Maxwell School Events Calendar
Economics Department Events
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Maxwell School - MA in Economics Virtual Information Session
Virtual
Get an inside look at Maxwell's M.A. in economics program by joining us for this webinar for prospective students.
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TDPE | TRADE DAY 2026
Hall of Languages, 500, The Killian Room
Trade Day is a full-day workshop focusing on how trade policies influence global development, economic resilience and political institutions.
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Michael Klein | Patents, Secrecy, and Financing Innovation
Eggers Hall, 341
This presentation examines the relationship between financial development and the economic impact of patent policy.
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TDPE | TRADE DAY 2025
Hall of Languages, 500, The Killian Room
Trade Day is a full-day workshop focusing on how trade policies influence global development, economic resilience and political institutions.
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Credit Access among Formerly Justice-Involved Entrepreneurs: Regression Discontinuity Evidence
Eggers Hall, 220
Michael Mueller-Smith, associate professor of economics at the University of Michigan, will present as part of the CPR Seminar Series (co-sponsored by the Economics Department).
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Tom Zylkin | Gravity with Persistence
Eggers Hall, 341
How can trade persistence, relationship-building and policy feedback lead to biases in static gravity models, and how does the dynamic extension correct these biases?
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Trump’s Tariffs: Issues and Implications
Eggers Hall, 220
Maxwell professors Margarita Estévez-Abe, Devashish Mitra, Ryan Monarch and Kristen Patel will discuss President Trump's tariffs and what the implications are for the U.S. and global economy.
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A Short History of India’s Economy since 1947 and the Current Challenge
Eggers Hall, 220
This lecture will briefly go over this history and then focus on some of the big challenges faced by India today.
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Andrew F. Smith Lecture: The Past and Future of the COVID Pandemic in Low & Middle Income Countries
Maxwell Hall, 117
Andrew F. Smith Lecture with Mushfiq Mobarak: "The Past and Future of the Covid Pandemic in Low and Middle Income Countries."
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A More Inclusive Approach to Capitalism
Eggers Hall, Eggers 018
A presentation by Professor Robert Ashford
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Applied Micro Seminar with Zhe He
Eggers 112
“Partial Identification of the Marginal Treatment Effect with an Invalid Discrete Instrument”
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Applied Micro Seminar with Samuel Saltmarsh
Eggers 112
"Durable housing, vacancies, and blight: The effects of residential demolitions in Detroit"
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Applied Micro Seminar with Shuyuan Li
Eggers 112
"No Child Left Behind: Differentiated Efforts and Achievement Gaps"
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Applied Micro Seminar with Dan Zhang
112 Eggers
"Size of Export Markets and Trade Shock: Analysis on Chinese Firms and US Tariff Change"
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Culture and Family, Dr. Raquel Fernandez
Hall of Languages, 500
Dr. Raquel Fernandez, presenting “Culture and the Family.”
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MAX 302 Research Poster Session
204 Maxwell Hall
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Learning Between Buyers and Sellers Along the Global Value Chain
341 Eggers Hall
This paper analyses learning between buyers and sellers as a new channel through which international trade affects product introduction across different production stages within firms. Using detailed firm level data from the Indian manufacturing census, I find that (i) 45% of multi-product firms produce at least one product pair that is connected in the Input-Output matrix, (ii) 30% of new products added by firms every year are either upstream or downstream to products previously produced by them, and (iii) exogenous increases in upstream export market access cause firms to add new products that are downstream to their previous production sets. I attribute this effect to firms learning from their buyers about downstream products during their transactions. To analyze the effects of trade policy on firm scope, I build a dynamic quantitative general equilibrium model of Global Value Chains with knowledge spillovers arising from buyer-seller linkages along the value chain. Potentially multi-product and multi-stage firms in the model invest in R&D to increase their product sets, and benefit from knowledge spillovers from domestic and foreign markets. Trade policy counterfactuals show that cross-stage product innovation decreases as the economy liberalizes due to convergence in technology levels across countries in general equilibrium.
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Search and Information Frictions on Global E-Commerce Platforms: Evidence from Aliexpress
Virtual
We study how search and information frictions shape market dynamics in global e-commerce. Observational data and self-collected quality measures from AliExpress establish the existence of search and information frictions. A randomized experiment that offers new exporters exogenous demand and information shocks demonstrates the potential role of sales accumulation in enhancing seller visibility and overcoming these demand frictions. However, we show theoretically and quantitatively that this demand-reinforcement mechanism is undermined by the large number of online exporters. Our structural model rationalizes the experimental findings and quantifies efficiency gains from reducing the number of inactive sellers.
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Yuhei Miyauchi: Spatial Production Networks
341 Eggers Hall
This paper provides a theory and empirical evidence of how production networks are organized in space and how they shape the spatial distribution of economic activity. Consistent with stylized facts from administrative firm-to-firm transaction-level data from Chile, the authors model firms’ decision of forming a network of supplier and buyer relationships depending on their productivity and geographic location. By aggregating these decisions at the regional level, the authors provide a tractable characterization of the positive and normative properties of the general equilibrium. The authors calibrate the model to the observed domestic and international trade patterns and to the impacts of international trade shocks on domestic production networks in Chile. Counterfactual simulations of international trade shocks and transportation infrastructure reveal strong endogenous responses in the domestic production network, which significantly contribute to the heterogeneous welfare effects depending on the regions’ exposure to the domestic and global production network.
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Amit Khandelwal: “Language Barriers in Multinationals and Knowledge Transfers”
Virtual
A distinct feature of MNCs is a three-tier organizational structure: foreign managers (FMs) supervise domestic managers (DMs) who supervise production workers. Language barriers between FMs and DMs could impede transfers of management knowledge. The authors develop a model in which DMs learn general management by communicating with FMs, but communication effort is non-contractible. These conditions generate sub-optimal communication within the MNC. If communication is complementary with language skills, the planner could raise welfare by subsidizing foreign language acquisition. The authors experimentally assess the validity of the general skills and the complementarity assumptions in Myanmar, a setting where FMs and DMs communicate in English. The first experiment examines the general skills assumption by asking prospective employers at domestic firms to rate hypothetical job candidates. They value candidates with both higher English proficiency and MNC experience, a premium driven, in part, by frequent interactions with FMs. The second experiment examines the complementarity assumption by providing English training to a random sample of DMs working at MNCs. At endline, treated DMs have higher English proficiency, communicate more frequently with their FMs, are more involved in firm management, and perform better in simulated management tasks. Organizational barriers within MNCs can thus hinder knowledge transfers and lead to an under-investment in English relative to the social optimum.
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