CEF.UP – WiP Webinar

Tuesday – May 24^th, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. | Online

“Pope Francis’ Economics of Fraternity: A Co-Evolutionary Analysis”

Fernando Oliveira – Cef.up and University of Auckland

Abstract:

“Pope Francis has criticized the economy of exclusion created by capitalism. Based on a stylized pie-sharing game, the article proposes a co-evolutionary network model, using reinforcement learning, to analyze the interaction between social classes. This article aims to answer the following questions: Why do socioeconomic classes exist? When do they increase social efficiency and individual effectiveness? What is the role of social exclusion? From a methodological perspective, the model extends the pie-sharing game to include a network of interactions and classes, social mobility, and evolving wealth. The results show that flatter societies tend to lead to higher average individual effectiveness, however social inequality emerges even in round-table societies. In flatter societies inequality decreases to the levels observed, at equilibrium, in round-table societies. In vertical societies wealth inequality persists. Furthermore, the analysis extends the network model to include the possibility of individuals changing social class (i.e., to consider social mobility), studying how it affects individual effectiveness: it increases the perceived wealth differences between classes and, in the long run, supports the status quo. Finally, the article studies societies in which social mobility seldom occurs between the upper and lower classes are a Nash equilibrium, even in the long-term. This analysis is illustrated using the process of wealth accumulation and social exclusion in New Zealand.”

CEF.UP – WiP Seminar/Webinar

Tuesday – January 25^th, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. | Room 305 | Online

“Firm-level Labor Shares and Technology-driven Occupational Changes”.

Ana Oliveira – FEP

Abstract:

Technological advances have decreased labor demand for occupations with high routine task content and increased it for occupations that are either cognitively complex or require non-repetitive social interactions. Technology has also been one of the key drivers of the changes in the labor share of income. Our paper investigates whether the evolution of occupational employment shares and occupation-specific wage rates explains firm-level labor share dynamics. Using rich administrative data for Portugal, we show that the S-shaped dynamics of the aggregate labor share between 2004 and 2019 are mostly driven by changes in firms’ labor share rather than value-added reallocation across the labor share distribution. Our findings suggest that firm-specific labor shares rise due to positive growth in hourly wages, particularly high among Routine Manual and Non-Routine Manual occupations. We also show that changes in task group employment shares have limited effects on the firm-level labor shares, due to the stabilization of occupational employment shares since 2010.

CEF.UP – WiP Seminar/Webinar

Friday – October 22^nd, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. | Room 305 | Online

“Specialists or All-Rounders: How best to select university students?”.

Pedro Luís Silva – CIPES and FEP

Abstract:

This paper studies whether universities should select their students only using specialised subject-specific tests or based on a broader set of skills and knowledge. I show that even if broader skills are not improving graduates’ outcomes in the labour market, the university chooses to use them as a criterion for selection alongside the mastery of more subject-specific tools. Empirically, I exploit the variation between subject-specific and non-specific entrance exam sets on Portuguese students’ large administrative dataset. My central finding is that, on average, universities with less specialised admission policies admit a pool of students who obtain a higher final GPA.