Royal Economic Society

Issue no. 178 Newsletter July 2017

Brexit and communications

This issue is dominated by the two themes that have Correspondence recurred throughout the last year. Letter from Germany p.3 In his Letter from Germany, Michael Burda gives a rather gloomy of assessment of the outlook for the UK economy, given the likely impact of Brexit and the poor trend in UK productivity. If anything, the  view of the UK from Germany seems to have Features become more pessimistic with the passage of time. RES Annual Conference Report p.5 The debate on the likely impact of leaving the EU inevitable featured in the Society’s Annual Economics: the Profession and the Public p. 9 Conference, held in April in Bristol. We have an Gender balance in UK economics p. 11 excellent report from Soumaya Keynes of the Economist. That report makes it clear that our two themes are related. It was the media’s treatment of the economic issues raised by the EU referendum Obituaries that first alerted the Society to the possibility that there was something seriously wrong with the way in W J Baumol p. 20 which economic issues —specially those that are Zvi Hans Schloss p. 22 controversial — are reported in the press and broad- cast media. As Soumaya’s report shows, this was the starting point of the Annual Conference. But it is not just the Society that is concerned about this. In recent issues we highlighted the plan for a RES office news p. 23 symposium, organised by the Society, the Treasury and the Bank of England on this subject. Alvin Birdi and Ashley Lait of the Economics Network report on the outcome. Members of the Society might also like to know that their media consultant, Romesh p. 24 Conference diary Vaitilingam, is doing his bit for the cause of improv- ing the communication of economics to a wider audi- ence through a newly-established blog. Brief details are given on p. 19. We also have a shortened version of the report from the Society’s Women’s Committee on the findings from their survey of the gender balance in UK acdemic economics. Royal Economic Society Economic Royal THE ROYAL ECONOMIC SOCIETY • President: Professor Peter Neary (Oxford) • President-elect: Professor Lord Nicholas Stern (LSE) • Past-president: Professor Andrew Chesher (cemmap and LSE) • Secretary-General: Professor Denise Osborn (University of Manchester) • Second Secretary: Professor Robin Naylor (University of Warwick) For other members of the Executive Committee, go to the Society pages on the website where all those involved in the structure and governance of the Society are listed. The Society’s The Royal Economic Society is one of the oldest and most prestigious econom- Newsletter ic associations in the world. It is a learned society, founded in 1890 with the aim ‘to promote the study of economic science.’ Initially called the British Economic Association, it became the Royal Economic Society on receiv- The Newsletter is first and fore- ing its Royal Charter in 1902. The current officers of the Executive most a vehicle for the dissemina- Committee are listed above. tion of news and comment of inter- The Society’s bee logo est to its readers. Contributions from The Society’s logo, shown below, has been used from its earli- readers are always warmly welcomed. est days. The story behind the use of the bee refers to the We are particularly interested to receive ‘Fable of the Bees’ by Bernard Mandeville, an 18th Century letters, reports of conferences and meet- essayist which alludes to the benefits of decentralisation ings, and news of major research projects as by looking at co-operation amongst bees and showing well as comment on recent events. how the pursuit of self-interest can be beneficial to society. The Latin quote comes from Virgil and speaks of the drive of bees. Visit our website at: www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html The Newsletter is published quarterly in January, April, July and October

Newsletter - subscription rates The Newsletter is distributed to members of the Society free of charge. Non-members may obtain copies at the following subscrip- For membership benefits, sub- tion rates: scription fees and how to join the Society, see back • UK £5.00 • Europe (outside UK) £6.50 • Non-Europe (by airmail) £8.00 cover or go to: www.res.org.uk Next issue No. 179 October 2017 Deadline for submissions 16 September 2017 Editor RES Office Prof Peter Howells, Chief Executive: Leighton Chipperfield Bristol Business School, Operations Manager: Marie-Luiza De Menezes UWE Bristol, RES Office, 2 Dean Trench Street, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QY Westminster, London. SW1P 3HE Email: [email protected] [email protected] Tel: 020 3137 6301 Email: [email protected] Website: www.res.org.uk Designed by Sarum Editorial Services: www.sarum-editorial.co.uk www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 2 Correspondence Letter from Germany — Brexit, seen from Berlin II Michael Burda, at Berlin’s Humboldt University, reports rather gloomily on the prospect for a UK economy faced simultaneously with the effects of Brexit and stagnating productivity growth.

YEAR LATER -- and none the wiser. Writing in my other. (The cacophony was unsurprisingly intense.) The Letter from Germany (June 2016, days before overarching topic was ‘Investment and Productivity,’ a hat Athe referendum) I warned against the unforeseen tip to recent speculation that we are in the middle of medi- consequences of Brexit. While I didn’t dare try to predict um-term TFP and capital expenditure slowdown. Indeed, the outcome, I did say ‘there was a very real probability’ it is striking that productivity growth across the globe has of a ‘leave’ vote, and that the consequences would be slowed down so much. Figure 1 is a breathtaking picure worse than we ever could have imagined. Sure, the UK presented by Robert Hall — showing the evolution of recession hasn’t really started yet, because a 12 per cent total factor productivity as an index centered on 2000. drop in Sterling has cushioned the fall, but the macro data are not encourag- Figure 2: Labour Productivity per hour worked (2014 USD) ing. And then we Yanks got Trumped. So it’s only natural for me to talk about Brexit again. I have a sinking feeling that things may still get much worse than they already are, before they get any better. This is because emotions, culture, traditions and other non-eco- nomic elements have taken over. Facts don’t seem to count for much, and experts even less. I came to Europe believing that wars were a thing of the past but it seems that trade wars have since become a distinct possibility. This is not going to be an academic let- Source: Conference Board ter, but rather a political-economic one. I am swimming in deep water, but it is a late submission As he points out, it is fascinating but at the same time and fortunately not refereed (except by the editor). unnerving to think that we economists are unable to The context: I have just returned from the ECB Forum explain the heterogeneity across countries. (Adding lev- on Central Banking in Sintra, which felt more like a els to the story using Hall-Jones estimates generally Forum for European economists simply to talk to each makes things worse, not better). There were some fasci- nating hypotheses put forward, all of Figure 1: Log of Index of Multifactor Productivity which are pure speculation. But fact is fact: Measured TFP, using imperfectly measured GDP, capital stocks and labor inputs, is not only slowing down every- where, but it is actually declining in some countries. And we know that it is not only ‘technology’ that represents a great dollop of distance to the frontier — poor infrastructure, overregulation, corruption, but most of all deficient implementation of best practices. If you don’t like TFP, we can look at another, less contentious measure of productivi- ty, market output per hour worked, in figure 2. The correlation of level labor Source: Robert Hall’s Sintra presentation, 28 June 2017 https://www.ecbforum.eu/uploads/originals/2017/speakers/presentations/finals/29/1_Hall productivity withthe evolution of TFP %20presentation%20revised.pdf since 2000 is striking. Taking these 3 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Correspondence numbers at face value, the UK seems to suffer from the EU negotiating position will maintain momentum while same productivity malaise as southern Europe, except those with reasons to oppose it — consumers, taxpayers that it has been able to grow by using (importing) a lot and workers — are disorganized and will drop the ball. more capital (FDI) and keeping its labor force utilization high, but it is ‘fake news’ to claim that Britain is leading Yet even being small and focused may not be sufficient. the TFP pack. UK farmers already seem to have lost the public relations battle: as Charles Goodhart pointed out, sheep farmers will likely lose their agricultural subsidies and have to re- So what does this have to do with Brexit? route their animals to the US. One of the most important One of the thought-provoking talks in Sintra was given drivers of UK productivity overall, finance and insurance, by Mariana Mazzucato, who argued that spurts in inven- will almost surely suffer from the loss of European mar- tions, innovation and TFP come on the heels of deep ket access. One might argue that financialization is one commitments of the public sector to developing new root cause of the UK malaise, but this doesn’t seem quite ideas. Governments generally provide a hefty amount of right either, given the enormous success of London over coordination, financing or guarantees, and overall direc- the past quarter century. Being a wallet for China and tion of developing new ideas (and rarely participate in India seems far-fetched in any case, especially if banks the profits). Although usually a skeptic, I have to admit and clearing-houses are moving to the continent. the evidence is convincing: the Apollo project and ARPANET were wildly important for all sorts of techno- And then there is the ugliness. I am talking about ugli- logic advance. Yet I am reminded that World War II, the ness on both sides of the Channel. The UK-EU dialogue Manhattan project, the Vietnam conflict and 9-11 were is becoming increasingly poisoned by those who profit also just as galvanizing in driving technological innova- from misinformation and distraction. On the UK side, tion. So one would hope that size and scale, and not there is increasing anger over an estimated £60bn bill — another military adventure, holds the secret to restoring honestly, peanuts in light of the potential trade losses. On economic progress. the EU side, there is an obsession with making an exam- ple of the recalcitrant British to prevent a run to the exit. Brexit seems like such a bad idea already, but in the con- Brussels refuses to admit that Brexit was mostly about text of secularly stagnating productivity it looks positive- immigration, less about intrusive EU regulation, and not ly atrocious. The horrible lesson of the last secular stagna- at all about the free movement of goods and services. The tion phase was that ‘war will do the trick’ of focusing surge in migration was a result of Eastern accession and innovative efforts. What will be the great project for special deals made with...the Germans. Maybe it’s time Great Britain in the next two or three decades? Solving the to rewrite the EU’s ‘four freedoms’ —- maybe even with common external European border problem? Preventing the UK’s help. Most economists agree that the set of or at least coping with climate change? Developing the acceptable alternatives to the hardest variants of Brexit next generation of electric batteries? Achieving and com- are huge — the gains from UK-EU trade are simply enor- mercializing sustainable nuclear fusion? These are all mous when the outside option is WTO status. What could European projects, and being ‘in’ means being part of a be the issue here? I can’t help but think it is all about loss large-scale approach to these challenges. Being out will of face, resentment and recrimination. Europe has been either mean striking out alone, or jumping into bed with here before, and often, in the past millennium. the Americans, who are unlikely to treat them as equals. Doesn’t look like an attractive way out of the slump. In my last letter, I opined that the globalization inflec- tion point had been reached or even exceeded in most The UK has less than two years to negotiate a proper exit OECD countries. Judging from opinion polls, society’s from the EU. A well-conceived and orderly Brexit is apparent lack of concern for the redistributive aspects of essential for maintaining economic growth and prosper- free trade and international labor market integration as ity, especially growth shared by a large fraction of the well as economists’ own disregard for the compensation population. Yet as the negotiations proceed, it is hard not principle have alienated those who have lost ground due to conclude that Brexit will be messy, by any definition, to these developments. But this insight doesn’t imply and possibly very ugly. that the solution is to throw out the baby with the prover- Let me first talk about messiness. Naturally, it is never bial bathwater. I am hoping earnestly, but not optimisti- easy to enter into divorce proceedings with élan. Yet every cally, for a more conciliatory tone from both Brussels wasted moment settling the division of the surplus and the and London in the months to come. This means that the responsibilities for the aftermath will mean more losses of EU elite needs to make concessions to keep the UK as output down the road, but just as important, lost effort and ‘in’ as possible. There are too many consumers, taxpay- time so badly needed for innovative activity. I am increas- ers, and workers who will suffer should hard Brexit ingly convinced that lawyers and consultants — and their come to pass. wasteful rent-seeking activities — are driving this process. As usual, Mancur Olson’s insights apply: concen- Best regards from Berlin! trated interests with large investment in Brexit and a tough www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 4 Features Conference Report 2017

The Society’s Annual Conference was held at the University of Bristol, 10-12 April. This report was prepared by Soumaya Keynes of the Economist.

Brexit means Brexit Mr Johnson did some finger-pointing of his own. He ticked off the treasury for publishing its own analysis In March of 2016 I asked an audience of economists at before independent researchers had their chance, and for the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference in its ‘ludicrous’ statement about an emergency budget. Brighton to raise a hand if they thought Britons should The chancellor should have stood back, rather than vote to remain within the European Union. A sea of adding to public confusion over the distinction between hands went up. I then asked for a forecast. Did the audi- academic economists and those toeing the treasury line. ence think that Britons would vote to leave the EU? Part of the problem, he added, was in the nature of the Back then, the opinion polls suggested a victory for debate. Brexit had political and economic dimensions, remain. Only a smattering of the economists predicted and whereas there was a broad consensus among econo- otherwise. mists that Brexit would make Britons poorer in the long- A year later, this time at the University of Bristol, and the run, there were political arguments to be made on both assembled economists were feeling decidedly less opti- sides. Where the economics is clear but non-economic mistic about Britain’s future. A panel discussion on the factors are important, it becomes difficult to appear neu- first day of the conference tackled post-Brexit econom- tral and objective. ics. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal The first comment from the audience came from Gervas Studies, declined to talk about the impact of Brexit — Huxley of the University of Bristol. ‘The panel came there wasn’t a great deal to add beyond the obvious. across as frighteningly complacent’, he said. ‘We still Instead, he asked the audience what they should learn sound to me terribly pleased with ourselves … we must from the past year. Economists knew that Brexit would ask ourselves how we can do better.’ The panel did come make Britons poorer, but failed to get their message up with prescriptions. Simon Wren-Lewis called for across. What went wrong? economists to organise, as the ‘there’s only one group of people who are going to stand up for economists and Divided we fall that’s economists themselves.’ Jagjit Chadha of the Perhaps the public knew that Brexit would drain their National Institute of Economic and Social Research wallets, but voted for it anyway. Sometimes it’s not the called for an economics analogue of a chief scientific economy, stupid. But Simon Wren-Lewis, of Oxford officer, who would speak for the profession. University, rubbished this idea, pointing out that those who voted for Brexit said they were unwilling to pay to There was perhaps stronger evidence of complacency reduce immigration. Instead, people seemed misin- among the audience. To Paul Johnson’s astonishment, formed. Not only did those who voted to leave the EU when he asked for a show of hands from all those who think that they would be no worse off as a result, they had changed their research agenda in response to Brexit, thought that lower immigration would improve their not a single hand went up. His response: ‘in the context access to public services. of the biggest economic shock that has hit this country in decades, we need to reflect on how and why that is the The problem, Mr Wren-Lewis argued, was with the case.’ (It may have been some consolation to Paul media. Dismissing a large fraction as producers of pro- Johnson that businesses are only a little more responsive poganda, he reserved most disappointment for the BBC. than academics. My other dose of Brexit over the next It failed to communicate the consensus among econo- few days came from a paper by Jumana Saleheen, Iren mists, he said, treating it as opinion rather than knowl- Levina, Marko Melolinna and Srdan Tatomir of the Bank edge. Swati Dhingra, of the London School of of England, which found that in November of 2016 only Economics, agreed, saying that the BBC’s quest to gen- 23 per cent of firms they surveyed had reviewed their erate balance gave the false impression that there was a investment targets since the referendum.) meaningful debate between economists. (Depressingly, she noted that this false balance had oozed into policy- Trade: all we need is love? making, as select committees are being stacked with pro- With so much politicking and so few details on Britain’s Brexit voices.) post-Brexit deal, perhaps it wasn't surprising that Brexit-

5 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Features related research was scarce. Amid the three-day feast of Unfortunately, said Gita Gopinath, the world is a little economic research there was, however, plenty of more complicated than that. The symmetry embedded in research on trade more generally. these models is convenient for making neat models, but in reality trading countries differ in the way that they There were even a (very) few good jokes. The gag of the invoice their trade. Specifically, one currency, the dollar, conference went to Martin Cripps, of University College dominates global trade invoicing. Since 1999, America London, who after a lengthy pause, announced the win- have bought just under 10 per cent of world imports, but ner of the Austin Robinson prize as… La La Land. The 55 per cent of world invoices are in American dollars. real winner, Sergey Nigai of ETH Zurich, used a little And whereas 91 per cent of American exports are priced more algebra than Ryan Gosling, in his quest to analyse in dollars, 51 per cent of British trade is priced in sterling the effects of trade when one relaxes the assumption that and just 5 per cent of Chinese exports are priced in yuan. all consumers are alike. He finds that lowering trade bar- riers has more of an effect on the price of tradeable She therefore introduced a third generation of exchange goods than non-tradeable ones. And as richer households rate assumptions, known as the ‘dominant currency par- both have relatively strong preferences for tradeable adigm’. Here prices are set in neither the importer’s nor goods and consume more of them, they will tend to ben- the exporter’s currency, but in a third currency, which efit more from trade. Without accounting for this, one dominates the dynamics of trade. Her research with could overstate the progressivity of the consumer bene- Emine Boz of the IMF and Mikkel Plagborg-Møller has fits of trade, he warned. confirmed this empirically. For understanding how prices will change in response to a currency shock, they Another example came from Katrin Huber of the find that the dollar exchange rate is more important than University of Passau and Erwin Winkler of the that between the trading partners. University of Wuerzburg. Most analysis of the impact of import competition on people looks at individuals. When In this alternative paradigm, currency devaluations work Ms Huber and Mr Winkler looked at the effect of rising differently. A devaluation of the Brazilian real against imports from China on Germany, they explored how the the Japanese yen, for example, may not boost Brazilian pattern of winners and losers changed after accounting exports, depending on what the dollar does. If orders are for partners. They found that partners did tend to cush- priced in dollars and the yen depreciates against the dol- ion the blow of a trade-induced shock, and called for lar, then they could even fall. A currency devaluation policymakers to take note. As single-headed households should still have an effect on trade, but most through become more common, the insurance provided by fami- making imports more expensive and pushing consumers ly structures may well be weakening. away from them. This leaves small open countries vul- nerable to shifts in American monetary policy, insofar as These two papers prodded the standard ways of studying they strengthen the dollar, making imports more expen- trade. In her keynote speech, Gita Gopinath of Harvard sive without having much of a stimulative effect on University aimed for a more fundamental change, to our exports. At a global level, a strong dollar could even framework for thinking about currency devaluations. crimp global trade. When the pound devalued, Brexiteers cheered that this would boost British exports. In this, Mundell-Fleming, Question your assumptions view of the world, prices are sticky in the exporting Sometimes critics charicature economics as a discipline country's currency. So a devaluation of the pound would stuck in its ways, clinging desperately to useless theory. mean that although import prices would rise, Europeans But as Gita Gopinath showed, the very best research should be tempted towards cheap British products. This comes from ricocheting between theory and evidence, should injecting the British economy with extra foreign overturning old assumptions and exploring all implica- demand, and improve the British balance of trade. tions. There were more examples of this on show at the conference. Ms Gopinath also outlined the competing theory, devel- oped by Caroline Betts and Michael Devereux, which is Philippe Bracke of the Bank of England and Silvana that prices are sticky in the importing country’s curren- Tenreyro of the London School of Economics, for exam- cy. If so, a sterling devaluation is less likely to be a boon ple, tried to understand the causes of history dependence for the British economy, as with no change in the euro in the British housing market, or why the probability of sticker price, european customers will face no price selling one’s house seems to depend on the purchase incentive to switch towards British goods. British price. This phenomenon, which is tough to reconcile exporters’ profit margins might rise temporarily as their with standard models of the housing market, helps to euro prices would return more sterling, but they would explain why in Britain transaction volumes fell so much not enjoy any more demand from european consumers more than house prices during the financial crisis. As chasing cheaper stuff. prices fell, a disproportionate number of people declined to move home. www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 6 Features Of two identical houses, one bought in 2007 at the peak by an opportunistic coal-mine manager. But staff at the of the house price boom and the other bought in 2001, coal mine might then have less of an incentive to inno- the one bought in the heady days of 2007 will sell at on vate, as profits as well as control would have been wrest- average a 10 per cent premium over the one bought in ed from them. 2001, they found, but the chances of it being sold will be 15 per cent less. Of the 4.4 percentage point decline in To take another, dragon’s den scenario, an inventive the chances of selling one’s property between 2000-07 entrepreneur is strapped for cash. In a perfect world, the and 2008-14, around 0.4 percentage points (or, in jour- investor would fork out the money in exchange for equi- nalist speak, a whopping 10 per cent of the fall) can be ty in the company, and set out various rules to make sure explained by this backward-looking behaviour. the entrepreneur doesn’t squander the investment. In reality, writing a complete contract is impossible. Then, The authors test two possible explanations: might the the investor faces a tricky trade off. Demanding a very buyers may be so saddled with debt that they cannot high stake in return for a risky investment comes with move? Or perhaps a behavioural bias is at play, and sell- costs-if the entrepreneur's baby is wrested from her, she ers anchor prices to the price they bought at? They com- might not work so hard to make it a success. pare cash buyers, who are unlikely to be credit-con- strained, with home owners, and find evidence of The solution is to make control state-contingent. The anchoring behaviour in both, though the effect is accen- entrepreneur could simply borrow from the investor, tuated for highly-leveraged buyers. A large part of the promising to hand over her assets in the event that she effect is not, therefore, gummed up credit markets, but cannot pay an instalment of the repayment. Here, the rather because of human psychology. ability of the investor to seize assets, or their residual control rights when things go wrong (effectively owner- Moore or less ship transfers to them) forces the entrepreneur to pay up, and makes the investor feel comfortable advancing the In his keynote lecture Oliver Hart, billed by John Moore, loan. This framework suggests that when it is harder to the outgoing president of the RES, as ‘the smartest econ- seize assets, it will be harder to raise money. It also omist on the planet’ told the audience how he had not so explains why their real-world version, debt contracts, are much reformed an old framework as built a new one. so popular. Delivering a version of his Nobel lecture, he remem- bered musing on why one firm would ever buy another, Since Hart’s early innovations, other economists have rather than operate at arm’s length using a contact. built on his insights to show in ‘mind-boggling’ detail Pinning down the answer in a precise, mathematical how particular clauses can solve theoretical incentive way, took ten days of intense work — ten days that problems. But disappointingly there is often a gulf shook my world’. between theory and practice. ‘Take it or leave it’ clauses, for example, can align incentives, but unfortunately for Understanding the difference between contracts and the theoreticians, in reality it seems that real people shun mergers required two ideas, he thought. The first was the them. idea that in real life, contracts are complete. (When I agreed to cover the Royal Economic Society’s annual After having walked the audience though the evolution conference, it would have been difficult to incorporate a of contract theory, first from woolly assertions, to math- clause relating to the quality of John Moore’s jokes.) The ematised theory, and then a blossoming to plug theoreti- second was that ownership conveys ‘residual control cal gaps and refine the theory where needed, he accept- rights’. When reality strays from the letter of a contract, ed that there may never be a ‘tractable, widely agreed the owning party has the final say over what is what. upon, theory of incomplete contracts’. Modelling reality beyond a certain level of complexity means departing Using this framework, Mr Hart explained the trade-offs from the classical notion of rational man, and including involved when choosing between ownership and a con- things like feelings of fairness and loss aversion. As an tract. Incomplete contracts mean that sometimes situa- audience member, this was an unexpectedly satisfying tions arise that fall outside of what was already agreed. conclusion. Mr Hart had tugged complete contracts In those situations, whoever has residual control rights towards the reality of incomplete ones, and in doing so has huge power, and can ‘hold up’ the other. In anticipa- had created an infinite number of new questions. tion of that imbalance, the party without control might be reluctant to invest too much in the relationship, and Womenomics invest less than is efficient. A power plant, for example, The conference indulged its participants in grand theo- might be reluctant to locate too near to a coalmine, for ries, plenty of debate over valid identification and a fear of the mine manager abusing its market power later. healthy dose of self-criticism. As if to set up the debate, Ownership comes with drawbacks too. Buying the coal attendants were handed turquoise water bottles decorat- mine, and seizing residual control rights from its manag- ed with a quote from Alfred Marshall defining econom- er, the power plant owner can be sure not to get suckered ics as ‘a study of mankind in the ordinary business of 7 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Features life.’ Mr Marshall thought that economics was not a sub- of it all. An article in The Independent, previewing the ject for women. And while his views are no longer conference, and highlighted by Paul Johnson on the first socially acceptable, men still dominate the discipline. day of the conference, provided a helpful reminder. ‘Economics research can really improve people’s lives’, One paper, presented by Erin Hengel of the University of wrote Hamish McRae. While the public associates eco- Liverpool, opened with a line addressing her fellow nomics with GDP and abstract equations, much of the economists: ‘ladies, there aren’t that many of us.’ Her research presented at the conference was focused on how paper uncovered evidence suggestive of sexism in the to make people’s lives better. peer review process, in that they seem to be held to high- er standards than their male peers. Abstracts written by Examples I saw included a paper presented by Christine women are clearer than those written by men, even con- Farquharson of the IFS, which suggested that free school ditional on their classification within the Journal of breakfasts are a cheap way to help children do better in Economic Literature system, with the gap widening as school. A panel discussion on re-skilling the UK the peer review process continues. And at Econometrica, between Steve Machin, Kirabo Jackson, Richard papers written by women take on average six months Burgess and Sandra McNally tossed around tax credits longer to complete the process. for investment in skills and training, a plea for more thinking about teacher quality, and from Kirabo Jackson, Sarah Smith, the conference convenor, was concerned to think about the education system as a whole, rather with gender inequality earlier on in an economist’s than separate, substitutable stages. Football scheduling career. At every stage of education, girls shun the sub- was on the list too: boys perform worse in exams when ject. Only 25 per cent of those studying A-level econom- they coincide with international football tournaments. ics are girls, a lower fraction than maths, though still higher than computer science, engineering and physics. keynote lecture by Hilary Hoynes of the University of Rather than economics, girls are picking psychology and California at Berkeley looked directly at American law. poverty-reduction programmes, including health insur- ance, food stamps, tax credits and housing vouchers. Given the influence of economists, and the fact that These programmes are often hard to assess, due to the women have views that are systematically different to heavy data requirements and non-random application. men, this imbalance matters, said Ms Smith. In the panel Despite these hurdles, economists knew rather a lot. on Brexit earlier in the conference, Mr Johnson won- Mothers given food stamps in the third trimester experi- dered if the disaffection from women was evidence of ence a six per cent drop in the chances of their child something wrong with the discipline. falling into a low birth weight category. The work incen- tives tied up in the American earned income tax credit In a packed lunchtime panel, Kimberley Scharf reported had as much of an impact on poverty reduction as the that the imbalance could have become self-fulfilling. The cash value of the benefit. And housing vouchers to help girls she had surveyed informally reported being reluc- families move can improve children’s earnings and test tant to share a classroom with so many boys, calling them scores — but the benefits only appear for children who "massive idiots". My own survey before the panel of move when young. There were still unanswered ques- friends who had dropped economics between A-level and tions, like which of benefits delivered in cash, vouchers university revealed some who did so because they need- or in-kind were best, but Ms Hoynes was confident that ed maths A-level, and others who thought it would be too for the most part, the American social safety net had hard to get into the university of their choice. broader benefits than people had previously thought. Sarah Smith’s diagnosis was that economics is misper- ceived as a subject. As the conference illustrated, eco- Take back control nomics is a broad subject, and fundamentally is about For three days at the University of Bristol, I feasted on helping people do their best with scarce resources, economics geekery, indulging in tables of standard improving policy and studying how people behave. This errors and questions about identification. Risk and should appeal to both genders, but perhaps especially the uncertainty were a given. Constructive criticism was higher fraction of girls than boys who reported that their taken as it was intended. The speakers were sleuths, A-level choices were motivated by a desire to help peo- piecing together what they could from awkward data sets ple. For some reason, though, students think that the sub- and non-random interventions. The economists had, sort ject is all about finance or money. Mentoring and engag- of, taken back control. ing with schools were both suggested as solutions.

Breakfast means breakfast Amid the pastries, the presentations and the self-flagel- lation, it might have been easy to forget what the point www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 8 Featrures Economics: The Profession and the Public On 5th May a one-day symposium, hosted by HM Treasury, brought together around two hundred economists from government, academia, business and the media to discuss the particular challenges of communicating a technical subject to the public. This report comes from Alvin Birdi and Ashley Lait of the Economics Network.

‘If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not During the symposium, a new YouGov survey, run by close enough’ (Robert Capa) ING and the Economics Network, was introduced which brought some evidence to support the issues raised by If you aren’t being understood, move closer and talk Paul Johnson. Respondents expressed strongly the view louder. Good advice does not always translate easily and that a great understanding of economics would be desir- Diane Coyle reminded us, in the first of two panel dis- able not just for a better understanding of personal cussions on communication and understanding of eco- finance but also to enable more informed choices during nomics organised by the Economics Network, that econ- elections. omists may need to find another way of engaging the Coupled with this desire to learn more about economics public than speaking the same way more emphatically. was a sense of the subject’s relevance, with 83 per cent The day was introduced by Sir Dave Ramsden and the of respondents reporting that economics is relevant to first speaker, Paul Johnson of the IFS, noted how econo- every day life. Further, while the survey found that the mists may speak the same language even though the dif- vast majority have not studied any economics, there is an ferent voices of academics, policy economists and those overwhelming consensus that it should feature in gener- in other professional settings may sometimes give a al school education (21 per cent responded that school cacophonous impression. Johnson appealed to education age children should take a specific economics course, to improve the general level of economic literacy so that while 55 per cent feel that economics should be embed- the language of economics may better resonate within ded in the general curriculum). the general public. He lamented the low participation of The first panel at the symposium, chaired by Diane women within the profession, a problem that may be Coyle (Enlightenment Economics and University of related to the poor reception of the economic language. Manchester) included Denise Osborn (Secretary General The symposium heard later from Marina Della Guista of the Royal Economic Society), Tim Harford (Financial (University of Reading) on how the search for a lan- Times and best-selling author of Undercover Economist) guage that could be understood more widely was also and Anne Gasteen (Glasgow Caledonian University and keenly felt in the world of Twitter, with significant lin- former Scottish Economic Society President). Panel guistic difference between those tweets made by econo- members strongly supported the suggestion of including mists as compared to scientists. economics in school-age children’s education and Tim Harford made a plea to speak differently about econom- Figure 1: Desire to increase understanding of economics related to three issues ics, to use a language that sparks and kindles interest in economics by the use of motivating narratives rather than a drier scientific report- ing method. The second panel considered the relationship between economists and the media and included Simon Wren-Lewis (University of Oxford), Kamal Ahmed (BBC Economics Correspondent), Jagjit Chadha (NIESR), Rachel Griffith (IFS) and Nick Macpherson (for- merly HM Treasury). The pros and cons of a body such as the Royal Economic Society becoming the

9 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Features respondents reported under- Figure 2: Do you think that economics shoud or should not be taught in schools? standing them. The symposium ended with a plea from Jagjit Chadha for economists from academia and the media to gain employment experience in each other’s domains so that by ‘spending time in each other’s houses’ understanding may be forged. As Robert Capa suggests in the quota- tion above, closeness to the subject of interest can matter. Unfortunately Capa died pur- suing his art by stepping on a voice of economics, by curating and extracting a consen- landmine; some caution in taking easy lessons from sus view to present to the media on critical issues such as other domains may be appropriate. the EU Referendum, were discussed and it Figure 3: How well, if at all, do you understand the following? was ventured that an eventual consensus that is perceived to be wrong may be more damaging to the pro- fession than an initial sense of disagreement. Indeed, the ING- Economics Network survey found that per- haps the discipline had not been effective in communicating the economic conse- quences of Brexit as only 42 per cent of

Developments in Economics New Economics Prize Education Conference The Indigo Prize challenges entrants to consider how to measure economic activity in a 21st century econo- 6th-8th September 2017 my. Entries are invited from universities, business University College London schools and think tanks across the world. Entries will be shortlisted, with the finalists presenting to an esteemed The DEE conference is the UK's leading conference panel of judges for the £100,000 winning prize, with on economics education. Sessions at the conference runners-up receiving £25,000 and £10,000. include paper presentations and interactive workshops which introduce new and innovative ideas on teaching The contest is now open for applications, with the dead- and learning methods, the economics curriculum and line for submissions 18:00 GMT on Friday 15th student engagement. September 2017. Applicants are invited to submit an essay of up to 5,000 Registration is now open. words, supplemented by up to 10 charts. Visit www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/dee2017 for fur- Further information: ther information and to book your place. http://global-perspectives.org.uk/indigo-prize/

www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 10 Features The Gender Balance in UK Economics Departments and Research Institutes in 2016 The report, by Silvana Tenreyro,1 covers the eleventh survey of gender balance in academic employ- ment in economics in Britain in a series started in 1996 by the Royal Economic Society Women’s Committee and repeated bi-annually thereafter. This is a shortened version of the full report which can be read on the Society’s website.

he web pages of ninety three CHUDE depart- returns, including CHUDE and non-CHUDE departments, ments, seven non-CHUDE departments2, and fif- and research institutions. In total, information is available Tteen leading research institutes were surveyed in for 2,077 people who work in academic appointments in November-December 2016. The survey collected infor- the UK, 584 (or 28.1 per cent) of whom are women. mation on academic Table 1. Primary employment function: All academic staff in economics departments staff (full-time and and research institutes (responding sample, 2016). part-time) by grade of employment, gender, Primary Employment Function and research disci- pline. It also collected All Staff: full time information on promo- tions, new hires and Professor job leavers. These sur- Reader - Associate Professor vey entries were then Assistant Professor - Lecturer emailed to respective institutions for verifi- Researcher cation in January 2017. Other The overall verified Totals survey response rate from the 112 institu- All Staff: part-time tions was 57 per cent Professor (60 per cent or 56 responses from the 93 Reader - Associate Professor CHUDE departments, Assistant Professor - Lecturer 14 per cent or 1 Researcher response from the 7 Other non-CHUDE depart- Totals ments, and 58 per cent or 7 responses from the Grand Total 12 research institutes). Source: RES Women’s Committee Survey, 2016. What follows in this article is based upon these verified A significant share of these economists (75.6 per cent) returns or the ‘Respondents Survey’ for short. The full are working in standard academic appointments (that is, report includes a discussion of the full web-based sur- mixed teaching and research jobs as opposed to vey (in section 3). It also compares findings across ear- research-only appointments); this figure is lower for lier surveys and presents evidence of changes over time women than for men (68 per cent and 78.6 per cent, (section 4). respectively). If the research-only categories are exclud- ed from the calculation, women make up 26.5 per cent of Overview of the findings for the the standard full-time academic workforce (or 362 out of Respondents Survey 1,367 employees). Table 1 reports the numbers of economists employed in Women are substantially more likely to be employed at academia in the UK from the total verified web survey lower academic grade levels, as is seen in the final col-

11 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Features umn of Table 1. For example, amongst full time staff, the Professors and 43 per cent are Assistant Professors or proportion female decreases from 35 per cent of the Lecturers (see Figure 3). Carrying out a similar exercise Permanent Lecturers or Assistant Professors, to 26.5 per for the men (Figure 4) reveals that 57 per cent are in the cent of the Readers or Associate Professors and 16.6 per Professorial grade with 23 per cent in the Lecturer grade. cent of the Professors. In other words, in accordance with full-time staff ratios, amongst part-time employees males are considerably Of all the women employed full time in standard aca- more likely to be Professors and less likely to be demic appointments (see Figure 1), 19 per cent are Lecturers. Professors and a further 33 per cent are Associate Professors, Readers, or Senior Lecturers. Slightly less Temporary employment than one in every two of the women is an Assistant Temporary employment contracts are unsurprisingly most commonly found amongst the Research grades (see Appendix Table A1 of the full report). Table 2 presents data for all staff (full-time and part-time, perma- nent and fixed term) in panel 1; panel 2 lists those staff who are on fixed term contacts; and panel 3 lists those fixed term Professor or Lecturer and less than one in five is a employees who are also employed part-time. Professor. Carrying out a similar exercise for the men (Figure 2) reveals that 35 per cent of the male academics Much of the information in Table 2 has already been pre- are in the Professorial grade with another 33 per cent in sented and discussed above, for example, the fixed term the Associate Professor or Reader/Senior Lecturer and part-time status for Assistant Professors or Lecturers grades. Male academics are nearly twice as likely to be and Researchers is presented in Table 1. However, Table Professors, and are substantially less likely to be 2 also presents this information for Professors and Lecturers, than are female academics. Senior Researchers. Combining part-time and full-time staff, temporary and permanent staff, women constitute: Part-time employment 34.6 per cent of Assistant Professors or Lecturers, 25.8 The number of men working part-time is considerably per cent of Readers or Associate Professors, and 15.5 per larger than the number of women (see the lower panel of cent of Professors (see panel 1 of Table 2). Table 1); although, their numbers relative to the total pool of male employees are similar to the share of females working part-time: 20.3 per cent of female and 20.4 per cent of male econo- mists in academia are work- ing part-time. Men working part-time are more likely to have a standard academic job whereas part-time employment is more com- mon for women in research only positions. Of the econo- Reading across the columns in panel 1 of Table 2 reveals mists in standard academic jobs, 8.9 per cent of the women that, in total, there are 529 Professors, 82 of whom (15.5 work part-time whilst 14.3 per cent of the men do. Women per cent) are female. The Professors constitute 25.6 per are particularly prevalent amongst the Researchers and cent of all academic staff (column 5). Of these Lecturers with permanent part-time contracts. Professors, 47 are working on a fixed-term contract (see panel 2), 3 of whom (or 2.3 per cent) are female. Only 9 Considering the relatively few women employed part- per cent (47 out of 529) of the Professors are on a fixed time in standard academic appointments, 37 per cent are term contract, amounting to 2.3 per cent of all staff (col www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 12 Features

Table 2. Employment function: All academic staff, fixed term staff, fixed term and part-time staff (responding sample, 2016).

Source: RES Women’s Committee Survey, 2016. umn 5) and 10.1 per cent of all the fixed term staff are Considering a role model effect Professors (column 6). It may be that departments with female Professors find it easier to recruit, promote and/or retain other women (a Panel 3 (combined with Panel 2) reveals that a majority role model effect). Table 3 reports for all academic staff of the academics working on a fixed-term contract are (in the verified web survey) the proportion of also working part-time (267 out of the 466 or 57 per Readers/Associate Professors/Senior Lecturers and cent), as are all three female Professors working on a Lecturers who are female in departments with and with- fixed-term contract (reading down column 1). About 71 out a female Professor. The first four rows of the first per cent of the Researchers are employed on a fixed term column of Table 3 provide alternative ranges of the per- basis and 47 per cent of these are also working part- centage of staff below the grade of Professor that are time.3 In contrast, only 7.5 per cent of the academic staff female. The second column relates specifically to are working part-time. Researchers are disproportionate- departments with at least one female Professor, and the ly more likely to be female, and male economists work- third column to those departments with no female ing on fixed term and part-time appointments are more Professors. For example, considering the first row of likely to be at the senior ranks than are female econo- Table 3, there are four departments where less than 10 mists. per cent of their non-professorial staff is female. Of these four departments, two of them have a female

13 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Features Professor. Similarly, row four reveals that there were and Economic Development, Technological Change and also 26 departments (47 per cent of of the sample) with Growth (7.9 per cent).4 These, together with Labour and more than 30 per cent of their Reader/Associate Demographic Economics, are also the research areas Professor/Senior Lecturer or Lecturer posts held by which are the most common amongst the Professors (see women: 10 of these departments lack a female Professor. column 7 of Table 4), although the ordering is slightly Considering the final rows of Table 3, in aggregate, different, with Labour and Demographic Economics fea- departments with a female Professor had an average of turing third in the rankings (8.9 per cent of Professors). 29.2 per cent of female staff in non-professorial job ranks; in departments with no female professor this pro- The five most popular research areas for women (see portion was 33 per cent. Additionally, departments with column 6) are Microeconomics; Financial Economics; at least one female Professor are larger in size, as meas- Economic Development, Technological Change and ured by the number of staff below Professor (30.4 rela- Growth; Labour and Demographic Economics; and tive to 15.1). There is little indication that the presence Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics. There are of at least one Professorial woman in a department some differences in the ordering between men and enhances the representation of women more generally in women, however, (as can be seen by comparing columns that department. Taken in combination, the simple evi- 5 and 6 of Table 4). Men and women both have as the dence presented in Table 3 does not provide compelling most popular area Microeconomics (15.7 per cent of the support for the role model hypothesis (a similar conclu- men and 15.9 per cent of the women). The second most sion was reached for the 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012 popular choice for both women and men differs: men surveys, see Georgiadis and Manning, 2007; Mumford, favor Macroeconomics and Monetary Policy and women 2009; Blanco and Mumford, 2011; Blanco, Mitka, favor Financial Economics (at 15.4 per cent and 10.3 per Mumford and Roman, 2013; Mitka, Mumford and cent, respectively). Women then opt for Economic Sechel, 2015). Development, Technological Change and Growth and Table 3. Proportion of female academic staff below Professor, CHUDE departments only (responding sample, 2016 survey)

Source: RES Women’s Committee Survey, 2016.

Research discipline Labour and Demographic Economics (9.4 per cent and 9.7 per cent respectively) and men opt for Mathematical Information on the research discipline of academic staff and Quantitative Methods (9.1 per cent) and Financial was requested as part of the survey sent to departments. Economics (9.2 per cent). For their fifth choice women Table 4 presents results for economists in standard aca- favor Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics whilst demic appointments (full or part-time) in CHUDE men choose Economic Development, Technological departments from the verified survey (additional infor- Change and Growth. mation including discipline breakdown by rank and within research institutions is provided in Tables A3 and Column 8 of Table 4 provides the percentage of all those A4 of the Appendix). Column 4 shows that the most choosing that research discipline who work in a depart- popular research disciplines are the core areas of ment scoring above 3 in the last REF exercise. Of the Microeconomics (15.8 per cent of all staff); 1657 standard academic appointments, 811 or 48.9% Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics (13.8 per worked in these higher ranked departments. In row one cent); Financial Economics (9.5 per cent), and of Table 4, we can see that of the 73 staff choosing Mathematical and Quantitative Methods (8.6 per cent); General Economics and Teaching, 22 (or 30 per cent) of www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 14 Features Table 4. Main research discipline, by gender (responding sample 2016, CHUDE depts only). Table Source: RESSource: 2016. Committee Survey, Women’s

15 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Features these staff members worked in a department scoring and retirements), and promotions (within and across above three (see also Table A4 in the full report). There departments) can also be addressed from the data set. As are some small number issues (reading across columns the web based surveys are tracking individuals, we can 3, 4 and 8) suggesting caution when interpreting the per- calculate movements more accurately (for example, centages in column 8. Nevertheless, combining columns tracking those who left one department but were hired 3 and 8, the table suggests that departments with higher into another, and if they received a promotion in this REF scores have a significant proportion of staff special- move). Before 2010, the Women’s Committee data on izing in the core research areas mentioned above. promotions only included promotions that were internal to departments and total staff movements were essential- Flows into and out of standard academic ly gross rather than net. (For comparison sake, full and positions in the previous year balanced sample (from the 2016 and 2014 surveys) Changes in the stock of individuals in any job rank due analysis using the previous gross sample measures is to inflows from new hires, job separations (resignations provided in Appendix tables A5 to A7 of the full report.)

Table 5. Staff movements 2015/2016 (responding sample 2016)

Source: RES Women’s Committee Survey, 2016. www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 16 Features Table 5 presents staff movements in the 2015/16 aca- separations as they do of the total pool of academic demic year from the 2016 respondents survey (i.e. the economists (28 per cent relative to 28.3 per cent, verified returns). Columns 1 to 4 are those promotions columns 20 and 21). internal to the department, columns 5 to 8 are those pro- moted from other UK departments. These numbers of Information on the job leaver’s destination was also gath- 5 promotions are obviously small so we should be cau- ered (see Table 6). The most common destination tious about how valid the implications of these flows for employment for the job leavers is to another academic changes in relative employment stocks actually are. appointment (170 out of the 302 leavers reporting destina- Nevertheless, Comparing columns 4 and 8 (showing the tion or 56 per cent of those reporting destination) followed percentage female by rank amongst the flows) with by ‘unknown job’ (28 per cent of those reporting destina- columns 21 (showing the percentage females amongst tion), implying considerable churning within the sector, the stock by rank), suggests some small gains were made with non-employment taking up a further 6 per cent. The in the 2015/16 time period via promotions, especially proportion of female economists across job leavers (28.4 amongst Professors and Readers. per cent) is similar to the female share of the total work- force. A high proportion of leavers go on to other academ- Panel two of Table 5 provides information on hiring in ic appointments (51 out of 104 female leavers reporting the 2015/16 academic year: columns 9 to 12 present destination or 52 per cent, and 58.3 per cent of male information on new staff hired in the last year. This is leavers) or to unknown jobs (33.7 per cent of the female staff entering the sector; and columns 13 to 16 are hires leavers, and 25.5 per cent of the males). The relative find- across UK departments. The sub-sample of respondents ings for the UK and EU destinations suggest an interna- to this question is particularly small so the numbers tional marketplace exists for academic economists, both should be read with caution. We can see that there were male and female, and that female economists move in a 192 economists hired from outside of the UK academic similar proportion to their presence in the workforce. sector (column 11) in the 2015/16 academic year, and a further 29 economists hired from other UK departments The 2016 survey also asks departments about the rea- (column 15). Hires from outside of the UK academic sons for these separations (see Table 7), the responses sector are relatively less likely to be female than are were not overly informative (in 59 per cent of the cases, either hires from within the sector (comparing columns there are ‘other’, ‘unknown’ or ‘missing’ responses). Of 12 and 16), or internal promotions into the grade rank the remaining 245 cases, roughly one in four leavers (column 4). Comparing columns 9 to 12 in Table 5 with moved for a promotion (32 per cent of the female columns 1 to 4 in Table 2, suggests that these external leavers, 24 per cent of the males); 17.6 per cent retired hires are typically lowering the proportion female aca- (5.5 per cent of females leavers, 22.7 per cent of the demics in each rank. In aggregate, the representation of males); about 5.7 per cent cited family reasons for quit- women amongst the hiring inflow seems to have con- ting their jobs (11 per cent of the female leavers and only tributed very little to improve the overall representation 3.5 per cent of the male leavers); and 47.3 per cent of women in the stock by rank (column 21). reported that they had reached the end of their contract. The higher proportion of female leavers due to family The third flow affecting the stock of academic econo- reasons might reflect the combination of family tasks mists is, of course, leavers (see panel 3 of Table 6). In falling more heavily on women and insufficient family- aggregate, women make up a similar proportion of these friendly work practices in UK departments.

Table 6. Job leaver’s destinations

Source: RES Women’s Committee Survey, 2016.

17 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Features In aggregate, the relative numbers of women are Table 7. Reasons for leaving increasing in the higher grade ranks but the rate of change is slow. Comparison with 2014 yields an increase in the proportion of women among aca- demic economists over the two years from 27 per cent to 28.1 per cent in the balanced sample of respondents (and 27.9 per cent to 28.1 per cent in the unbalanced sample). At the current rate of increase, it could take another 50 years before the profession reaches a 50-50 gender balance. Changes in retirement legislation may result in a decline in male exit rates and slow the relative growth in female representation. Similarly, the observed decline in the share of female under- graduate students studying economics may slow down the progress towards more gender balance in economics in the UK. Source: RES Women’s Committee Survey, 2016. Notes: Conclusion 1. London School of Economics and Chair of the RES Women’s The conclusions have been amply foreshadowed. The Committee. I am immensely grateful to Diego Battiston and analysis of the 2016 survey data indicate that the great Stephen Maurer for superb research assistance; to Maria Molina majority of economists working in academia in the UK Domene, Piero Fortino, and Hillary Stein for helping at different have standard academic (teaching and research as stages of the 2015 and 2016 web-survey data collection process; and to Martin Hannon for sending the departmental surveys and opposed to research-only) jobs which are full-time and indefatigably chasing responses. I am most thankful to Karen permanent. Based on evidence from the 2016 respon- Mumford: the survey design and the report build on her previous dents’ survey, women make up about 28 per cent of the work. All errors are mine. (Editor’s note: Silvana Tenreyro stood total academic economics workforce. down as Chair of the Society’s Women’s Committee at the end of April. The Chair is now Sarah Smith). Over the past twenty years, the progress has been steady 2. Tables A8 and A9 of the Appendix to the full report list all — though slow. Comparing the 2016 sample results to departments and research institutes surveyed, indicating respon- those of our first survey in 1996, the proportion of the dents and non respondents. workforce that is female has increased from 17.5 per cent 3. The majority of Researchers working on part-time fixed-term of the workforce in 1996 to 28 per cent in 2016. The over- contracts are found in the Research Institutes. all rank composition of the workforce has also changed: 4. In contrast, within the Research Institutions (see Appendix the share of Professors (both male and female) amongst Table A3 in te full report) the most popular research area is all staff has doubled over the time period from 13 per cent Health, Education and Welfare (nearly half the staff in research of all staff in 1996 to 25.7 per cent in 2016. Women are institutions work in this discipline area). Economic Development, more than twice as common in the standard academic Technological Change and Growth is the second most relevant grades in 2016 than they were in 1996; in 1996 women research area in these institutions with 18.5 per cent of the staff employed by these research institutions. made up approximately 16.8 per cent of the Lecturers (34.6 per cent in 2016), 9.6 per cent of the Readers/Senior 5. Note there are 29 missing observations for sector destination Lecturers/Associate Professors (25.8 per cent in 2016) (Table 6); 28 for geographic destination (Table 6) and 24 for rea- sons for leaving (Table 7). and 4.2 per cent of the Professors (15.5 per cent in 2016).

Recent changes in the stock of individuals in any job References: rank due to inflows from new hires, job separations (res- Blackaby, David, and Jeff Frank, (2000). ‘Ethnic and other minor- ignations and retirements), and promotions (within ity representation in UK academic economics’, Economic departments) were addressed by tracking individuals’ Journal, June 2000, F293-311. movements and balanced-sample comparisons across Blanco, Laura, and Mumford, Karen, (2011). ‘Royal Economic the surveys. The findings indicate that, in contrast to Society Women’s Committee Survey on the Gender and Ethnic males, female Professors are considerably more likely to Balance of Academic Economics 2010’, RES Report. be promoted in their own department rather than hired Blanco, Laura, Mitka, Malgorzata, Mumford, Karen, and Roman, from another department within the UK. Furthermore, J., (2013). ‘The Gender Balance of Academic Economics 2012: hires from outside the UK academic sector are less like- Royal Economic Society Women’s Committee Survey’, RES ly to be female than male academics. A significantly Report. larger share of women tends to leave or resign due to Booth, Alison L, and Jonathan Burton, with Karen Mumford, family reasons. (2000). ‘The Position of Women in UK Academic Economics’, in Economic Journal, June 2000, F312-F333. www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 18 Features Burton, Jonathan and Heather Joshi, (2002). ‘Royal Economic Society Survey on the Gender and Ethnic Balance of Academic Mark Blaug Student Essay Economics 2002’, RES report. Burton, Jonathan with Jane Humphries, (2006). ‘Royal Economic Prize Society Survey on the Gender and Ethnic Balance of Academic Economics 2004’, RES report. In honour of the great critical economist Mark Blaug Burton, Jonathan, with Amanda Rowlatt and Heather Joshi, (1927-2011), the Foundation for European Economic (2002). ‘Royal Economic Society Survey on the Gender and Development (FEED) is financing and awarding an Ethnic balance of academic economics 2000’, ISER Working annual student essay prize. Paper, 2002-4. Georgiadis, Andreas and Alan Manning. (2006). ‘Royal Details of the 2017 Prize Competition Economic Society Survey on the Gender and Ethnic Balance of Academic Economics 2006’, RES report. Eligible essays for the prize must be critical discussions Mitka, Malgorzata, Karen Mumford, and Christina Sechel (2015). of any aspect of modern economics. “The Gender Balance of Academic Economics 2014: Royal Economic Society Women’s Committee Survey. Rather than applying economics to a particular problem, Mumford, Karen, (1997). ‘The Gender Balance of Academic eligible essays must reflect critically on the state of eco- Economists in the UK’, report to the Royal Economic Society nomics itself, as Mark Blaug did in many of his works. Women’s Committee, June 1997. Critical reflections may include the assumptions adopt- Mumford, Karen. (2009). ‘Royal Economic Society Survey on the ed, the suitability of the concepts deployed, the mode of Gender and Ethnic Balance of Academic Economics 2008’, RES report. analysis, the role of mathematical models, the use of econometrics, real-world relevance, the presumed rela- tionship between theory and policy, the unwarranted Communicating economics to influence of ideology, the use (or otherwise) of insights the public from other disciplines, and so on. Readers of recent Newsletters will know that the Society The required language is English. Eligible essays are by has become increasingly concerned about the way in university undergraduates, or by graduates who obtained which economic ideas, policy and even ‘facts’ are pre- their Bachelor’s degree no earlier than 1 January 2016. sented in the media. This was given a particularly sharp There is no residential or geographical restriction. edge when the Society protested to the BBC over its Undergraduate dissertations must be converted to essay treatment of contrasting views in the run up to the EU format and reduced to 6,000 words (inclusive of refer- referendum. It featured in this year’s annual conference ences and appendices) or less. Author names, affiliations (see p 5 above) and has since spread to the Bank of and email must be placed on the first page, below the England and HM Treasury who joined with the Society title of the essay. in promoting the symposium reported above on pp 9-10. Amongst the initiatives to improve matters, the Society’s media Up to two prizes will be awarded each year, depending consultant, Romesh Vaitilingam, has recently launched a new on the quality of the best papers. The respective awards blog entitled Communicating Economics - tools and tips for the will be £500 and £300. FEED will reserve the right to world’s most misunderstood subject. award no prize, or one prize only, if there are inadequate essays of quality. The prizes will be judged by a commit- The blog includes a video interview with Soumaya tee of leading scholars. Keynes in which she gives five valuable tips to econo- mists trying to get their message across to journalists. Essays should be submitted by email to What are they? [email protected] by 1 October 2017. The awards will be announced in late 2017 or early 2018. • Journalists have no time - have a clear headline • Think about your audience • Have fun and be passionate • People matter - give tangible examples •Tell a story Soumaya is an economist (she worked at the IFS) turned journalist, so knows the game from both sides. She is also the author of this year’s report on the Society’s Annual Conference, on pp 5-8 above. Romesh’s blog and the interview can be seen at: https://www.communicatingeconomics.com/economist- journalist-tips-soumaya-keynes/ 19 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Obituaries Conference on Foreign Exchange Swaps Obituaries In February this year the Money and Development Seminar of the Economics Department of SOAS, University of London organised a workshop on W J Baumol Foreign Exchange Swaps in the Money and Two wonderful economists with similar biographies have left us this year, Kenneth Arrow and William Financial Markets. Janek Toporowski sent this Baumol. Both were born in New York City, both stud- report which space constraints prevented us from ied at the famed public institution The City College of including in the April issue. New York around the turn of World War 2, and both would make incredible contributions to economic theo- Foreign exchange swaps sound like something that you ry. Baumol would head to the LSE for his PhD, defend- might do in the Calle Florida in Buenos Aires when a ed in that different era ‘over whiskies and sodas at the policeman isn’t looking. In fact they are at the heart of the Reform Club’. international monetary system and the way in which it is restructuring itself. But no-one is really sure about how As much as Arrow was seen as the house economist of these swaps function, or what their significance is for the the pragmatic left, Baumol is often naively viewed as a international monetary system. With a starry cast of speak- Schumpeter-esque defender of the capitalist economy ers, headed by Claudio Borio of the BIS explaining how and its heroic entrepreneur. That is only half right. they are a part of ‘What is wrong with the international Personally, his politics were liberal and, as he argued in monetary and financial system’ and the former Governor a recent interview, ‘I am well aware of all the very seri- of the Bank of Japan Masaaki Shirakawa, explaining their ous problems, such as inequality, unemployment, envi- role in interest rate arbitrage, this workshop was an oppor- ronmental damage, that beset capitalist societies. My tunity to find out exactly how forex swaps are the sub- thesis is that capitalism is a special mechanism that is stance of the emerging monetary system. uniquely effective in accomplishing one thing: creating innovations, applying those innovations and using them Needless to say, there was more than one view: Daniela to stimulate growth.’ That is, you can find in Baumol’s Gabor exposed the link with shadow banking; Noemi work many discussions of environmental externalities, Levy-Orlik, of UNAM in Mexico City showed their of the role of government in funding research, in the emergence in Mexico; Carolina Alves, argued they were nature of optimal taxation. Yet the core running through 'financialising' exchange rate risk in Brazil; John Grahl much of Baumol’s work is a rigorous defense, historical- argued that they were fragmenting European finance and ly and theoretically grounded, in the importance of get- subordinating it to US finance; Yilmaz Engin from ting incentives correct for socially useful innovation. Turkey explained how Turkish banks are hiding their for- eign exchange rate exposure behind the swaps; Jan Baumol differs from many other prominent economists of Toporowski argued the swaps are the new international- innovation because he is, in the main, a neoclassical the- ly-integrated money market; Alexis Stenfors showed orist. He is not an Austrian like Kirzner or an evolution- how they are behind the persistent failure of covered ary economist like Winter. For Baumol, entrepreneurship interest parity; Photis Lysandrou linked the swaps to and innovation are critical for the capitalist economy, but quantitative easing in the US; Nao Sudou, of the Bank of the best way to understand the entrepreneur methodolog- Japan showed how the swaps have allowed monetary ically is to formalize her within the context of neoclassi- policy to reinforce driven deviations from covered inter- cal equilibria, with innovation rather than price alone est parity; and Thorvald Grung Moe highlighted the being ‘the weapon of choice’ for rational, competitive growing importance of the US Fed’s swap lines. firms. In a sense, Baumol is the lineal descendant of Despite the unprepossessing title, over 60 people regis- Schumpeter, the original great thinker on entrepreneur- tered for the conference, coming from as far afield as ship and one who, nearing the end of life and seeing the Canada and Italy. With discussions ranging over the work of his student Samuelson, was convinced that his whole area of international monetary theory and policy, ideas should be translated into formal neoclassical theory. financial stability and central banking, this conference A 1968 essay in the AER P&P laid out Baumol’s basic proved to be one of the best attended conferences that idea that economics without the entrepreneur is, in a line the Economics Department has put on in recent years. he would repeat often, like Hamlet without the Prince of The Workshop was supported by the Royal Economic Denmark. He clearly understood that we did not have a Society sponsored by the Money and Development suitable theory for oligopoly and entry into new mar- Seminar of the Economics Department at SOAS (The kets, or for the supply of entrepreneurs, but that any gen- Seminar is now in its tenth year); and the Department’s eral economic theory needed to be able to explain why Research Cluster on Money and Finance. growth is different in different countries. Solow’s www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 20 Obituaries famous essay convinced much of the profession that the testable markets, summarized in the 1981 AEA residual, interpreted then primarily as technological Presidential Address. The basic idea is this. Assume improvement, was the fundamental variable explaining industries have scale economies, so oligopoly is their nat- growth, and Baumol, like many, believed those techno- ural state. If there are no sunk costs and no entry barriers logical improvements came mainly from entrepreneurial for entrants, and if entrants can siphon off customers activity. quicker than incumbents can respond, then Baumol and his coauthors claimed that the market was contestable: But what precisely should the theory look like? the threat of entry is sufficient to keep the incumbent Ironically, Baumol made his most productive step in a from exerting its market power. On the one hand, fine, we beautiful 1990 paper in the JPE which contains not a sin- all agree with Baumol now that industry structure is gle formal theorem nor statistical estimate of any kind. endogenous to firm behavior, and the threat of entry Let’s define an entrepreneur as ‘persons who are ingen- clearly can restrain market power. But on the other hand, ious or creative in finding ways to add to their wealth, is this ‘ultra-free entry’ model the most sensible way to power, or prestige’. These people may introduce new incorporate entry and exit into a competitive model? goods, or new methods of production, or new markets, Why, as Dixit argued, is it quicker to enter a market than as Schumpeter supposed in his own definition. But are to change price? Why, as Spence argued, does the unreal- these ingenious and creative types necessarily going to ized threat of entry change equilibrium behavior if the do something useful for social welfare? Of course not; threat is truly unrealized along the equilibrium path? the norms, institutions, and incentives in a given society may be such that the entrepreneurs perform socially It seems that what Baumol was hoping this model would unproductive tasks, such as hunting for new tax loop- lead to was a generalized theory of perfect competition holes, or socially destructive tasks, such as channeling that permitted competition for the market rather than just their energy into ever-escalating forms of warfare. in the market, since the competition for the market is With the distinction between productive, unproductive, naturally the domain of the entrepreneur. Contestable and destructive entrepreneurship in mind, we might markets are too flawed to get us there. But the basic idea, imagine that the difference in technological progress that game-theoretic endogenous market structure, rather across societies may have less to do with the innate drive than the old fashioned idea that industry structure affects of the society’s members, and more to do with the incen- conduct affects performance, is clearly here to stay: tives for different types of entrepreneurship. Consider antitrust is essentially applied game theory today. And Rome, famously wealthy yet with very little in the way of once you have the idea of competition for the market, the useful technological diffusion: certainly the Romans natural theoretical model is one where firms compete to appear less innovative than either the Ancient Greeks or innovate in order to push out incumbents, incumbents Europe of the middle ages. How can a society both invent innovate to keep away from potential entrants, and prof- a primitive steam engine via Herod of Alexandria and yet its depend on the equilibrium time until the dominant see it used for nothing other than toys and religious cere- firm shifts: I speak, of course, about the neo- monies? The answer, Baumol notes, is that status in Schumpeterian models of Aghion and Howitt. These Roman society required one to get rich via land owner- models, still a very active area of research, are finally ship, usury, or war; commerce was a task primarily for allowing us to rigorously investigate the endogenous slaves and former slaves! And likewise in Song China, rewards to innovation via a completely neoclassical where imperial examinations were both the source of sta- model of market structure and pricing. tus and the ability to expropriate any useful inventions or Where Baumol has more success, and again it is unusu- businesses that happened to appear. In the European mid- al for a theorist that his most well-known contribution is dle ages, incentives shift for the clever from developing largely qualitative, is in the idea of cost disease. The con- war implements to the diffusion of technology like the cept comes from Baumol’s work with William Bowen water-mill under the Cistercians back to weapons. These on the economic problems of the performing arts. It is a examples were expanded to every society from Ancient simple idea: imagine productivity in industry rises 4 per Mesopotamia to the Dutch Republic to the modern cent per year, but ‘the output per man-hour of a violinist United States by a series of economically-minded histo- playing a Schubert quarter in a standard concert hall’ rians in a wonderful collection of essays called The remains fixed. In order to attract workers into music Invention of Enterprise which was edited by Baumol rather than industry, wages must rise in music at some- alongside Joel Mokyr and David Landes. thing like the rate they rise in industry. But then costs Now we are approaching a sort of economic theory of are increasing while productivity is not, and the arts entrepreneurship, no need to rely on the whims of char- looks ‘inefficient’. The same, of course, is said for edu- acter, but instead focus on relative incentives. But we are cation, and health care, and other necessarily labor- still far from Baumol’s 1968 goal: incorporating the intensive industries. Baumol’s point is that rising costs entrepreneur into neoclassical theory. The closest in unproductive sectors reflect necessary shifts in equi- Baumol comes is in his work in the early 1980s on con- librium wages rather than, say, growing wastefulness. 21 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Obituaries More recent theoretical research, such as the 2007 AER els which propose to answer them. He felt most lucky by Ngai and Pissarides, confirms this basic insight in a when his initial intuition turn[ed] out to be totally wrong. much richer general equilibrium model. ‘Because when I turn out to be totally wrong, that’s when the best ideas come out. Because if my intuition was How much can cost disease explain? The concept is now right, it’s almost always going to be simple and straight- so widely known that it is, in fact, used to excuse stag- forward. When my intuition turns out to be wrong, then nant industries. Teaching, for example, requires some there is something less obvious to explain.’ This is the labor, but does anybody believe that it is impossible for delight of the researcher as productive entrepreneur, R&D and complementary inventions (like the internet, attempting through cleverness and effort to expand our for example) to produce massive productivity improve- collective knowledge. ments? Is it not true that movie theaters now show opera live from the world’s great halls on a regular basis? Is it Kevin Bryan, not true that Amazon’s Alexa can, activated by voice, University of Toronto, Canada call up two seconds from now essentially any piece of recorded music you desire, for free? Speculating about Zvi Hans Schloss whether an industry is necessarily labor intensive, or Among the economics profession are many who serve whether this persistence just reflects a lack of innova- with an energy and moral insight born of unusual and tiveness, is a very difficult game, and one we ought to tragic personal experience. Such an economist was Zvi hesitate to play. But equally, we oughtn’t to forget Schloss, whose death on the 3 July 2016 therefore Baumol’s lesson: in some cases, in some industries, what deserves note in our Newsletter. appears to be fixable slack is in fact simply cost disease. We may ask, how was it that Ancient Greece, with its Zvi Schloss was born in Munich on the 14 February tiny population, put on so many plays, while today we 1925 into a well-to-do family. With the rise of Hitler, his hustle ourselves to small ballrooms in New York and father Meier Schloss was incarcerated in the Dachau London? Baumol’s answer, rigorously shown: cost dis- concentration camp. The family however managed to ease. The ‘opportunity cost’ of recruiting a big chorus leave Germany for Palestine, where Zvi completed his was low, as those singers would otherwise have been school education. He joined the Israeli armed forces to idle or working unproductive fields gathering olives. participate in the war that established an independent The difference between Athens and our era is not simply Israel. While still in uniform he started a correspondence that they were ‘more supportive of the arts’! course at the University of London. In 1952 he graduat- ed with First Class Honours in Commerce, with Banking Baumol’s contributions extend far beyond simply entre- as a special subject, and was awarded a prize for his out- preneurship and cost disease; after all, the man was talent- standing results. The prize consisted of a scholarship to ed across such a wide breadth that he taught woodwork- study at the London School of Economics. ing at Princeton and began producing computer-generated Unfortunately, the scholarship paid only his tuition fees. art in his 80s! His canonical 1970 AER with Bradford Moreover, in London he met and eventually married Eva asked how you should optimally deviate from marginal Geiringer. With her mother Elfriede Geiringer, Eva had cost pricing if you needed to raise revenue? The history of survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, and her thought is nicely diagrammed, and their idea was very mother went on to marry Otto Frank, the father of Anne quickly followed by the classic work of Diamond and Frank. To support his marriage, Zvi gave up his studies Mirrlees. Baumol wrote extensively on environmental and joined the stock-broking firm Strauss Turnbull. He economics, drawing in many of his papers on the role subsequently worked for Bank Leumi and ended up as nonconvexities in the social production possibilities fron- Executive Director of J Rothschild & Co. tier play when they are generated by externalities. More recently, Baumol has been writing on international trade Zvi Schloss had a particular interest in international mon- with the legendary mathematician Ralph Gomory, who etary economics and financial markets. He contributed had written on integer programming with Baumol more articles to Barron’s, The Banker, and Investors Chronicle. than 50 years earlier; their main theorems are not terribly In the midst of the international debt crisis of the 1980s shocking to those used to thinking in terms of economies his views anticipated many of the criticisms of interna- of scale, but the core example is again a great example of tional monetary relations that have emanated since the how nonconvexities can overturn a lot of our intuition, in turn of the century from the Bank for International the case on comparative advantage. Settlements. In his retirement he gave support to his wife Eva in her campaigning work for the Anne Frank Trust, This resumé shows a truly wonderful set of ideas, adroidt- bringing together people in divided communities. ly pushing our theoretical tools toward some of the most important economic questions of the past 60 years. Zvi Schloss died in London leaving behind his wife Eva Baumol would be the first to admit his insights did not and three daughters. come naturally. Rather, his work is filled with historical Janek Toporowski, puzzles, and deep yet straightforward mathematical mod- School of Oriental and African Studies, London. www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 22 RES office news Full details on the nominating and election process can be found at: RES office news http://www.res.org.uk/view/governanceStructure.html or by contacting the RES Office. Secretary General: Professor Denise Osborn Chief Executive: Leighton Chipperfield Events RES Office 2 Dean Trench Street, Westminster, London. SW1P 3HE RES 2017 Annual Public Lecture Email: [email protected] Telephone: 020 3137 6301 Why commit crime? Economic incentives for criminal Membership queries: [email protected] or behaviour. 01865 778171. See website www.res.org.uk for further information. The 2017 Annual Public Lecture will take place on Wednesday 22nd November 2017 at the Royal Institution London and Wednesday 29th November Westminster office 2017 at the University of Manchester. The previous issue of this newsletter noted the establish- The 2017 Public Lecture will be given by Stephen ment of the Society's new office in Westminster and the Machin, Professor of Economics and Director of the appointment of the organisation's first Chief Executive, Centre for Economic Performance at London School of Leighton Chipperfield. The intervening period has been Economics. In this lecture, Professor Machin, will dis- particularly busy at the office, with the transfer of work cuss the importance of economic incentives as a determi- from the St Andrew's office coinciding with the Annual nant of crime, what economists can contribute to our Conference. A longer report on the new office structure understanding of why people commit crime and what can and location will follow in the next issue. be done to discourage, detect and apprehend criminals. The Executive Committee will be holding an awayday The aim of the Annual Public Lectures is to demonstrate in September to begin the process of reviewing the soci- to Yr12 and Yr13 students at Sixth Form Colleges and ety's strategy. In the meantime, members are warmly Schools that the subject of economics is as exciting as invited to share their thoughts on any aspect of the ever. Individual tickets will be available in the autumn, Society's current strategy and activities by writing to with priority going to school groups. For more informa- Leighton at [email protected] or @leightonc on tion contact [email protected]. Twitter. RES Postgraduate Meetings Nominations to RES Council and The RES PhD Meetings will take place at Westminster Business School, Marylebone Campus on 19th-20th for RES President December 2017. The meetings provide opportunities Society members are now invited to propose names for for interviews between job market candidates and the Nominations Committee for both RES Council (for recruiting institutions, as well as research presentations the period April 2018-2023) and the next President and plenary sessions on key aspects of academic life. Elect (for term starting April 2018). Any member of the The Programme Committee will take submissions from Society who would like to make a nomination may 1st August until 12am on 1st October 2017. Those email the Secretary General at [email protected] by wishing to attend must hold RES membership and fur- 22nd September 2017. In order to nominate someone, ther details can be found on the website, please provide your membership number, the nominee's www.res.org.uk. name, a note from them expressing their interest and their CV summary. Self-nominations are welcome for RES 2018 Annual Conference possible Council membership. The 2018 RES Annual Conference will be held at the The Nominating Committee will meet in October 2017 University of Sussex, Brighton on 26th - 28th March to consider all nominations. From these, the 2018. For more details please see the RES website: Nominations Committee will put forward to Council a http://www.res.org.uk/view/conference.html list of twelve names for approval for the Council Elections. The agreed list will then be subject of a ballot RES 2017 You Tube Videos of all members of the Society early in 2018. Presidential This year the RES commissioned the filming of 9 key nominations will be presented to the Council Meeting sessions at the 2017 Annual Conference, and a further for a decision in December 2017. The successful candi- 14 short films. All films from the 2017 Annual dates will join Council and be ratified as President-Elect Conference and from previous Conferences, are now after formal adoption at the AGM, held during the 2018 available on the RES YouTube Channel: RES Annual Conference in Sussex. https://www.youtube.com/user/RoyalEconomicSociety 23 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html RES office news Society appointments and thanks (Changes at the RES) Conference diary The following are in addition to changes noted in the April Newsletter. 2017 Professor Sarah Smith became the Chair of the Women’s Committee from May 2017 and remains on the Executive Committee, for which she was a Council august Representative over 2012-2017. 31 August - 5 September Maastricht, Netherlands Professor Mary Morgan joined the Executive Committee as a Council Representative from AGM CALL FOR PAPERS 2017 to 2022. Papers are invited for the 44th Annual Conference of the European Association for Research in Industrial Thanks to the following for their hard work and commit- Economics (EARIE). Provisional deadline for paper ment to the Society: submission is March 15, 2017. Professor Silvana Tenreyro, who stood down as Chair of Further information: http://www.earie2017.org/ the Women’s Committee from the end of April 2017. Amanda Wilman, RES Office Manager, and Cheryl Dochard, RES Administrative Assistant, for their exten- september sive administrative support of the Society whilst based at the St Andrew’s Office. The Society is indebted to 5-7 September London them both. CALL FOR PAPERS The 49th MMF Annual Conference will be held at Updating membership details King's College London. The programme committee The Society increasingly uses online facilities via its invites submissions from academic, government and website to inform and publicise its activities to members business economists in any area of monetary, macro and so we encourage you to keep your details up to date. financial economics. The Committee also encourage and Members joining or renewing online are automatically welcome PhD students to contribute to our PhD student registered with login access to the RES website. Once sessions. Selected papers will appear in the conference registered on the website you are able to update your supplement of the Manchester School. Interested authors membership details. Login is based on the email are advised to submit unpublished manuscripts via the address and password you supplied in your membership Conference Maker system by 12 May 2016. application. Members who have joined by post will need to register online at www.res.org.uk. If you have Invited speakers: Anil Kashyap (University of Chicago any queries about your membership, please contact the and FPC, Bank of England), Ricardo Reis (LSE) and Membership Services department at cs- David Laibson (Harvard). MMF Special Lecture: Jagjit [email protected] or telephone +44 1865 Chadha (Director, NIESR). 778171. International toll free numbers can be found Further information: www.mmf.ac.uk online at www.res.org.uk 6-8 September London Grants The 2017 Developments in Economics Conference Members are reminded that the Society provides finan- will be held at University College London. Organised by cial and other resources to support the education, train- the Economics Network, it will be run this year in col- ing and career development of economists as well as laboration with UCL’s Centre for Teaching and Learning conferences and visits of eminent economists. Full Economics (CTaLE). details can be found on the website www.res.org.uk or from the office address above. Further information: www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/dee2017

7-8 September Nottingham As part of the ESRC funded project ‘Migration and the Reshaping of Consumption Patterns (MARCO_P)’ the Nottingham Centre for Globalisation and Economic www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 24 Conference diary Policy (GEP) will host a workshop at University of Further information: http://www.eale.nl/ Nottingham. The workshop will provide a forum for the dissemination of research relating to the impact of the migration on consumption patterns, the relationships 27-29 September Madrid, Spain between institutions, population change and consump- 23rd Conference of the Eurasia Business and Economics tion behaviour, and the consequences of migration on the Society (EBES) will take place at the Universidad transfer of consumption norms, from both theoretical Complutense de Madrid. The deadline for registration is and empirical perspectives. August 5th. Further information: Further information: http://www.ebesweb.org/ http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/gep/news-events/upcom- ing-events/events/migration-conference-sept-17.aspx 28-29 September Oxford

11-12 September Paris, France We invite submissions to 3rd Oxford - Fecereal Reserve Bank of New York Monetary Economics Conference . 19th Oxmetrics User Conference. The OxMetrics User We will consider papers relating to all areas of mone- Conference provides a forum for the presentation and tary economics. Presenters will be offered accommodation exchange of research results and practical experiences and meals for the duration of the conference at Exeter within the fields of computational and financial econo- College, Oxford. All participants are expected to cover their metrics, empirical economics, time-series and cross-sec- own travelling costs. At this stage, participation has been tion econometrics and applied mathematics. confirmed by Frank Schorfheide (University of The conference will be held at ESSEC Executive Pennsylvania), Roger Farmer (Warwick University), Education, Cnit La Defense, 2 Place de la Défense, Pierpaolo Benigno (LUISS) and Mirko Wiederholt (Goethe 92053 Paris La Défense, FranceBusiness School, Paris. University Frankfurt). Further information: Further information: http://www.timberlake.co.uk/news/19th-oxmetrics-user- http://users.ox.ac.uk/~exet2581/OxNYFed-3rd-call-for- conference-announcement-cal... papers.pdf

15 September Norwich Private Enforcement of Competition Law: Current october Issues. Hosted by the Centre for Competition Policy and the UEA Law School, this one day conference will bring 5-8 October Montréal, Canada together academics, economic experts and practitioners with a rich experience in private antitrust litigation. The 84th International Atlantic Economic Conference will be held in Montréal, Canada, in the Confirmed speakers include: Autumn of 2017. The mission of the conference is to Damien Geradin, Euclid Law, Tilburg University; create a platform where economists and financial experts Morten Hviid, UEA Law School & Centre for from academe, government, and the private sector can Competition Policy; Anthony Maton, Hausfeld; Gunnar present their research results, exchange ideas and net- Niels, Oxera; Sebastian Peyer, UEA Law School & work in a collegial environment. Meetings also provide Centre for Competition Policy; Barry Rodger, Law opportunities for participants to renew acquaintances School, University of Strathclyde; Tom Sharpe QC, One and to forge new ones. That is why we are hoping to Essex Court bring together distinguished delegates from around the Further information: http://competitionpolicy.ac.uk/ world to present, discuss, and exchange valuable infor- mation in the fields of economics, business and finance. Further information: http://IAES.org 21-23 September St Gallen, Switzerland 29th Annual Conference of the European Association 9-10 October Amsterdam, Netherlands of Labour Economists will be held at the Swiss 20th De Nederlandsche Bank Annual Research Institute for Empirical Economic Research, University Conference — Fiscal and Monetary Policy in a of St. Gallen. Changing Economic and Political Environment. Keynote speakers Speakers include: • Hillary Hoynes (University of California) • John Cochrane (Stanford University), • Josef Zweimüller (University of Zürich). • Gauti Eggertsson (Brown University), • Chris Sims (Princeton University).

25 www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html Conference diary Further information: https://www.dnb.nl/en/onderzoek- 3-4 November Munich, Germany 2/test-conferences/annual-research- conferences/index.jsp CALL FOR PAPERS CESifo Area Conference on the Economics of Digitization. The 2017 area conference on the 19-21 October Budapest, Hungary Economics of Digitization is the inaugural conference of the new area of the CESifo Network. The new area will The 29th EAEPE Annual Conference will take place at be led by Professor Stephen P. Ryan of Washington Corvinus University. The conference theme, 'the role of University in St.Louis. The purpose of the conference is the State in Economic Development.', is inspired by the to bring together researchers from a broad range of eco- most recent history of political and economic transition nomic disciplines to present and discuss ongoing in Central- and Eastern-Europe. research leveraging data sets, made possible through the Further information: www.EAEPE.org digitization of economic activity. The conference will have a focus on work at the intersection of digitization with public policy. Deadline for submission and registra- 26–28 October Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam tion is 31st August. The 2017 Vietnam Symposium in Banking and Further information: http://www.cesifo-group.org Finance will be held at the Vietnam National University. This conference, jointly organized by the Association of Vietnamese Scientists and Experts (AVSE), the 24 November Bordeaux, France International Society for the Advancement of Financial CALL FOR PAPERS Economics (ISAFE), and International University, 2nd International Bordeaux Workshop in Vietnam National University HCM City, aims to bring Quantitative Finance, Risk, and Decision Theory. together academics, practitioners and policymakers shar- This workshop aims to widen the analysis of all factors ing their research findings and discussing current and impacting bank risk and firms’ financing nexus to the challenging issues in banking and finance. effects of the recent financial crisis, the role of uncon- Keynote speakers: ventional monetary instruments, the implementation of a Prof Robert Faff, University of Queensland Business new banking regulation. Keynote speakers: School, Australia • Leonardo Gambacorta (Bank for International Prof Kenneth M. Lehn, University of Pittsburgh, United Settlements) States • Rainer Haselmann (Goethe University, Frankfurt) Registration deadline: September 15, 2017 Further information and submisions: Further information: [email protected] [email protected]

27-29 October Birmingham 2017 7th International Conference on Business and december Economics Research (ICBER 2017). 7-9 December Grenoble, France Further information: www.icber.org 2nd Grenoble Post-Keynesian and Institutionalist Conference: Instability, Growth and Regulation will 2-3 November Madrid, Spai be held at the University of Grenoble. The aim of this n 2nd Conference is to contribute to the understanding of Monetary Policy in the 21st Century: The the working of market-based capitalist and capitalist-like Renaissance of Austrian Monetary Economics will be economies through the rise of new forms of accumula- held at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. The tion, regulation, socialization and the collective manage- aim of the conference is to bring together scholars inter- ment of instabilities. Keynote speakers include: ested in monetary economics in the tradition of the • Gerald Epstein (University of Massachusetts Amherst) Austrian School and to stimulate the debate on the future • John King (La Trobe University, Ustralia) of the monetary system. Keynote speaker: Prof. Dr. Jesús Huerta de Soto.Registration deadline is 31st Further information: http://creg.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/ August.

Further information: [email protected]. www.res.org.uk/view/resNewsletter.html 26 Conference diary 8-9 December Munich, Germany july 8th ifo Conference on Macroeconomics and Survey Data. The conference is intended to discuss ongoing 25–27 July Granada, Spain research on survey and micro data and its role and usage in macroeconomics. Speakers include: CALL FOR PAPERS • Rüdiger Bachmann, University of Notre Dame 13th International Conference on Interdisciplinary • Giuseppe Bertola, University of Turin Social Sciences will be held at the University of Grenada. The conference examines the nature of disci- Further information: www.cesifo.org plinary practices in the study of society and the interdis- ciplinary practices that arise in the context of ‘real world’ applications of social research and theory. The 14-15 December Amsterdam, Netherlands conference also investigates what constitutes ‘science’ in 28th EC2 Conference, on Time-Varying Parameter a social context and the connections between the social Models will take place at Pakhuis de Zwijger. Key and other sciences. The focus of papers ranges from the speakers include: finely grained and empirical (research practices and results exemplifying one or more disciplines) to wide- • Christian Gourieroux (University of Toronto, Canada ranging multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspec- and Crest, France) tives on knowledge and method. • Andre Lucas (VU Amsterdam) • Andrew Patton (Duke University, United States) Further information: http://thesocialsciences.com/2018- conference?utm_source=I18A_danUNV&utm_medi- Further informaytion: http://www.tinbergen.nl/ec2/ um=I18A_danUNV&utm_campaign=I18A_danUNV#b lock-2

2018 january

11-14 January Newcastle, Australia Western Economic Association International 14th International Conference will be held at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. Keynote Addresses include: • Nobel Laureate Daniel McFadden, University of California, Berkeley, • Orley Ashenfelter, Princeton University, • WEAI Past President, David Card, University of California, Berkeley. Further information: http://www.weai.org/IC2018. march

26-28 March Brighton The 2018 RES Annual Conference will be held at the University of Sussex, Brighton on 26th - 28th March 2018.

Further information: http://www.res.org.uk/view/con- ference.html

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