow(er) (survivor life expectancy) broken down by health state, given that this information makes the computation of the actuarial factors transparent and provides highly useful information to help the couple understand the need to be protected against the cost of LTC services.

• Speaker: A. Hidalgo (PhD candidate, IMT Lucca)
• Title: The Effect of Short-Term Rentals on Local Consumption Amenities: Evidence from Madrid
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of the arrival of Airbnb on the local consumption amenities in Madrid. We exploit the exogenous variation created by the timing and the unequal distribution of Airbnb listings across the urban geography to identify its effects on food and beverage establishments. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we find positive local effects on both the number of restaurants and their employees: an increase in ten Airbnb rooms in a given census tract translates into one more restaurant, and the same increase in a given neighborhood generates nine new tourist-related employees. The results are robust to sample composition, spatial spillovers and alternative measures of local consumption amenities. This paper contributes to the literature on the economic impacts of the platform economy on urban areas by providing evidence of positive economic externalities from short-term rentals.

• Speaker: A. Díaz (UC3M)
• Title: Geographic mobility over the life cycle (joint with Álvaro Jañez & Félix Wellschmied - UC3M)
• Invited by: L. Puch (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Joan Calzada (U.B)
• Title: Do search engines increase concentration in media markets?
• Invited by: I. Herguera (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Search engines are one of the main channels to access news content of traditional newspapers. In the European Union, organic search traffic from Google accounts for 35% of news outlets’ visits. Yet, the effects of Google Search on market competition and information diversity are ambiguous, as the firm indexes news outlets considering both domain authority and information accuracy. Using detailed daily data traffic for 606 news outlets from 15 European countries, we assess the effect of Google Search’s indexation on search visits. Our identification strategy exploits nine core algorithm updates rolled out by Google between 2018 and 2020 in order to achieve exogenous variation in news outlets’ indexation. Several conclusions follow from our estimations. First, Google core updates overall reduce the number of keywords that news outlets have in top positions in search results. Second, keywords ranked in top search position have a positive effect on news outlets’ visits. Third, our results are robust when we focus the analysis on different types of news outlets, but are less conclusive when we consider national markets separately. Our paper also analyzes the effects of Google core updates on media market concentration. We find that the three “big” core updates identified in this period reduced market concentration by 1%, but this effect was mostly compensated by the rest of the updates.

• Speaker: A. García Hernández (U. Rosario)
• Title: Networks and the Size of the Gender Gap in Politician Performance Across Job Duties
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Abstract: "The share of women in legislatures has increased dramatically in the past decade. Yet female politicians continue to face barriers that undermine their performance relative to men. We argue that those barriers have different implications across job duties, which can result in performance gender gaps of different magnitudes across duties. In particular, where female politicians are excluded in politician networks, duties requiring interaction with fellow politicians (e.g., legislative activities) may exhibit larger gender gaps as compared to duties (e.g., constituency services) that can be undertaken independently. We find support for this argument when comparing women and men politicians’ performance across 50 subnational Ugandan legislatures (where 1/3 of seats are reserved for women). Using original network data, we find that women are significantly more peripheral in professional networks, and that this network peripherality drives gender gaps in duties requiring more interaction with fellow politicians, but not independently-performed duties".

• Speaker: Dennis O. Flynn (University of the Pacific)
• Title: Physical Economics, Monies, and the Laws of Supplies and Demands
• Invited by: A. Hiernaux (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: I discuss how to describe accumulations (stocks) of ordinary non-monetary goods. The second half of the book will argue that tangible monies (plural) – not “money” (singular) in the macroeconomic sense – can be examined in the same manner as non-monetary goods. Hence, I am proposing a Price Theory of Monies (and Unified Theory of Prices). Doing so eliminates the need for the normal microeconomics-macroeconomics dichotomy of modern economics for the past century-plus.

• Speaker: Mattia Bevilacqua (University of Liverpool & Systemic Risk Center at LSE)
• Title: Dynamic Industry Uncertainty Networks and the Business Cycle
• Invited by: J-A. Jimenez-Martin (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: We argue that uncertainty network structures extracted from option prices contain valuable information for business cycles. Classifying U.S. industries according to their contribution to system-related uncertainty across business cycles, we uncover an uncertainty hub role for the communications, industrials and information technology sectors, while shocks to materials, real estate and utilities do not create strong linkages in the network. Moreover, we find that this ex-ante network of uncertainty is a useful predictor of business cycles, especially when it is based on uncertainty hubs. The industry uncertainty network behaves counter-cyclically in that a tighter network tends to associate with future business cycle contractions

• Speaker: A. Moreno (CUNEF)
• Title: Delayed Childbearing and Urban Revival
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper highlights the role of delayed childbearing as an important driver of urban revival. While downtown neighborhoods provide shorter commuting times and more consumption amenities, limited housing space and schools worse quality considerably reduce the value of this location when children are born. We argue that as technological advances enabled women to postpone maternity, the life period in which individuals benefit the most from living downtown extended. Consequently, demand for downtown locations increased, contributing to urban revival. We first exploit exogenous variation in the cost of postponing childbearing to obtain causal estimates of the impact of delayed maternity on urban revival. Exogeneity comes from spatial variation in mandated insurance of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). We find that a higher availability of ART in the state increases income downtown by 6.77% relative to the suburbs. We then employ this causal estimate to quantify a spatial equilibrium model that incorporates a fertility timing decision. We calculate counterfactual gentrification if the perceived probability of having children when mature had stayed constant at its 1980 level. We find that the increase in the perceived probability between 1980 and 2010 can generate 66% of the faster income growth downtown relative to the suburbs.

• Speaker: C. Frau Gomila (UCM-Phd. candidate)
• This is an ICAE-Department of Economic Analysis Ph.D. seminar meant to Ph.D. candidates to show their work to the teaching staff and their peers. Pass this seminar is a requirement for satisfactory progress in the Doctoral joint Program in Quantitative Finance and Economics/Programa de Doctorado en Finanzas y Economía Cuantitativas (UCM-UPV-UV-UCLM)
• Title: Seasonality in Commodity Prices: New Approaches for Pricing Plain Vanilla Options
• Invited by: L. Robles (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: We present a new term-structure model for commodity futures prices based on Trolle-Schwartz (2009), which we extend by incorporating seasonal stochastic volatility represented with of two different sinusoidal expressions. We obtain an analytical representation of the characteristic function of the futures prices, and we get quasi closed-form expressions for option prices using the fast Fourier transform algorithm. We price standard European options on Henry Hub natural gas futures contracts using our model and extant models. We obtain higher accuracy levels than the extant models.

• Speaker: Tuomas Pekkarinen (VATT and Aalto U)
• Title: The Making of Social Democracy: The Economic and Electoral Consequences of Norway’s 1936 Folk School Reform
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Upon assuming power for the first time in 1935, the Norwegian Labour Party delivered on its promise for a major schooling reform. The reform raised minimum instruction time in less developed rural areas and boosted the resources available to rural schools, reducing class size and increasing teacher salaries. We document that cohorts more intensively affected by the reform significantly increased their education and experienced higher labor income. Our main result is that the schooling reform also substantially increased support for the Norwegian Labour Party in subsequent elections. ....

• Speaker: C. Borra (Universidad de Sevilla)
• Title: The Causal Effect of an Income Shock on Children’S Human Capital (joint with A. Costa-Ramón, L. González, A. Sevilla)
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: We investigate the causal impact of a generous unconditional cash transfer at birth on children's later health outcomes and academic performance. Using rich administrative data, we take advantage of the unexpected introduction of a “baby bonus” in Spain in 2007 and implement a difference-in-discontinuity approach comparing children born in the surrounding months in different years. We find that the subsidy did not have a significant effect on health outcomes during childhood, nor on test scores in primary school. In line with this result, we show that the benefit did not affect the main potential mechanisms that could in turn have affected children’s health and academic performance. Our results contribute to understanding which interventions are effective at improving children's health and human capital formation.

• Speaker: A. Tondini (European University Institute)
• Title: Working Time Regulations, Employment and Productivity
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Jesús Gonzalo (UC3M)
• Title: Climate Change Heterogeneity: Spain and the Globe
• Invited by: T. Pérez-Amaral (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Nicolas Motz (UC3M & UCM)
• Title: A generalized measure of bargaining power, with an application to EU law-making
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Pedro Salas-Rojo (UCM-Phd. candidate)
• This is an ICAE-Department of Economic Analysis Ph.D. seminar meant to Ph.D. candidates to show their work to the teaching staff and their peers. Pass this seminar is a requirement for satisfactory progress in the Doctoral Program in Economics at UCM.
• Title: Three essays on economic inequality (Essay 1) (Essay 2) (Essay 3. Coming soon)
• Invited by:  J-G Rodríguez (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Manuel V. Montesinos (Phd. Student at UAB & BSE)
• Title: Elderly Care across Europe: The Role of Informal and Formal Care
• Invited by: L. Moreno (Dep. of Economic Analysis-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between time allocation decisions and the provision of elderly care. Using a sample assembled from European survey data, first I document the existence of a substantial degree of heterogeneity in the use of formal and informal care across Europe, giving place to different patterns in time allocation and care provision. In order to rationalize these findings, I pose and estimate a structural model which features working-age individuals and their parents making decisions on consumption, market work, and care in a static, discrete choice game of complete information.

• Speaker: S. Nocito (Sapienza University of Rome)
• Title: Fact-checking Politicians
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: The accuracy of voters' beliefs is crucial for the efficiency of democracy. Yet, "fake news" and "alternative facts" seems to have recently gained prominence in politics (Alcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Alcott et al. 2019). Is it the case that fact-checking politicians could reduce the spread of misinformation and improve the accuracy of voters’ beliefs? This project sheds light on this issue by designing and performing a novel field experiment measuring the extent to which politicians respond to fact-checking. The research design relies on a randomized field experiment in collaboration with the leading Italian fact-checking company "Pagella Politica".

• Speaker: C. Hupkau (CUNEF)
• Title: The motherhood penalty for working women in Spain
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Spain has seen a huge influx of women into the workplace in recent decades, but their experiences of work remain very different from those of men. As Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela explain, there is scope for new family-friendly policies to help to close gender gaps in the labour market and to boost fertility rates.

• Speaker: I. González (American University)
• Title: Aggregate and Ditributional Consequences of Corporate Taxation
• Invited by: R. Sebastián Lago (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: C. Martinez-Toleadano (Imperial College Business School)
• Title: TBA
• Invited by: R. Sebastián Lago (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Giacomo De Luca (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano)
• Title: Islamic Politics and Local Development: Evidence from Indonesia
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper investigates the role of Islamic parties' rule on local development in Indonesia. Using a regression discontinuity (RD) design, we compare districts in which the Islamic coalition barely won or lost in local elections. The analysis suggests that districts ruled by Islamic parties show a lower economic performance. Exploring the mechanisms, we find that Islamic local governments display a lower local revenues, partly due to their restrictions on locally-taxed specific entertainment activities, partly to lower transfers received from the central government.

• Speaker: R Ciacci (Comillas)
• Title: Banning the purchase of prostitution increases rape
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Omar Rachedi (ESADE)
• Title: Carbon emissions over the life cycle (joint with Henrique S. Basso (Banco de España) y Richard Jaimes (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana))
• Invited by: L. Puch (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Luis Gautier (University of Texas at Tyler)
• Title: Environmental policy design for the olive oil sector
• Invited by: P. Alvárez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: In the olive oil sector firms are increasingly transforming themselves into environmentally friendly firms. This transformation is marked by asymmetries in pollution intensities and high degrees of product differentiation. We study the role of this transformation in the design of environmental policy by comparing two environmental policy regimes: an emission tax and a relative binding standard. The analysis suggests that with sufficient asymmetry in pollution intensities an emission tax and relative binding standard are welfare-equivalent, but an emission tax is welfare-enhancing in the presence of sufficiently high degree of product differentiation. To make comparisons across policy regimes tractable, the welfare-maximizing policy within each regime is characterized as a function of the degree of product differentiation and pollution intensity. We characterize an equivalency scenario where policy adjustment is identical across regimes and hence show the existence of a degree of product differentiation where such equivalency holds. With these building blocks we argue that an emission tax is welfare-enhancing relative to the relative binding standard in industries where firms are becoming increasingly more environmentally friendly. We extend the analysis by incorporating uncertainty into our modelling strategy and show inter alia that an emission tax and the production of environmentally-friendly products are complements.

• Speaker: Jo Seldeslachts (KU Leuven, U Amsterdam, DIW Berlin)
• Title: Common Ownership and Market Entry: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry (with Newham, M. and Banal-Estañol, A.)
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Common ownership-where two firms are at least partially owned by the same investor-and its impact on product market outcomes has recently drawn a lot of attention from scholars and practitioners alike. Theoretical and empirical research suggests that common ownership can lead to higher prices. This paper focuses on implications for market entry. To estimate the effect of common ownership on entry decisions, we focus on the pharmaceutical industry. In particular, we consider the entry decisions of generic pharmaceutical firms into drug markets opened up by the end of regulatory protection in the US. We first provide a theoretical framework that shows that a higher level of common ownership between the brand firm (incumbent) and potential generic entrant reduces the generic's incentives to entry. We provide robust evidence for this prediction. The effect is large: a one-standard-deviation increase in common ownership decreases the probability of generic entry by 9-13%. We extend our basic theoretical framework and allow for multiple entrants. Our model shows that for sufficiently high levels of common ownership, the classical idea of entry decisions being strategic substitutes can be reversed into being strategic complements. Our empirical results provide some support for these predictions.

• Speaker: Ángel Marcos Vera-Hernández (University College London)
• Title: Monetary Incentives and Image Motivation: Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment with Nigerian Midwives
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: We test the relevance of image motivation in prosocial jobs through a large-scale experiment involving midwives deployed to needy areas. We randomize incentives to encourage midwife retention and measure midwives' image motivation, and social norms regarding length of service, using lab-in-the-field games. Our motivating behavioral model predicts incentives improve retention, changing the motivational composition of retained midwives by worsening the motivational signal of remaining. Our experimental findings show that incentives improve retention but may backfire as the most highly image-motivated midwives are more likely to leave earlier. Incentives also lengthen the minimum socially acceptable length of service.

• Panel discussion: REGULATION OF THE ELECTRICITY MARKET IN SPAIN
• Organization: Teodosio Pérez Amaral (ICAE-UCM- Director ICAE)

• Speaker: Alvaro Name-Correa (UCM3)
• Title: Multiple Prizes in Tournaments with Career Concerns (joint with Huseyin Yildirim, Duke)
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: In a first period a designer selects the prize structure of a rank-order tournament in a setting where risk-neutral agents decide whether to participate or not. The score of a participant agent is determined by the sum of his (natural) talent, effort, and the noise term. Players besides caring about winning a prize, also have career concerns, and, as it is common in that literature, they do not know their talents. The market, however, learns about them through their performances. In a second period agents enter the (labor or talent) market regardless of their participation in the tournament. The market then makes each agent a wage offer equal to his inferred talent. We show that when agents are more patient or the variance of the error term is low, the tournament offered by the designer becomes less competitive (with more prizes) in order to induce participation. In the first case, career incentives are strong, in the second case, both career and tournament incentives are intense. Thus, given the market's expectation to perform, agents would be reluctant to enter the tournament, requiring the designer to announce a high number of (small) prizes. Furthermore, the optimal number of prizes is single peaked in the population variance of talent. This is because the most motivated agents in the tournament would be those who are moderately well-known by the market. Thus, given the market's expectation such agents would also be the most reluctant to enter in a competitive tournament. We also examine an alternative setting where only rankings are observed, and show that the designer offers a steeper prize schedule with fewer prizes with respect to the benchmark. This is due to career marginal incentives being less powerful in that case.
•  

• Speaker: B. Fernández-Manjón (UCM / e-learning Group)
• Title: Serious Games
• Invited by: T. Perez-Amaral (ICAE-UCM)
• List of References

(1) Fox J, Pittaway L, Uzuegbunam I. Simulations in Entrepreneurship Education: Serious Games and Learning Through Play, Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy. 2018;1(1):61-89. 

(2) Meister, J. C. (2013), How Deloitte Made Learning a Game, Harvard Businesss Review

• Speaker: R. Sebastián Lago (ICAE-UCM)
• Title: Gender job polarisation
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Juan Rodriguez Calvo (Phd. Candidate Quantitative Finance - Thomson Reuters)
• Title: Tres ensayos sobre selección de fondos de inversión y de fondos de fondos: viabilidad de ratios e influencia de comisiones
• Invited by: L. Robles (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Juan Jung (ICAE-UCM)
• Title: The impact of policies, regulation, and institutions on ICT sector performance
• Invited by: T. Perez-Amaral (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This study uses econometric modelling to examine the impact of the regulatory and institutional frameworks on the performance of the ICT (Information Communication Technologies) sector and its contribution to the national economy as a whole. Its purpose is to provide policy-makers and regulators with the empirical evidence required to further regulatory reform in the ICT sector and address the challenges and gaps in current regulatory frameworks for digital services and applications. The study scope explores a set of critical questions: i) What is the impact of government policies and regulation on the performance of the ICT sector, as measured by capital investment, network deployment, service pricing, consumer demand, and ultimately impact on the economy? ii)Is competition enough of an incentive to drive an improvement of sector performance? iii) How long does it take for changes in regulation and policies to affect sector performance? The modelling is built on data from 145 countries between 2008 and 2019 – an up-to-date global data set, comprising 50 initiatives of policy reforms and institutional characteristics as well as 13 indicators of ICT sector performance.

• Speaker: T. Perez-Amaral & A. Valarezo Unda (ICAE-UCM)
• Title: Online education in Spain 2008-2009. Drivers and impediments
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Online learning and training are gaining momentum worldwide by reducing the temporal and spatial limitations associated with the traditional form of face-to-face education. Online education improves access to education and training, especially during the present Covid-19 pandemic. This article focuses on online education adoption in Spain. A large and representative panel database from the ICT in the household´s survey by the National Institute of Statistics is used. The first objective is to provide an econometric model for the adoption of online education. Next is to measure the effects of relevant observable individual socioeconomic variables on adoption. A Heckman selection model using panel data for 2008-2019 allows estimating the impact of differences in gender, age, education, digital skills, habitat and income. The drivers and impediments have the expected signs and plausible sizes. The paper concludes with policy recommendations and suggestions for further research.

• Speaker: Patrizia Pérez Asurmendi (ICAE-UCM)
• Title: The Choquet integral in the construction of composite indices: The case of the Sustainable Society Index
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: In economic framework, composite indicators are a powerful tool to summarize the information provided by simple indicators in a unique value. Many of them are designed aggregating simple indicators through arithmetic and geometric means (sometimes the weighted ones) given their simplicity and their properties. But using these aggregation functions is subject to criticisms in the literature. In the case of the arithmetic mean, the main one focuses on the compensability that it allows among the different simple indicators that aggregates. To solve this weakness, the use of the geometric mean is highly recommended given that the compensability among the different simple indicators is lower than in the former. Nevertheless, the geometric mean exhibits also a relevant drawback, namely, it is not invariant to changes in the scale. To be more concrete, it is not stable when linear transformations are performed on the scale used to represent the values of the indicators. Accordingly, the final ranking depends dramatically on the selected scale of the simple indicators. Moreover, in both cases, the possible and common interactions among simple indicators are not considered in the composite indicator. To overcome these issues, we propose a model based on the Choquet integral. On the one hand, our proposal allows to consider the usual interactions among the simple indicators in the composite indicator when necessary. On the other hand, it allows to control the degree of compensability among simple indicators. Possible applications of our model are huge and to illustrate them, we also provide the implementation of our model in the Sustainable Society Index. Such composite indicator measures the level of sustainability of 154 countries taken into account the three dimensions of sustainability, namely, the Human Wellbeing, the Environmental Wellbeing, and the Economic Wellbeing dimension. Its complexity allows us to show the convenience of using our model in the construction of composite indicators

• Speaker: Laura Garcia-Jorcano (UCLM)
• Title: : Forecasting the climate change risk by sea-level rises using time-varying extreme value analysis
• Invited by: L. Robles (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: One of the most significant potential impacts of climate change is the sea-level rise. A better understanding and measurement of extreme sea-level rise benefits the detection and attribution of climate change signals. Using the global and regional mean sea-level rise (mm) every 10 days (Dic/1992-Oct/2020), we propose two news forecasts measures called Extreme Sea-Level Value at Rise (ExSLVaR) and Extreme Sea-Level Expected Rise (ExSLER) at 10 days and at 1 month calculated for 8 seas/oceans of the Earth using Extreme Value Theory (EVT) and Filtered Historical Simulation (FHS) approach. Both measures enable us to calculate the dynamic risk of extreme sea-level rise in the coastal cities/countries of these oceans/seas. We also obtain time-varying mean sea-level rise projections for 10-80-280 years, reaching levels of 9.5 meters for 2300 for the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, we analyze the connection between our measures and financial risk in different sectors. The main evidence shows different regional and global forecasts. The results can serve as valuable inputs for these sectors in different cities/countries in deciding how much risk they are willing to accept, and consequently how much adaptation they need depending on the risk aversion of their decision-makers.

• Speaker: Lidia Sanchis-Marco (UCLM)
• Title: Spillover effects between commodity and stock markets: A SDSES approach
• Invited by: L. Robles (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: In this paper, we developed a state-dependent sensitivity expected shortfall (SDSES) approach using expectiles. This model enabled us to quantify the direction, size, and persistence of risk spillovers among the US and emerging market stock indices and different individual commodities as a function of the state of financial markets (tranquil, normal, and volatile). We obtained high and more significant spillovers and financialization process evidence in the volatile state after Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and market stock indices appeared to play a major role in the transmission of shocks to other markets.

• Speaker: C. Brum (B. de Uruguay, PhD. candidate UCM)
• Title: An indicator of monetary bias for emerging and dollarized economies: The case of Uruguay
• Invited by: A. Garcia-Hiernaux (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: The instability of the relationships between interest rates, amount of money, and exchange rate, and the transmission problems between different interest rates hinder the measurement of monetary policy through a single variable. This difficulty is particularly relevant in emerging and dollarized economies. This paper proposes a multivariate indicator of monetary bias for these economies in which the monetary and financial variables are considered according to the impact they have on inflation in each period. We analyze the case of Uruguay and use a Factor Augmented Vector AutoRegressive Moving Average model with eXogenous variables (FAVARMAX) to estimate these effects. Using the evolution of the indicator proposed, called the Monetary Conditions Index (MCI), we characterize the policy adopted by the Central Bank of Uruguay between 2010-2019, a period of inflation targeting

• Speaker: Agustín Casas (CUNEF)
• Title: Checks and balances and Nation Building: The Spanish Constitutional Court and the Support for Independence
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: We examine whether judicial review can affect nation building by studying how the ruling of the Spanish Constitutional Court on the Catalan Constitution affected Catalan support of secession, which doubled in the 2010-2012 period. Our identification strategy relies on the fact that the ruling occurred amidst a public opinion survey. We find that the ruling led to a 20% increase in support for Catalan independence from Spain in 2010. In terms of mechanisms, we show that the ruling decreased identification with the Spanish national identity and trust in national institutions. We find that the ruling increased the intention to vote for Catalan nationalist parties and is associated with a long-lasting increase in electoral polarization in Catalonia.

• Speaker: Javier Ojea-Ferreiro (JRC-European Commission and ICAE)
• Title: Exchange rates and the global transmission of equity market shocks
• Invited by: J-A. Jimenez-Martin (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: We assess the role played by exchange rates in buffering or amplifying the propagation of shocks across international equity markets. Using copula functions we model the joint dependence between exchange rates and two global equity markets and, from a copula framework, we obtain the conditional expectation and measure the exchange rate contribution to shock propagation between those equity markets. Our estimates for emerging Latin American economies (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) and two developed markets (Europe and the USA) document the following: (a) the contribution of exchange rates to the transmission of equity shocks is time varying and asymmetric and differs across countries; and (b) exchange rates diversify shocks from abroad for investors based in emerging economies (particularly Brazil, Chile and Mexico) and echo the effect of shocks from abroad for investors based in developed markets. This evidence has implications for international investors in terms of portfolio and risk management decisions.

• Speaker: Alejandro Buesa (BdE, PhD UCM)
• Title: Risky mortgages, credit shocks and cross-border spillovers
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper describes a novel methodology of measuring risky and conservative mortgage credit using household survey data for 18 European countries and the United Kingdom. In addition, we construct time series for both types of credit and embed them into a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model, so as to study how shocks to both variables affect domestic output and propagate across countries through cross-border banking exposures. The results show that a decrease in risky credit can have long-lasting positive effects on GDP, both in the originating country and its most exposed peers, while a fall in conservative credit is detrimental. In some geographies, negative shocks to both types of credit reduce output, a feature linked to the lower relevance of homeownership which implies that mortgage credit plays a less prominent role in the domestic economy.

• Speaker: Antonio Nicoló (Univ Padova)
• Title: A Commitment Theory of  Populism
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract:
  We propose a theory of populism as simplistic or unconditional commitment. Economic crises as well as social and cultural threats may be responsible for increased demand of simple credible policies, and reduced trust in the ability and reliability of representative politicians without policy commitments. We show under what conditions politicians choose to supply simplistic commitments in equilibrium and how this choice interacts with competence, antielite rhetoric and complementary fake news strategies. Whenever an equilibrium exists with one party choosing populist commitments and the other choosing delegation to experts, the former is always the one displaying lower moral universalism. Nationalism, closed border policies and protectionism are examples of commitment demands that reflect reduced moral universalism. When the desire for simple commitments increases, there can be also low political information when uncommitted politicians win.

• Speaker: Irene Ródenas Monedero (Phd -UCM)
• Title: Análisis de políticas de empleo en un entorno de modelos de búsqueda y crecimiento endógeno
• Invited by:  J. Ruíz Andujar (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Alex Trew (Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow)
• Title: Fighting for Growth: Labor Scarcity and Technology Adoption during the British Industrial Revolution, (with Bruno Caprettini, UZH and Joachim Voth, UZH)
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: Can labor scarcity accelerate technological adoption? We examine the effects of military recruitment during the Napoleonic Wars on the adoption of labor-saving technology in England, 1800-1850. Where the Royal Navy recruited more sailors, more machines that economized on (male) labor were adopted. Using depth of the seabed in front of coastal parishes, we show that exogenous shocks to labor scarcity led to technology adoption. This in turn led to both faster structural change as well as technological improvements through learning-by-doing effects.

• Speaker: Anett Erdmann (ESIC Business & Marketing School) 
• Title: The long-run outcome of SEO keyword choice: Cost convergence and relative cost elasticity of website traffic.
• Invited by: E. Huergo (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Title: The Psychological Effect of a Math Signal
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper tests whether barely obtaining a pass score in at least one of two midterm tests has an effect on subsequent achievement in a Math course. To estimate the effect, we created a novel dataset by linking administrative and survey data on students at a medium size Spanish University and used a regression discontinuity design in which the cutoff is 5, i.e. the pass score in the national grading system. Although obtaining a score just equal to or barely greater than 5 in midterm tests has no immediate consequence for students, it may have a psychological effect by acting as a (de)motivating signal to study and pass the course, with the sign of the effect being unclear ex-ante. We find that obtaining a pass score in at least a midterm has a positive effect on the final exam score. The result can be rationalised by students’ ability to obtain a final exam score that when averaged along with the midterm tests scores leads to a pass score in the course, a proxy for rationality. Overall, our results suggest that partly unexplored psychological mechanisms may help us deepen our understanding of the determinants of achievement in Math.

• Speaker: José Montalbán-Castilla (SOFI- Stockholm University)
• Title:Home Broadband and Human Capital Formation" (con Rosa Sanchís-Guarner y Felix Weinhardt)
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: Judit Vall Castello (Universitat de Barcelona & Researcher at @FundacioIEB & at CRES-UPF)
• Title: Living at the peak: Health and public finance during the Covid-19 pandemic
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper provides novel evidence for the determinants of preferences for public health and the willingness to pay for health services using a survey experiment implemented during the third week of the lock-down in Spain (first wave) as well as during the last days of July (second wave). At the time of our experiment the confirmed COVID-19 cases reached the 100k mark in Spain and 1 million worldwide. We collect information on several health outcomes, which we are able to benchmark with results from previous surveys. Results show a substantial deterioration of mental health, which is more pronounced in groups of the population with less stable income sources and the younger group of individuals. Furthermore, we implement two information treatments about the fatality rate across age groups and the incidence rate across regions. In the first case, the treatment is stronger for those in, or with relatives in the risk group. The fact that regions are on different parts of the trajectory creates variation across regions in the second treatment. We ask participants about their preferred budget allocation, which we can again benchmark against the enacted budget and previous surveys. Results suggest that preferences for health care expenditures have almost doubled. Furthermore, we ask respondents about their willingness to pay for one out of three randomly assigned health care improvements. Contributions for more ICU beds are significantly higher compered to medical treatments and a vaccine

• Speaker: Warn Lekfuangfu (UC3M)
• Title: Raised by grandparents: the effects of growing up in skipped generation households on later-life educational attainment" (with Tanyamat Srungbunmee, Khonkaen University, Thailand)
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: This paper explores the long-run effects of parental absence during multiple stages of childhood on later-life educational attainment. We look at the specific case of children in skipped generation families who grew up in households where grandparents are primary caregiver, and both parents were absent for an extended period. To deal with the endogeneity of family choices and parental migration, we exploit a plethora of fixed effect estimations (locality, birth cohort and sibling fixed effects) and instrumental variable design. Using a longitudinal household survey, the Townsend Thai Data, our estimates show that early childhood experience of growing up in skipped generation households harms schooling outcomes later in life. We provide evidence that grandparent-headed households with parental absence also spent less on children’s education despite having received higher remittances.

• Speaker: Socorro Puy (U. de Málaga)
• Title: Constitutions, Federalism and National Integration
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)
• Abstract: A constitution defines a vertical and horizontal division of power. The vertical division is the power that regions transfer to the national government; the horizontal division is the relative power of each region in the national legislature. We explore what combinations of vertical and horizontal division of power arise when forming a nation or a union, and which combinations reduce the risk of dissolution. We present a new model of political bargaining among heterogeneous regions that design a common constitution. We show that scale economies translate into higher centralized systems, whereas cultural and political heterogeneity translate into more decentralized federal systems. Interestingly, the constitutions that minimize the risk of secession compensate with proportionally more power in the national legislature those regions that have less to gain economically from national integration. Such division of power contrast with other widely used that assign equal power to each region or power in proportion to population size. Our results suggest that compensations in the constitutional process need not be accomplished through direct transfers; it can be accomplished through the legislative process.

• Speaker: Christos Ioannou (U Paris 1)
• Title: Describing and Understanding the Long Run in Repeated Games
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: D. Rees (U Colorado, US)
• Title: The Federal Effort to Desegregate Shouthern Hospitals and the Black-White Infant Mortality Gap
• Invited by:M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)

• Speaker: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)
• Title: A Beam of Light: Media, Tourism and Economic Development
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Speaker: J. Moreno Ternero (U. Pablo Olavide)
• Title: On the axiomatic approach to sharing the revenues from broadcasting sports leagues (joint with Gustavo Bergantiños, U Vigo)
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Speaker: Antonio Miralles (U Autònoma Barcelona - Barcelona GSE, Universitá Palermo)
• Title: Constrained Pseudo-Market Equilibrium
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez-Alvarez (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Speaker:  Javier Valbuena (U. de Zaragoza)
• Title: Youth unemployment and stigmatization over the business cycle in Europe.
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Speaker: Miguel Almunia (CUNEF)
• Title: Venting Out: Exports during a Domestic Slump
• Invited by: L.Puch (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Speaker: Danilo Leiva Leon (Banco de España)
• Title: Endogenous Time Variation in Vector Autoregressions
• Invited by: L.Puch (ICAE-UCM)

•  Speaker: Michele Rosenberg (Northwestern)
• Title: Tell Me What You Grow and I'll Tell You What You Think: Westward Expansion and the Politics of Slavery in the US South (with Federico Masera, U New South Wales)
• Invited by: C. Rodríguez  (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Speaker: P. Brañas Garza (U Loyola)
• Title: Paper 1: To pay or not to pay: Measuring risk preferences in lab and field & Paper 2: Paid and hypothetical time preferences are the same: Lab, field and online evidence
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Speaker: Jaime Millán (U Navarra)
• Title: Oiling up the field. Forced internal displacement and the expansion of palm oil in Colombia (with Sebastián Pulgarín)
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Speaker: Scott Kostyshak (U Florida)
• Title: The Partial Monotonicity Parameter: A Generalization of Regression Monotonicity
• Invited by: M. Sartarelli  (ICAE-UCM)

Gallery:

• Venue: : Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico, and a Virtual Workshop. Campus de Somosaguas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
• Local Organizers:  Antonia Díaz and Luis Puch

• Venue: : Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico, and a Virtual Workshop. Campus de Somosaguas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
• Local Organizers:  Antonia Díaz and Luis Puch