Research Seminars

The Bonn Applied Microeconomics Seminar is cohosted by IZA and the Institute for Applied Microeconomics at the University of Bonn.

Participation in the Applied Micro Seminar is open to researchers, students, and visitors of the University of Bonn, IZA, and collaborating institutions (e.g., via CRCs or Clusters of Excellence). The seminar presentations, including the discussions, are held in English.

You can stay up-to-date by subscribing to our web calendar. If you wish to receive announcements of upcoming talks and information regarding the availability of sign-up meetings with the speakers via e-mail, please contact seminar@iza.org so that we can add you to the Applied Micro mailing list.

 

Upcoming Presentations

Tuesday, May 20, 2025
BGSE Applied Micro Workshop
When:
Tuesday, May 20, 2025, 01:00 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Alison Andrew, “Dowry, Old-Age Support and Labour Supply over the Lifecycle”
When:
Tuesday, May 20, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
Alison Andrew, Anusha Guha, and Selma Walther:
“Dowry, Old-Age Support and Labour Supply over the Lifecycle”

We study the complex interaction between dowry, old-age support and lifecycle choices over work and consumption in the context of India, where eldest sons are expected to provide old-age support. We begin by documenting novel facts around differences in economic welfare between households without sons and those with at least one son. Parents without sons are more likely to be hungry in old age, unhealthy and suffer from low body weight. These households also consume less and have fewer assets. We present a novel structural model that encompasses dynamic lifecycle decisions around work, consumption and children’s marriage, taking into account social norms around dowry and old-age support. The model reproduces the main descriptive patterns. Counterfactual exercises show that a universal pension policy could reduce the welfare cost of having girls, and thus have knock-on effects on son preference.

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Friday, May 23, 2025
Applied Micro Coffee: Oleksii Hamaniuk
When:
Friday, May 23, 2025, 11:00 AM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
https://uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/67208563416

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Tuesday, May 27, 2025
BGSE Applied Micro Workshop
When:
Tuesday, May 27, 2025, 01:00 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Friday, May 30, 2025
Applied Micro Coffee: Paul Grass
When:
Friday, May 30, 2025, 11:00 AM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
https://uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/67208563416

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Tuesday, June 3, 2025
BGSE Applied Micro Workshop
When:
Tuesday, June 3, 2025, 01:00 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Lukas Bolte
When:
Tuesday, June 3, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Tuesday, June 17, 2025
BGSE Applied Micro Workshop
When:
Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 01:00 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Cuimin Ba, “Over- and Underreaction to Information: The Role of Complexity in Belief-Updating”
When:
Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
Cuimin Ba, J. Aislinn Bohren, and Alex Imas:
“Over- and Underreaction to Information: The Role of Complexity in Belief-Updating”

This paper explores how cognitive constraints—namely, attention and processing capacity—interact with properties of the learning environment to determine how people react to information. In our model, people form a simplified mental representation of the environment via salience-channeled attention, then process information with cognitive imprecision. The model predicts overreaction to information when environments are complex, signals are noisy, information is surprising, or priors are concentrated on less salient states; it predicts underreaction when environments are simple, signals are precise, information is expected, or priors are concentrated on salient states. Results from a series of pre-registered experiments provide support for these predictions and direct evidence for the proposed cognitive mechanisms. We show that the two psychological mechanisms act as cognitive complements: their interaction is critical for explaining belief data, and together they yield a highly complete model in terms of capturing explainable variation in belief-updating. Our theoretical and empirical results connect disparate findings in prior work: underreaction is typically found in laboratory studies, which feature simple learning settings, while overreaction is more prevalent in financial markets which feature greater complexity.

https://cuiminba.com/uploads/Overreaction.pdf

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Tuesday, June 24, 2025
BGSE Applied Micro Workshop
When:
Tuesday, June 24, 2025, 01:00 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Hanna Wang, “Job Search and Mobility Over the Life-Cycle: Implications for the Child Penalty”
When:
Tuesday, June 24, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
Minji Bang and Hanna Wang:
“Job Search and Mobility Over the Life-Cycle: Implications for the Child Penalty”

We document using Dutch administrative and survey data that women’s job mobility drops around childbirth. Women make fewer job-to-job transitions starting one year before birth until many years after. They are also less likely to engage in on-the-job search and work in jobs with low amenities related to irregular hours. We develop a life-cycle labor supply, job search and job switching model for women in which mothers and pregnant women face higher search costs. Jobs are characterized as bundles of wages and amenities, the latter decrease work disutility. We use the model to quantify a novel channel through which the child penalty operates: because (expecting) mothers perform less job search, they remain in jobs with low wages and amenities, therefore working and earning less. Search costs related to childbirth reduce lifetime earnings by 10.1%, accounting for 33.7% of the child penalty. We validate our model with a recent reform which eliminated tenure requirements for parental leave. Mothers increased job switching before birth but decreased employment in the year of birth.

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Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Ran Spiegler, “Competitive Markets with Imperfectly Discerning Consumers”
When:
Tuesday, July 1, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
Reinhard Selten Institute, Niebuhrstraße 5, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
Yair Antler and Ran Spiegler:
“Competitive Markets with Imperfectly Discerning Consumers”

In an adversely selective market model, products generate state-dependent potential hidden charges, and firms have differential abilities to realize this exploitative potential. Unlike firms, consumers do not observe the state. They try to infer hidden charges from headline prices, using idiosyncratic subjective models. An interior competitive equilibrium is uniquely characterized by what is formally a Bellman equation. Relative to rational expectations, equilibrium add-on charges are lower whereas the total price and social welfare are higher. Market responses to shocks display patterns that are impossible under rational expectations. For example, although fully revealing, equilibrium prices can vary with consumers’ private information.

https://www.ranspiegler.sites.tau.ac.il/_files/ugd/4871e3_5e9a009e7e724121b2cae57b501ffbce.pdf

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Tuesday, July 15, 2025
BGSE Applied Micro Workshop
When:
Tuesday, July 15, 2025, 01:00 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Heather Sarsons
When:
Tuesday, July 15, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Linh T. Tô
When:
Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Ines Helm
When:
Tuesday, October 21, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Bonn Applied Micro Seminar
When:
Tuesday, October 28, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Tuesday, November 4, 2025
Bonn Applied Micro Seminar
When:
Tuesday, November 4, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Bertil Tungodden
When:
Tuesday, November 11, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Jessica A. Wachter
When:
Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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