Washington Area Labor Economics Symposium (WALES)

4th Annual WALES hosted by the Georgetown Center for Economic Research (GCER)

Welcome, DC labor economists! 

We are pleased to invite you to the fourth annual Washington Area Labor Economics Symposium (WALES), which will be held at Georgetown University on Friday, April 22, 2022.

WALES is a one-day labor conference economics conference that brings together researchers from many DC institutions. The goal is to provide an outlet to share recent or ongoing research and get to know other researchers.

This year, the conference is sponsored by the Georgetown Center for Economic Research. For questions, please email mary.ann.bronson@georgetown.edu. 

Venue

The conference will be held in person on Friday, April 22 at Georgetown University, from 9 am to 5 pm. All talks and meals will take place in an outdoor, tented venue. Attendees must be vaccinated.  Directions to the Leavey Esplanade are provided below.

Registration

Advance registration is required, at the following link. There is no cost to attend this conference. 

Program 

9:15 – 10:45 Labor Market Structure and Inequality

  1. Henry Hyatt, Industries, Mega Firms, and Increasing Inequality, Census
  2. Ken Onishi, The Decline of Labor Share and New Technology Diffusion, Fed
  3. Sunghoon Chung, Labor Market Rigidity at Home and MNCs’Flexible Task Reallocation Abroad, World Bank

10:45 – 11:00 Coffee Break

11-12:30 The Value of Employment

  1. Gregory Lane, Psychological Value of Employment, American University
  2. Jason Sockin, Non-Disclosure Agreements and Externalities from Silence, Treasury
  3. Alessandra Fenizia, The Effectiveness of Targeted Payroll Taxes Reductions, The George Washington University

Lunch 12:30 – 1:30

1:30-3:00 Gender, Children, and Fertility

  1. Mary Ann Bronson, Optimal Parental Leave Policy Design, Georgetown
  2. Kate Pennington, Reproductive Risk Aversion and Contraceptive Choice, Census
  3. Eric Nielsen, The Effect of Maternal Labor Supply on Children: Evidence from Bunching, Fed

3:00 – 3:15  Break

3:15 – 4:45 Education

  1. Alexander McQuoid,  Fear and Loathing In the Classroom: Why Does Teacher Quality Matter? Naval Academy
  2. Lelys Dinarte, What Makes a Program Good? Evidence from Short-Cycle Higher Education, World Bank
  3. Nolan Pope, Making Teaching Last: Long-Run Value-Added, University of Maryland

Finding the Venue – Leavey Esplanade