Master’s students Analía García ’19 (ITFD) and Lorena Franco ’19 (Economics) organized the seminar to highlight research by female PhD students and professors
This May, BGSE Master’s students Analía García ’19 (ITFD) and Lorena Franco ’19 (Economics) organized the Women in Economics two-day seminar, which meant to highlight female PhD students and faculty members’ research.
Three students and four Barcelona GSE Affiliated Professors presented their work, which varied from family economics to political economics and experimental economics. More information of the speakers and their topics below.
Organizers Analía García ’19 and Lorena Franco ’19
These efforts, nonetheless, started over two months ago when both students, who are from Latin America and the Caribbean, organized an open forum on International Women’s Day. Having prior work experience and noting the clear lack of female representation in economics and academia, they wanted to expand the conversations on the topic and discuss what we could do to potentially “make it better” within their parameters. The Women in Economics seminar was born from the conversations during the first and second open forums, and thanks to the ideas of Marta Morazzoni and Claudia Meza, both PhD students at GPEFM (UPF and Barcelona GSE).
Putting this together was a challenge given this had not been done at BGSE before, but the organizers hope this was insightful for all those who attended.
More female and racial diversity in economics and academia, please!
The speakers and the titles of the work were the following (listed alphabetically):
PhD Students
Marta Morazzoni“Family Dynamics in Macroeconomics: when the representative household does not represent us anymore”
Marta Santamaría“The Gains from Reshaping Infrastructure: Evidence from the Division of Germany”
Alina Velias“When to Tie Odysseus to the Mast: Costly Commitment Under Biased Expactations”
Professors
Enriqueta Aragonés“Stability of a Multi-level Government: A Catalonia in Spain”
Rosa Ferrer“Consumers’ Costly Responses to Product-Harm Crises” and “Gender Gaps in Performance: Evidence from Young Lawyers”
Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell“Relative Deprivation in Tanzania”
Rosemarie Nagel“Regularities in the Lab, Brain, and Field: A Cognitive Reasoning Model”
By Iacopo Tonini ’15, current student in the International Trade, Finance and Development program. Follow him on Twitter @iacopotoni
On April 8th Professor Ruben Durante (Sciences Po) visited the Institute of Political Economy and Governance (IPEG) to present his latest research paper, “Attack when the world is not watching? International Media and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” (coauthored with Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, Paris School of Economics). The title clearly suggests that the article relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however the research aims at demonstrating a more general result. Indeed, the objective is establishing a causal relationship between unpopular policy choices and news with a “highly relevant” media content.
“I have noticed that my older daughter steals her brother’s toys when we (the parents) are not home”, the Italian professor stated cheerfully while explaining where he had initially gotten the idea for the research. The process seems to make sense. In the case of an influential conflict such as the Israeli-Palestinian one, it could well be the case that the factions involved wait for the world to look away before coordinating and ultimately launching a brutal offensive – or interrupting a ceasefire after a period of peace.
Beyond the intuitive example extrapolated from the professor’s family life, more concrete cases are the following. On the very same day in which the Italian National team qualified for the World Cup final (July 13, 1994), the Berlusconi government passed and approved an emergency decree – recently renamed the “save-the-thieves” decree– that allowed several politicians accused of corruption to avoid imprisonment, and keep working unscathed. Another example is the start of the Russian military operations to invade Georgia. The Russian army received the order to attack during the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Finally, during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, while at the stadium Mineirão in Belo Horizonte the German national team was inflicting a historical débâcle to the Seleçao, Israel launched the operation “Protective Edge” against Gaza.
News item about an unpopular policy appears below news about the World Cup qualifier in this Italian newspaper.
“Governments are accountable to the extent that the public is informed about their actions. Mass media ensure accountability by informing citizens about government actions (Besley and Prat, 2006; Snyder and Stromberg, 2010),” answered the professor to one of the questions asked by a scholar. “Yet, how effectively mass media inform the public depends, among other things, on the presence of other newsworthy events that may crowd out the news coverage of governments’ actions (Eisensee and Stromberg, 2007).” The assumption on which the study is built – and that the Israeli-Palestinian case seems to demonstrate – is that politicians might exploit the presence of other “newsworthy events” to put forward unpopular actions so that they coincide with major events that distract the audience.
However, could this perhaps be the overly-pessimistic vision of the researcher? The data shows otherwise. In particular, Professor Durante shows in his work that when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is given coverage in the media, there is a 12% increase in the Google searches related to the topic.
Let us focus on the case studied in the paper: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Since the 70s, the Israeli government has put a great effort in projecting a positive image of Israel and its army abroad. This policy is denominated Hasbara, which in Hebrew means “explanation”, and entails the production of informative material on issues regarding Israel and the Middle East. Furthermore, Hasbara includes collaborations between international and local journalists, and social-media usage to influence public opinion. Nothing similar is in place in Palestine.
In his article the Professor writes: “Most likely, in an armed conflict nothing has a worse impact on the international public opinion than civilian casualties.” The factions involved seem to be perfectly aware of the primary role mass media have in informing, and thus influencing, public opinion. Evidence of this is found, for instance, in the words of the Prime Minister Netanyahu who, when interviewed by the CNN about the numerous civilian victims, commented: “[Hamas] wants to pile up as many civilian dead as they can…they use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause.”
By combining daily data on attacks on both sides of the conflict with data on the content of evening news for top U.S. TV networks, the authors show that: “Israeli attacks are more likely to be carried out when the U.S. news are expected to be dominated by important (non-Israel-related, such as an election or the Super Bowl) events on the following day.” Specifically, the empirical findings indicate that the strategic timing of the Israeli army is less relevant in a period of intense fighting as opposed to attacks in a period of relative peace. Moreover, the attacks are strategically planned only in the case when there is the possibility of civilian casualties. Thus, the facts documented in the paper confirm that the aim of Israel is that of “minimizing negative international publicity” – and in the case of graphic or emotional contents regarding civilian victims, would result in a strong, negative impact on the American public opinion.
In contrast, the researchers find “no evidence that attacks by Palestinian militant groups are timed to U.S. news pressure.” This might be reflecting the marked gap that exists between the two arrays: unlike Israel, Palestine does not have a structured or well-organized army, nor does it have the same level of resources that would allow it to plan such attacks strategically. Nevertheless, it should be noted that this does not exclude the possibility of Palestine’s lack of interest towards shaping American public opinion.
Beyond the interesting findings of the research on the role international media plays in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this study also reminds us of the powerful responsibility it holds. In particular, mass media is a watchdog powerful enough to influence the actions of governments by simply carrying out their mission of informing citizens. This becomes even more important when considering the exponential interconnectedness of people throughout the globe via technological progresses.
References
Besley, Timothy and Andrea Prat, “Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Political Accountability,” American Economic Review, 2006, 96 (3), 720–736.
Eisensee, Thomas and David Stromberg, “News Droughts, News Floods, and U.S. Disaster Relief,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 05 2007, 122 (2), 693–728.
Snyder, James M. and David Stromberg, “Press Coverage and Political Accountability,” Journal of Political Economy, 04 2010, 118 (2), 355-408.
By Marlène Rump ’15, current student in the International Trade, Finance and Development master program at Barcelona GSE. Marlène is on Twitter @marleneleila.
On Wednesday, October 22, we didn’t have classes, so we decided to explore one of the numerous events on the GSE calendar. For some brain and other food, the breakfast seminar on Labour, Public and Development Economics sounded just right.
The presentations scheduled were held by two of UPF’s PhD students who are in their last year. This means they are finalizing their “job market paper”, which refers to the paper they will use as a demonstration of their skills and interests when they apply for positions.
One important purpose of the seminar is giving the students an opportunity to practice presenting and defending their work, as well as receiving improvement suggestions from fellow PhD students and professors.
Backlash: The Unintended Effects of Language Prohibition in US Schools after World War I
Vicky Fouka started the seminar with her paper on language prohibition in the US Schools after World War I. She compared two states, similar in most social aspects, one of which banned the teaching of German from the primary schools for a few years and the other, her control state, which didn’t.
The prohibition, which was implemented by the authorities in early 1920s, originated from a German-hatred which was widespread in the United States after World War I. What was promoted as an integration measure had the exact opposing effects: Vicky finds that the Germans living in the state with language prohibition deepened their cultural segregation. In comparison with the control state, they were more likely to marry a German spouse and give their first child a very German sounding name.
Cultural Capital in the Labor Market: Evidence from Two Trade Liberalization Episodes
The second presentation was also about the assimilation of immigrants, however Tetyana Surovtseva conducted her analysis with modern day data. Her assumption was that if the host country of immigrants increased trade with their country of origin, these immigrants had an advantage on the labor market in trade related sectors. Her hypothesis was that if the host country of immigrants increased trade with their country of origin, these immigrants had an advantage on the labor market in trade related sectors. Her underlying premise is that immigrants have a certain “cultural capital”, other than language, which is valuable for corporations involved in trade with their country of origin.
Tetyana examined the labor market demand for Chinese and Mexican immigrants in the US after a punctual improvement of trade agreements. Her findings suggest that labor market returns to the immigrant cultural capital increase as a result of trade with the country of origin.
Attend some seminars! Especially if you’re thinking of doing a PhD.
For both presentations there were numerous questions which gave additional insight especially on the methods of research. We also learned that most PhD students start their final thesis three years before the end of their program.
After this experience, I can highly recommend attending the seminars. You learn about interesting economic questions and see a specific application of your econometrics classes and this in only one hour. In addition, for those who are envisaging doing a PhD, the presentations give a genuine insight of the type of research you could be conducting.
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