Spring Seminar

May 16th (13.00 in room F), Michela Rancan, Padova University, "Macro-Networks. An application to Euro Area Financial Accounts" joint work with Olli Castrén.

March 6th (13.00 in room E), Yuri Pettinicchi, Ca' Foscari University, "Financial literacy and Limited Market Participation".

Fall Seminar 2011

November 22nd (13.00 in room E), Chiara Orsini, Visiting Professor at Ca' Foscari University, "The Miracle Drugs: The Effect of Hormone Replacement Therapy on Labor Market behavior of Middle-aged women" (joint work with N. Meltem Daysal).


November 29th (13.00 in room E), Marcella Lucchetta, Ca' Foscari University, "Bank Competition and Systemic Risk: A General Equilibrium Exposition" joint work with Gianni De Nicolò

Season finale: Mind the GAP!

Sadly, even good things must come to an end: don't miss the season finale of your favorite seminar series as WISE gets ready to host his last presenter for the summer.

On Wednesday June 8 at 12.45-14 pm in room E, Alvise Favotto will present his work "Mind the gap: exploring the perception of the ethical environment across groups of managers"


Here is an abstract of his presentation.

ABSTRACT

This study investigates whether and how the perception of the 'organizational ethical environment' (Trevino et al., 1998) varies across groups of managers at different hierarchical levels. We drew on research on organizational identity to investigate whether different opinions on ethical context are retained by different sub-groups of managers. Extant research suggests that senior managers are likely to express significantly more positive perceptions of organizational ethics when compared with employees in non-managerial positions, however it remains silent on middle and lower managers' perception of ethical environment, even though these managers act as 'linking pins', possibly influencing other organizational members, both upwards and downwards. Data from over 1700 respondents were collected in a large US-based corporation, operating in the utility sector. Our findings suggest that perception of the ethical environment varies significantly across groups of organizational members. Consistent with our predictions, senior managers are likely to hold a rosier perspective of the environment for ethics, while a more cynical approach is held by middle- and lower-level managers. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Please note lunch will take place before the seminar, between 12.45 and 1 pm, with the presentation starting only at 1 pm.

Remember also that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food. Please remember also to state whether you require a vegetarian option!

Thank you and looking forward to seeing you all at WISE

- the WISE staff

Summer Bubbles!

If this early summer is getting your fuses blowing, refresh your mind with the next WISE seminar!

On Wednesday June 1 at 12.45-14 pm in room E, Francesco Pesci will present his work on "A Speculative Bubble in an Intermediated Financial Market".

Here is an abstract of his presentation.

ABSTRACT

In a financial market in which trade is intermediated by specialized “market makers”, differences in expectations (or valuations) about the cash flow from an asset can push its price above its fundamental value, i.e., above what the agents, who are active in the market, would pay if they were forced to hold the asset until maturity.
We present a game-theoretic model, in which the possibility to realize capital gains by selling the asset to more optimistic traders can make the intermediaries be willing to pay a premium over what they think to be the fundamental.
Since the owners of the asset share the same expectations of the market makers, in the (pure-strategy) Nash equilibrium of the game trade between those agents takes place at price higher than what both the owners and the market makers hold to be the fundamental, i.e., the equilibrium exhibits a bubble.
While in the models on bubbles featuring agents with heterogeneous expectations, the demand of less optimistic agents tends to have a “stabilizing” effect on prices, which are bid up by the demand of more optimistic traders, in our model the price of the asset is driven up precisely by less optimistic agent, i.e., the market makers, who buy for speculative purposes.
Allowing for some modifications, our model could also offer an interpretation for events leading to the 2007 “financial crisis”.


Please note lunch will take place before the seminar, between 12.45 and 1 pm, with the presentation starting only at 1 pm.

Remember also that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food. Please remember also to state whether you require a vegetarian option!

Thank you and looking forward to seeing you all at WISE
- The WISE staff

BACK IN TIME!

we are finally back after a short break with more exciting WISE seminars!

Next week, it will be Giovanni Favero's turn on the WISE floor! Giovanni will bring us back in time with his presentation of "Industrial Statistics in Liberal Italy: A Case of Observatory
Capture". A very fitting "historical" opportunity in this anniversary year!
Don't miss this opportunity to join us at WISE on Wednsday May 18 at 12.45-14 pm in room E.

Here is an abstract of his presentation.

ABSTRACT

The ability of industrial entrepreneurs to influence the outcome of statistical surveys on industry is inquired here exploiting the correspondence between Luigi Bodio and Alessandro Rossi. Bodio (1840-1920) was the head of Italian official statistics from 1871 to 1898 and had also an important role in the International Statistical Institute. Rossi (1819-1898) was the main Italian wool industrialist of the time, and was directly involved in the promotion of protectionism. The in-depth study of the exchange of letters between the two allows a micro-analysis of the mechanisms by which a businessman could exert his influence on a public official, by which the data provided by the former could take on an official nature, and by which his opinions could affect the approach of the latter as a statistician to the measurement of industry. In time, the industrialist’s attitude changes from a passive resistance to statistical investigation to a more active role of unofficial consultant to the statistician. The growing influence Rossi exerted is interpreted as a case of deep regulatory capture, showing how industrialists could mould in some parts the official data that would be used to take economic-policy decisions. Rossi’s involvement in the construction of official statistics is also discussed in connection with the indirect effects it had in the long period on the statistical representation of Italian industrial economy.

The paper is available at : http://es.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/03/07/es.khq141.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=dTzty71JqeIlJuf


Please note lunch will take place before the seminar, between 12.45 and 1 pm, with the presentation starting only at 1 pm.

Remember also that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food. Please remember also to state whether you require a vegetarian option!


Looking forward to seeing you all at WISE!
-the WISE staff

WISE is GREEN!!

WISE is ready to welcome you back from this short Easter break!

On April 27, 2011 at 12.45-2 pm in Room E, Vahid Mojtahed will present his work on "Market for Tradeable Green Certificates".

Here is an abstract of his presentation:


ABSTRACT

I propose a mathematical model for Tradeable Green Certificate (TGC) market as an incentive mechanism for new investors. This market is an example of market-based governance, which in current case can substitutes Feed-In Tariff (FIT) policy in order to stimulate investment in clean energies. I study the behavior of sellers in such market and implement rules that reduce the risk of investment for potential investors in renewable sources. It is shown that investing in RES under market for TGC can be as profitable and cost-efficient as FIT policy even if sellers trade in the market with zero-intelligence. The government plays an important role by altering demand and taking preferential policy toward technologies.


Please note lunch will take place before the seminar, between 12.45 and 1 pm, with the presentation starting only at 1 pm.

Remember also that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food. Please remember also to state whether you require a vegetarian option!


Looking forward to seeing you all at WISE!
-the WISE staff

Treat before Easter!

If you can't stop thinking about how short this Easter break is going to be, you really have to come freshen up your mind with our next WISE presenter!

On April 20, 2011 at 12.45-2 pm in Room E, Prof. Marco Li Calzi will present his work on "The power of diversity over large solution spaces".

Here is an abstract of his presentation:

ABSTRACT
We consider a team of agents with limited problem-solving ability facing a disjunctive task over a large solution space. We provide sufficient conditions for the following four statements. First, two heads are better than one: a team of two agents will solve the problem even if neither agent alone would be able to. Second, teaming up does not guarantee success: if the agents are not sufficiently creative, even a team of arbitrary size may fail to solve the problem. Third, "defendit numerus": when the agent's problem-solving ability is adversely affected by the complexity of the solution space, the solution of the problem requires only a mild increase in the size of the team. Fourth, groupthink impairs the power of diversity: if agents' abilities are positively correlated, a larger team is necessary to solve the problem.

The paper is available at http://ideas.repec.org/p/vnm/wpaper/206.html


Please note lunch will take place before the seminar, between 12.45 and 1 pm, with the presentation starting only at 1 pm.

Remember also that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food.

Looking forward to seeing you all at WISE!
-the WISE staff

Debt is WISE!

With spring finally arrived, flowers are not the only things blossoming these days! The WISE schedule is also blooming with new events!

Next Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 12.30-2 pm in Room 9C, WISE will be proud to host Giacomo Pasini, PhD and former student of the SSE, who will present his work on "Debt and Social interactions", joint work with Dimitris Georgarakos e Michalis Haliassos.

Here is an abstract of his presentation.

ABSTRACT
At the heart of the recent financial turmoil lies the inability of households to pay off their debts. Part of this inability is due to macro conditions, such as house prices. However, it is households themselves who borrowed excessively, making themselves vulnerable to such macro swings. This paper focuses on some possible determinants of household debt behavior beyond intertemporal consumption smoothing. We empirically find that concern for status within a social network increase indebtness, while friends and acquaintances can provide an alternative source of credit thus reducing indebtness.

Please note lunch will take place before the seminar, between 12.30 and 1 pm, with the presentation starting only at 1 pm. Remember also that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food.

Looking forward to seeing you all at WISE!
-the WISE staff

New presentation THIS WEEK!!!

A shorter notice due to the recent celebration long weekend should not keep you from signing up for the next WISE presentation! This coming Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 12.30 a.m. in room E, Department of Economics Paolo Pellizzari will present his work on "Computable dynamic trading equilibria in continuous double auctions".

Here is an abstract of his presentation.

ABSTRACT
Trading optimally in a Continuous Double Auction (CDA) is difficult, due to the nearly countless options available to traders. Analytical models simplify the setup to cope with such a complexity. We present some models of CDAs for which approximate equilibrium trading strategies can be computed and analyzed. We model the CDA as a stochastic sequential game, numerically (and simultaneously) solving for the best strategy for each type of trader. We show that the optimization procedures we use are robust to the "curse of dimensionality" and obtain time-dependent or state-contingent optimal strategies with realistic features.


Please note lunch will take place before the seminar, between 12.30 and 1 pm, with the presentation starting only at 1 pm. Remember also that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food.

Looking forward to seeing you all at WISE!
-the WISE staff

Get passionate about WISE!

With spring on its way, even WISE cannot avoid a touch of passion!

Coming up next week, Umberto Rosin will present present his work on "The Economy of Passion".

Here is an abstract of his presentation:

ABSTRACT
The world is moving toward the enhancement of human work life conditions. Nowadays, along with economic progress, more and more people choose their job looking for well-being achievement rather than mere extrinsic rewards. By studying passion for activities among professionals and entrepreneurs, and identifying contexts here defined as “high passion intensity industries”, the present research sheds light on human behavior as to the way people choose and perform work activities. Sports, arts, collecting, education, creative industries in general, and hundreds of different leisure activities do represent elective high passion intensity industries. The dualistic model of passion (Vallerand et al., 2003) is adopted to frame and measure this important yet “undercover” asset circulating within organizations which is often transferred to customers. Virtuous circles of emotional contagion find a fecund environment in networks of passionate actors, leading to strong marketing and managerial implications. A deep understanding of the chosen empirical context – the board game industry – has been reached through an ethnographic approach using a mix of qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques.

As usual, lunch will take place before the seminar, between 12.30 and 1 pm, with the presentation starting only at 1 pm. Remember also that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food. Please remember also to state whether you require a vegetarian option!

Stay tuned for more WISEdom announcement!
-the WISE staff

March is just packed with WISEdom!

Dear all,

March does not just mean spring is coming! WISEdom will be spreading this month, with three meetings coming up!

After a short break, seminars will be back on March 16, when Umberto Rosin will present his work in the usual Wednesday slot. Paolo Pellizzari and Giacomo Pasini will be next in line on the two following weeks.

Mark your calendar for this extremely eventful March and keep visiting this blog for updated information!

-the WISE staff

Save the date! New WISE exceptionally on Monday!

For this next seminar only we ask you to re-arrange your schedule and join us on a Monday, for another very interesiting presentation by one of the latest additions to the Economics department!

On February 28, 2011 at 12.30 a.m. in room E Department of Economics, Noemi Pace PhD will present her work on "Non-Multiple Prior Models of Decision Making Under Ambiguity: new experimental evidence" joint work with John Hey.

Here is an abstract of her presentation:

ABSTRACT
We examine the performance of non multiple prior probability models of decision making under uncertainty/ambiguity from the perspective of their descriptive and predictive power. Focusing on the class of theories that proceed indirectly through the use of a preference functional, we try to answer the question as to whether the new generalisations of the Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) theory are significantly better than SEU. We employ an innovative experimental design which enables us to reproduce ambiguity in the laboratory in a transparent and non-probabilistic way, using a Bingo Blower (BB). We operate with a very simple experiment in which there are three possible events (the colours of the table-tennis balls in the BB). We ask subjects to allocate a given total number of tokens to the three events, given certain exchange rates between tokens and money. When we play out a particular decision problem, we draw one ball from the BB and subjects are paid in money the number of tokens that they allocated to that event multiplied by the exchange rate. In contrast with previous experiments, rather than carrying out statistical test comparing the various theories, we apply a constrained maximum likelihood procedure for the generation of maximum likelihood estimates of models with general constraints on parameters to assess which of the new generalizations of SEU has the relatively better performance.


Please remember that WISE went green, thus we kindly ask you to confirm by email your participation to the seminar in due time, in order to allow to prepare the right amount of food. Please note that lunch will take place between 12.30 and 1 pm, thus the actual presentation will start only at 1 pm, should you prefer to skip lunch!

New seminar: Elisabetta Trevisan!

Here we are again, just a few hours from our first successful WISE meeting to invite you to another interesting presentation!

This time the speaker will be Elisabetta Trevisan PhD, another recent graduate from our Doctoral school, who will present Early Retirement and Financial Incentives: differences between high and low wage earners, joint work with Rob Euwals.

ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the impact of financial incentives on early retirement behaviour for high and low wage earners. Using a stylized life-cycle model we derive hypotheses on the behaviour of the two types. We use administrative data and we employ two identification strategies to test the predictions. First, we exploit exogenous variation in social security wealth over birth cohorts to investigate the effect of financial incentives on the early retirement of individuals who are eligible to the old generous early retirement scheme. Second, we employ a regression discontinuity design by comparing individuals who are eligible and
noneligible to the old generous scheme on the basis of their birth cohort. The empirical results show that low wage earners are indeed as predicted more sensitive to financial incentives.

Please remember that WISE went green, thus, we ask you to register to the meetings you wish to attend in order to prepare the correct amount of food and avoid waste!

Looking forward to seeing you at WISE!
-the WISE staff

Upcoming seminar: Gloria Gardenal!

The first meeting of the WISE 2011 series will host one of our recent graduates, Gloria Gardenal, PhD.
On February 16, 2011 starting at 12.30 she will present her work on Cross-market Rebalancing and Financial Contagion in the Laboratory.

For a sneak peak of what she will present, here is the abstract of this work.

Abstract: We present an experimental study of financial contagion due to cross-market rebalancing. Subjects trade three assets with an automaton representing a fringe of noise traders. The three assets' fundamental values are independent of each other. Their payoff depends on the asset values, the prices at which they buy or sell and, moreover, on their portfolio composition. Theory predicts that when the first asset is hit by a negative shock, for portfolio rebalancing, subjects should buy in the second market and sell in the third, thus transmitting the shock from the first market to the third. The aggregate behavior that we observe in the laboratory is extremely close to that predicted by theory. Although in the experiment there is heterogeneity among subjects' behavior, the prices in the three markets are remarkably similar to those theoretically predicted.

February gets WISE!

The new WISE 2011 series officially kicks off in just a few weeks!

First up will be Gloria Gardenal, PhD presenting "Cross-market Rebalancing and Financial Contagion in the Laboratory" on February 16, at 12.30- 14 a.m.(room to be announced).

You will just have to wait a few days for our next presenter, which will be Elisabetta Trevisan, PhD. She will present her work "Early Retirement and Financial Incentives: differences between high and low wage earners (with Rob Euwals)" on February 23 at 12.30-14 (room to be announced).

Please remember that WISE has gone green and in order to do our part for a more sustainable San Giobbe, we are trying to reduce waste and garbage connected to our activities! Thus, we kindly ask you to confirm your participation, as lunch will be served! (remember to state whether you request a vegetarian option)

WISE 2011: new seminar schedule coming up!

WISE is back in the new year with a very busy calendar!
More information is coming up very soon, so please continue visiting us for more information!

The WISE staff