Department of Economics

News and Announcements

Mothers as Insurance: Family Spillovers in WIC. New study co-authored by Professor of Public Policy and Economics Hilary Hoynes shows low-income moms' nutrition suffers when kids age out of WIC at 5y. Among adult women caloric intake falls and food insecurity increases, suggesting that mothers protect children by consuming less themselves. Read the paper

Poorer children show cognitive fatigue faster than richer ones, and attend schools that give fewer chances to build attentional capacity. But this can be improved with simple changes at school – as shown in a new Cognitive Endurance paper cu-authored by Berkeley Economics Professor Supreet Kaur. Read more

The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) awards the Paris Symposium prize to Quantedge Presidential Professor of Economics Yuriy Gorodnichenko for Rapid Response to a policy Issue: "Prof. Gorodnichenko has been the driving force behind the recent 'Blueprint for the Reconstruction of Ukraine' book." Read the piece co-authored, among others, by Berkeley Economics George C. Pardee & Helen N. Pardee Chair and Distinguished Professor of Economics and Political Science.

In a new column, Pascal Michaillat and Emmanuel Saez propose a simple rule to assess whether the economy, or more precisely the labor market, is too tight or too slack: are there more job openings than there are unemployed? Read more

Director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality Gabriel Zucman and Professor Emmanuel Saez launch Realtime Equality, a new website that provides real-time decompositions of GDP growth by social group. The underlying paper is available here.

Berkeley Economics PhD alumna Lisa Cook, an economics professor known for her work on racial and gender inequality, won U.S. Senate confirmation to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, making her the first Black woman to serve on the Fed board. Read more

Research and Teaching

A new article by by Ellora Derenoncourt, Claire Montialoux, published in the The Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 202. Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality. The earnings difference between white and black workers fell dramatically in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This article shows that the expansion of the minimum wage played a critical role in this decline. Read more

New paper by Kimberly Clausing, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman: Ending corporate tax avoidance and tax competition: a plan to collect the tax deficit of multinationals. Read the paper

A new paper by Isabel Z. Martinez, Emmanuel Saez, and Michael Siegenthaler estimates intertemporal labor supply responses to two-year long income tax holidays staggered across Swiss cantons. Read more

Through analysis of the Band for International Settlements (BIS) Annual Economic Reports, Professor Barry Eichengreen traces the BIS’s views on exchange rates, capital flows and financial cycles in a new book. Read more

An innovative experiment in rural India targeted alleviating financial stress on short-term workers and fascinatingly, found a substantial increase in productivity for workers who have their financial strain eased by receiving part of their salary mid-way through their contract. By Berkeley Economics Professor Supreet Kaur. Read more

We're proud to share that Berkeley Economics professors Emi Nakamura and Chris Shannon were elected to join The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which recognizes the outstanding achievements of individuals in academia, the arts, business, government,and public affairs. Congratulations! To learn more about their work and of all UC Berkeley faculty members elected, read more.