Regular time: 17:10-18:40, Thursday; seminars are given in English.
March 19 (Thr) Shinnosuke Kikuchi (UC San Diego) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Quantifying the Aggregate and Distributional Effects of Offshoring
April 6 (Mon) Woan Foong Wong (University of Oregon) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
April 16 (Thr) Dávid Krisztián Nagy (The Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
May 28 (Thr) Sitian Liu (Queen's University) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
July 9 (Thr) Junfu Zhang (Clark University) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Population Aging, Tasks, and Regional Growth: A Quantitative Analysis of Japan
Abstract: TBA
February 19 (Thr) Takuma Kamada (University of Osaka) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Regulating Opioids, Creating Poverty: How the OxyContin Reformulation Shapes Neighborhood Disadvantage
Abstract: The opioid crisis has had adverse public health effects, disproportionately affecting the White population in its initial phase, yet our understanding of its effects on neighborhood inequality remains underdeveloped. This study investigates how opioid-related policies transform neighborhood poverty by exploiting the 2010 OxyContin reformulation---a supply-side intervention to reduce prescription opioid abuse. It argues that the reformulation prompts impoverished White opioid users to switch to heroin and relocate toward neighborhoods with heroin availability, leading to the emergence of White high-poverty neighborhoods. Following the reformulation, White high-poverty neighborhoods emerge at higher rates in counties with initially high opioid dispensing, especially in neighborhoods with high housing vacancy, and the increases are largest in tracts with small initial White but large minority populations. The estimated effect is small and statistically indistinguishable from zero for minority high-poverty neighborhoods. Within high-vacancy areas in high-opioid counties, heroin availability increases post-reformulation, and the resulting high-poverty neighborhoods stem from relocation of the poor rather than increases in the overall poor population. The study highlights unintended consequences of supply-side drug policy amid illicit substitutes: the geographic distribution of poverty and neighborhood racial integration.
March 5 (Thr) Jens Wrona (University of Duisburg-Essen) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Optimal Minimum Wages in Spatial Economies
Abstract: We develop a quantitative general-equilibrium framework for the normative evaluation of minimum wages in spatial economies with monopsonistic labour markets. We quantify the model for German micro-regions and successfully over-identify its predictions against the effects of the 2015 German minimum wage observed in data. Simulating the model, we find that at low levels, spatially blind national minimum wages can increase welfare and spatial equity simultaneously. At higher levels, however, welfare gains are traded against employment losses and spatial inequality. Because regional minimum wages are not spatially blind, they can increase employment and welfare in a spatially neutral manner.
Contact: Kentaro Nakajima (nakajima@iir.hit-u.ac.jp)