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, April 29, 2025
BGSE Applied Micro Workshop: Elizaveta Zelnitskaia, “Risk Aversion in Information Cascades”
When:
Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 01:00 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
Elizaveta Zelnitskaia:
“Risk Aversion in Information Cascades”

How do risk preferences influence the speed and nature of social learning? I consider this question via theoretical modeling and a laboratory experiment. In the theoretical model, I generalize the information cascade settings (Banerjee, 1992; Bikhchandani et al., 1992) by assuming that agents differ in risk preferences and choose between asymmetrically risky options. In the laboratory experiment, I compare the herding decisions of agents in settings with symmetrically and asymmetrically risky options. Preliminary results of the model show that heterogeneity of agents’ risk preferences may slow down convergence speed and change the probability of convergence to different options. Preliminary results of the laboratory experiment do not confirm the theoretical predictions. In addition, the experimental results show that agents who know the risk preference types of the other agents have a higher frequency of incorrect herding decisions on average, compared to agents who know only the distribution of risk preferences in the sample.

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Bonn Applied Micro Seminar: Matt Lowe, “Learning About Outgroups: The Impact of Broad Versus Deep Interactions”
When:
Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
Anujit Chakraborty, Arkadev Ghosh, Matt Lowe, and Gareth Nellis:
“Learning About Outgroups: The Impact of Broad Versus Deep Interactions”

We hypothesize that broad contact, involving brief interactions with multiple outgroup members, and deep contact, meaning longer interactions with a single outgroup member, play distinct roles in shaping intergroup relations. We set up a factory in India and recruited Hindu and Muslim men to work in pairs on joint production tasks. We randomly assigned participants to work either with the same ingroup or outgroup partner daily (deep contact), a different outgroup partner each day (broad contact), or to a control group. While deep contact strengthens social and economic ties with the outgroup partner interacted with, only broad contact reduces misperceptions about outgroup strangers. These findings align with a model in which independent sampling (observing multiple outgroup members) promotes learning about outgroups more than prolonged interaction with a single individual does. Nevertheless, neither type of contact changes behavior toward the wider outgroup.

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Friday, May 2, 2025
Applied Micro Coffee: Nico Thurow, “Characterizing Measurement Error in the German Socio-Economic Panel Using Linked Survey and Administrative Data”
When:
Friday, May 2, 2025, 11:00 AM CET
Where:
IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:
Nico Thurow:
“Characterizing Measurement Error in the German Socio-Economic Panel Using Linked Survey and Administrative Data”

This paper exploits the linkage of German administrative social security data (German: Integrierte Erwerbsbiografien) and survey data from the Socio-Economic Panel (German: Sozio-oekonomisches Panel, SOEP) for the characterization of measurement error in metrics quantifying individual-specific labor earnings in Germany. We find that survey participants’ decision whether to consent to linkage is non-random based on observables. In that sense, the studied sample does not constitute a random sample of SOEP. Further, measurement error is not classical: we observe underreporting of income on average, autocorrelation, and non-zero correlation with the true signal and other observable characteristics. In levels, calculated reliability ratios above 0.94 hint at a relatively small attenuation bias in simple linear univariate regressions with earnings as the explanatory variable. For changes in income, i.e. first differences, the bias from measurement error is exacerbated.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2025
BGSE Applied Micro Workshop
When:
Tuesday, May 13, 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: Marta Serra-Garcia
When:
Tuesday, May 13, 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, 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
When:
Tuesday, May 20, 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 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
When:
Tuesday, July 1, 2025, 02:15 PM CET
Where:
Reinhard Selten Institute, Niebuhrstraße 5, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Description:

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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
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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