LIDAM Internal Economic Seminar - Auguste Debroise

05/05/2026 - 12:45 - Doyen 22 

Auguste Debroise

(Unamur)

will give a presentation on

The social image cost of motherhood. Evidence from the movie industry

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the child penalty in the movie industry. Using career data from IMDb for nearly 5,000 actors and actresses who appeared in top-grossing films between 1990 and 2022, combined with a database of approximately 30 million newspaper articles, we document how motherhood shapes both professional trajectories and public representation. We find a substantial and persistent child penalty for actresses. Ten years after their first birth, women experience a 15–20 percentage point decline in the number and quality of roles, as well as a 20 percentage point drop in total box office exposure. Notably, this penalty extends beyond on-screen work: off-screen occupations such as directing and producing are even more severely affected, suggesting that the penalty is not driven solely by audience preferences. On the media side, we document a striking divergence: controlling for career activity, mothers receive only half the newspaper mentions of fathers a decade after the birth of their first child. When they do appear in the press, coverage increasingly frames them in family-related terms rather than professional ones. Crucially, exploiting variation in gender norms across US states, we find that the drop in media coverage is significantly larger in more conservative states, holding maternal behavior constant. This provides suggestive causal evidence that the disappearance of mothers from public discourse is not solely driven by changes in their own behavior, but also reflects how society's perception of women shifts upon motherhood.

Leuven - Louvain Trade Workshop - Serena Chellini

06/05/2026 - 15:30 - Online

Serena Chellini

(KU Leuven)

will give a presentation on 

Firms, Trade Shocks, and Global Value Chain Emissions

Abstract

As production becomes increasingly fragmented across borders, a growing share of carbon emissions is generated upstream and embodied in intermediate inputs traded along global value chains. Yet little is known about how firm-level sourcing decisions shape these emissions or how trade policy alters them. This paper investigates how carbon emissions are embedded in firms’ buyer–supplier production networks and how tariffs reshape these networks and the emissions embodied in firms’ global value chains. Using unique production network data for US firms combined with firm-level measures of direct and value-chain emissions, I first document that more productive firms source from more productive and cleaner suppliers, and that firms cleaner in-house also operate cleaner supply chains. Exploiting the US–China trade war as a quasi-natural experiment, I then show that tariff-exposed firms significantly reorganize their supplier networks, reallocating sourcing away from Chinese suppliers toward domestic and third-country alternatives. This geographic reallocation reveals a fundamental decoupling: the new suppliers are more productive but also more emissions-intensive, simultaneously upgrading supply chain quality while worsening its environmental footprint. Guided by these findings, I develop and calibrate a model of endogenous firm-to-firm network formation with emissions, in which the within-country link between productivity and cleanliness breaks down when trade policy forces reallocation across countries with different emissions technologies. Counterfactual simulations quantify the environmental cost of tariff shocks and explore implications for trade policy as environmental policy.

LIDAM Economics Seminar - Mariapia Mendola

07/05/2026 - 12:45 - Doyen 22

Mariapia Mendola

(Università di Milano Bicocca)

will give a presentation on 

Hacking Anti-Immigration Attitudes and Stereotypes: a Field Experiment in Italian High-Schools

Abstract

In advanced economies, growing population diversity often fuels hostility toward immigrants and deepens social divides.  We study a short educational program for high-school students designed to promote cultural diversity and improve attitudes toward immigration through active learning. Using a randomized controlled trial involving 4,500 students from 252 classes across 40 schools in northern Italy, we find that the program fostered more positive attitudes and behaviors toward immigrants, particularly in more diverse classrooms. In terms of mechanisms, the intervention reduced students' misperceptions and shifted perceived classroom norms, but did not affect implicit bias, empathy, or social networks. Our findings indicate that anti-immigration attitudes largely stem from stereotypes and broad societal concerns, and that educational programs combining factual learning with norm-shaping elements, such as critical thinking and structured intergroup engagement, can effectively mitigate them.

Bayesian structural macroeconometrics: from DSGE to HANK estimation

07/05/2026 & 08/05/2026 - Auditorium of the National Bank of Belgium

Research Conference (May 7-8): 

A two-day research conference on “The Past, the Present, and the Future of DSGE Models”, featuring presentations and discussions by leading scholars in macroeconomics.

Consumer Protection

18/05 & 19/05 - Foyer Royal Aula Magna

This two-day workshop brings together leading economists to present and discuss cutting-edge research on consumer protection. The program covers a broad range of topics at the intersection of industrial organization, behavioral economics, and public policy, including hidden fees and shrouded pricing, data privacy and consent design, gambling and addiction, price discrimination, behavioral nudges and targeted interventions, and the welfare effects of regulation.

The workshop features two keynote presentations — by Chiara Farronato (Harvard Business School) on consumer welfare in data sharing, and by Paul Heidhues (ESMT Berlin) on procrastination markets — alongside seven additional paper presentations by researchers from leading institutions.