Title: The Economic Effects of Gender Affirming Care
(Ian Burn, Emma von Essen, Ylva Moberg, Lucas Tilley)

Abstract: We investigate the effect of gender-affirming care on labor market outcomes. Using administrative data on the full Swedish population from 2006 to 2020, we examine outcomes evolve for transgender individuals diagnosed with gender incongruence relative to a matched control group of people without gender incongruence. Gender-affirming care increases the employment rates of trans men and has a small negative effect on the employment of trans women in the five years after the first diagnosis. Earnings are significantly higher for trans men by the end of the five-year window, but there is no effect for trans women.  When we decompose gender-affirming care into key milestones in treatment, we find important heterogeneity in the effects of a diagnosis, hormone replacement therapy, an individual's first gender-affirming surgery, bottom surgery, and a legal change of gender. Gendered patterns for key milestones echo many patterns seen for outcomes in baseline analyses. 

Title: Credit Contracts, Business Development and Gender: Evidence from Uganda
(Selim Gulesci, Francesco Loiacono, Andreas Madestam, Miri Stryjan)

Abstract: We present evidence on how design of credit contracts affect small firm growth and how these effects vary by entrepreneurs' gender. Financial products should address not only credit and risk-related limitations but also other factors influencing borrower decisions, such as the diversion of funds due to sharing pressures. To the extent that these concerns are more pressing for women, financial solutions that benefit male-owned firms may not be as effective for female-owned enterprises. In our experiment, entrepreneurs borrowing from a major Ugandan lender were randomly offered modified contracts with varying repayment schedule flexibility or an equivalent cash transfer. We find that increased repayment flexibility results in higher profits after five years, with the optimal flexibility level depending on the entrepreneur's gender. By contrast, cash transfers do not affect firm outcomes. Our analysis reveals that male-owned businesses increase hiring and generate higher profit under flexible repayment contracts, while female-owned businesses benefit more from less flexible grace-period contracts. We present suggestive evidence that the differences are driven by kinship taxation on female entrepreneurs. 

Title: Flood risk information release: Evidence from housing markets around Paris

(Edwige Dubos-Paillard, Emmanuelle Lavaine, Katrin Millock)

Abstract: The article estimates flood risk perceptions by exploiting the different release dates of flood risk information around Paris from 2003 to 2012, a period characterised by the absence of significant floods since 1955, making flood risk less salient. We apply a stacked event study design to detailed property transaction data combined with geo-localised amenities. The results show that transaction prices for similar properties are 3-7% lower following the release of information if they are located in a flood risk zone, and that the effect persists, at least over the period we analyse. The results are robust to varying the control group to a neighbourhood at different distances from the flood risk boundary. The effect is more negative for ground floor dwellings. We find no evidence of sorting among buyers along different characteristics, in particular based on past exposure to flooding in their previous municipality. The results indicate a significant effect of flood risk information in a context where we can isolate it from the financial consequences of insurance cover and from flood damage per se. 

Title: Working from Home and Consumption in Cities
(Jean-Victor Alipour, Oliver Falck, Simon Krause, Carla Krolage, Sebastian Wichert)

Abstract: We estimate the impact of working from home (WFH) on the micro-geography of offline consumer spending within 50 German metropolitan areas, drawing on micro-geographic card-transaction data, phone mobility data and WFH patterns between January 2019 and September 2023. We use a difference-in-differences design that exploits the spatially differential exposure to the WFH shock induced by Covid-19. Our estimates show that a higher exposure to WFH reduces local morning mobility and drives up local offline spending, with a 3% elasticity of local spending to the WFH-induced mobility decline. In contrast, workplace areas and centrally located consumption hubs face a persistent decline in spending. Our findings indicate a permanent relocation of offline consumption within cities.

Title: Migration inflow and school performance of incumbents
(Demid Getik, Anna Sjögren, Anton Sundberg)

Abstract: We examine how exposure to recent migrants affects the academic performance of Swedish students. To identify the effect, we exploit variation in exposure between siblings and over time for the same individuals. We find a positive effect on native students in schools with high levels of exposure and in rural areas. At the same time, the effect is negative in large cities. Analyses of mechanisms suggest that school responses to reduce class size play a role in generating net positive effects of migrant exposure. Findings are similar when considering the more acute exposure of the 2015-2016 refugee crisis.

Title: Joining Forces: Why Banks Syndicate Credit
(Steven Ongena, Alex Osberghaus, Glenn Schepens)

Abstract: Banks can grant loans to firms bilaterally or in syndicates. We study this choice by combining bilateral loan data with syndicated loan data. We show that loan size alone does not adequately explain syndication. Instead, banks’ ability to manage risks and firm riskiness drive the choice to syndicate. Banks are more likely to syndicate loans if their risk-bearing capacity is low and if screening and monitoring come at a high cost. Syndicated loans are more expensive and more sensitive to loan risk than bilateral loans. Our findings contradict the hypothesis that reputable borrowers graduate to the syndicated loan market.

Title: The Economic Geography of Eurasia in the 20th Century: Soviet planners meet Tsarist fundamentals
(Marvin Suesse, Iris Wohnsiedler)

Abstract: How responsive is the location of economic activity to exogenous shocks? This paper uses a new data set on the location of factories in the Russian Empire (1890, 1908), the Soviet Union (1989) and modern nightlight data (2013) to shed light on the forces determining the spatial location of production in Eurasia since the late nineteenth century. During this period, the region experienced a radical shift in economic system from market to central planning and back again. Production was also subjected to various large shocks, including war and the associated relocation of firms to the east, forced population movement, and border changes. We investigate to what extent economic transition and these exogenous shocks changed the role of agglomeration effects, local labour inputs and market access in determining industry location. We find that both planning and shocks shifted the fundamentals of industrial location in the Soviet Union compared to those operating under the market-based context of Imperial Russia. Nonetheless, these forces were not powerful enough to eradicate the path-dependent effects of Tsarist industrial locations that were still visible in the industrial structure of the region after a century. These results suggest that the effect the Soviet Union had on the spatial economy of Eurasia was less transformative than previously believed.

Title: The Pandemic, Pupil Attendance and Achievement
(Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally, Piero Montebruno)

Abstract: Globally, children experienced long periods of absence from school during the Covid-19 pandemic. Absence rates remain very high in many countries, with huge increases in ‘chronic’ absenteeism where pupils are regularly missing from school on a weekly basis. In this project, we  investigate both how policy variation in restrictions in England influenced pupil absence during the pandemic and how this affected post-pandemic attendance and academic achievement. We find that absence induced by health and social policies that encouraged home working, closed businesses and restricted social contact during autumn 2020 caused higher rates of school absence and lower rates of achievement in subsequent years (2021/22). 

Title: Who is in Favor of Affirmative Action? Representative Evidence from Two Experiments and a Survey
(Sabrina Herzog, Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch, Chi Trieu, Jana Willrodt)  

Abstract: Although affirmative action remains controversial, little is known about who supports or opposes it and why. It is, however, important to understand who needs to be convinced and how, if affirmative action is desired to counteract discrimination in hiring decisions or increase diversity in management positions, for example. Affirmative action policies that lack support or are perceived as unfair can be detrimental. This paper investigates preferences for affirmative action by combining causal evidence from two online experiments on the role of self-serving motives and in-group favoritism with survey data on three different affirmative action policies. Our results rely on population-representative samples from the United States. We find that support for affirmative action is based both on self-serving motives and principled grounds (e.g., related to an individual’s altruism, fairness perceptions, concerns for efficiency, and political views). By contrast, in-group favoritism and socio-demographic characteristics play a smaller role.

Title: Carbon Taxes and Misallocation in Chile
(Pete Klenow, Ernesto Pasten, Cian Ruane)

Abstract: Carbon taxes are subject to a classic free rider problem: the benefits are global but the costs are often local.  In an inefficient economy, however, carbon taxes might exacerbate or ameliorate existing domestic distortions.  In Chile we find that fossil fuel use across firms is negatively correlated with their revenue productivity (i.e., revenue relative to inputs). We present evidence suggesting that this pattern may reflect higher price-cost markups at firms that produce higher quality products, with quality being intensive in primary inputs but not fossil fuel use.  As a result, imposing a unilateral carbon tax may helpfully reallocate inputs away from low-markup, low-quality firms towards high-markup, high-quality firms.  We calculate that a unilateral carbon tax in Chile could thereby increase allocative efficiency, consumption, and welfare.

Title: Impact or Responsibility? Giving Behavior in a Televised Natural Experiment
(Inka Eberhardt Hiabu, Paul Smeets, Martijn J. van den Assem, Dennie van Dolder)

Abstract: We directly compare the influences of impact and responsibility considerations on giving behavior. In moral philosophy, utilitarianism emphasizes the importance of the former, whereas theories of equity and desert argue for the importance of the latter. Our data are from a television show where an audience of one hundred people divides ten thousand euros among three financially distressed candidates, and from independent raters who evaluated various attributes of the candidates and their financial predicaments. We find that the well-being benefit of a donation (“impact”) outweighs the degree to which the candidate had control over the cause of their situation (“responsibility”). Giving increases more with impact than it decreases with responsibility, and the contribution of impact to the fit of our regression models is approximately two-and-a-half times that of responsibility. Additionally, our analysis shows no evidence of discrimination on age, gender, or physical attractiveness.

Title: Refugee exposure and polarisation: Poland in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine War
(Joanna Clifton-Sprigg, Ines Homburg, Sunčica Vujić)

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of immigration on electoral outcomes. Exploiting a unique natural experiment, we research parliamentary electoral outcomes in Poland following the 2022 inflow of Ukrainian refugees. We exploit the variation in hosted refugees across counties in the western part of Poland and utilize a shift-share instrument based on the past settlement of Ukrainian immigrants. We find a negative association between the refugee inflow and the vote share for the right-wing incumbent Law and Justice party. We also find increased support for far-right political groups and the left-wing coalition, indicating a polarisation of political preferences. We provide suggestive evidence that this is driven by changing voter preferences, increased election participation, and a small change in natives’ internal mobility patterns. This suggests that, on the one hand, interaction between natives and refugees can reduce prejudice and improve attitudes toward immigrants. On the other hand, exposure to refugees, even when from a culturally and geographically similar background, can still be associated with natives’ backlash.