Invitation: Economics PhD Workshop

  • DATE

    24 May 2021

  • VENUE

    Online

The First University of Pretoria Economics PhD Workshop brings together PhD students, supervisors, academics, HoDs, postdocs and international discussants.

 
Programme:
10:00 – 10:20      Welcome (Manoel Bittencourt, Steve Koch and Jabulani Sikhakhane)
10:20 – 12:35      First session (25 min presentations followed by 10 min discussions each and then 10 min general Q&A)
  • Paper 1: Timothy Kohler (UCT). COVID-19 in the context of extreme unemployment and inequality: Estimating the employment effects of South Africa’s national lockdown. Discussant: Jesse Naidoo (UP)
  • Paper 2: Antoinette Mashinda (UP). Impact of Environmental and Socioeconomic factors on Covid-19 transmission in Cape Town. Discussant: Jesse Naidoo (UP)
  • Paper 3: Leone Walters (UP). Slave Trade and Women Political Participation in Africa. Discussant: Sarah Langlotz (Goettingen)
12:35 – 13:30      Lunch break
13:30 – 16:30      Second session (25 min presentations followed by 10 min discussions each and then 10 min general Q&A)
  • Paper 4: Alexander Copestake (Oxford). Multi-product firms, networks and quality upgrading: Evidence from China and India. Discussant: Kai Gehring (Zurich)
  • Paper 5: Charl van Schoor (UP). Extracting Central Bank Narrative: Why Dynamic Word Embeddings Matter. Discussant: Kai Gehring (Zurich)
  • Paper 6: Martin Mwale (Stellenbosch). The negative impact of farm input subsidies on women’s agency in Malawi’s matrilocal settlements. Discussant: Jonathan Weigel (LSE)
  • Paper 7: Mkupete Jaah (Dar es Salaam). Does Feeding Children Meat or Milk Improve Linear Growth in Tanzania? The Mediation Role of Livestock Keeping. Discussant: Jonathan Weigel (LSE)
16:30 – 16:45      Short break
16:45 – 18:15      Third session (25 min presentations followed by 10 min discussions each and then 10 min general Q&A)
  • Paper 8: Patricia Funjika (UP). Democracy, the Median Voter and Intergenerational Education Mobility - Theory and Evidence from Ghana. Discussant: Sara Lowes (UCSD)
  • Paper 9: Lisa Martin (Stellenbosch). A "Free" Labour Force: The Labour Mobility of Emancipated Slaves of the Cape Colony. Discussant: Sara Lowes (UCSD)
18:15                    End 
 
In addition to presentations and general discussion, there will be five young assistant professors, with papers already published in major international journals, who will discuss and provide detailed comments on the papers presented. That format will provide our African-based PhDs with a platform in which to present, to receive feedback at the highest level and also to build a valuable network.
 
About the Discussants
Kai Gehring is a researcher at the University of Zurich, funded by a 4-year "Ambizione Grant" of the Swiss National Science Foundation. His interests are in political economy, development and public economics. His papers have appeared in Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Development Economics, American Economic Journal (Applied and Policy), World Bank Economic Review, Journal of the European Economic Association and World Development.
 
Sarah Langlotz is an Assistant Professor (Akademische Rätin) at the Chair of Development Economics at the University of Goettingen. Her research focuses on the economics of conflict and migration, mostly based on household-level and geospatial data. Another strand looks at aid effectiveness, mainly from a macro-level perspective. Her papers have appeared in Journal of Applied Econometrics, Canadian Journal of Economics, European Economic Review, Journal of Comparative Economics and Economic Inquiry. 
 
Sara Lowes is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. She graduated from Harvard University in 2017. Her research interests are at the intersection of development economics, political economy, and economic history. Her papers have appeared in American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics and Econometrica.
 
Jesse Naidoo is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is a graduate from the Universities of Chicago and Cape Town. His research interests are economics of the family and economic demography. His current research is focused on the testing and estimation of life-cycle models of fertility choice. His research has appeared in Economic Journal. 
 
Jonathan Weigel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Development at the LSE, an affiliate of STICERD, CEPR, and EGAP, and an invited researcher of the J-PAL Governance Initiative. His research interests are at the intersection of political economy, development, and public economics. His papers have appeared in Quarterly Journal of Economics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Econometrica.
 

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