5 LIDAM entities
Upcoming Events
Historical Human Capital in the Age of Big Data
21-22-23 September | Louvain-la-Neuve
Plenary Speaker
Romain WACZIARG (UCLA, Anderson School of Management)
Registration
Please use this form to register
Program
Monday, September 21, 2026
Chairwoman : Paula Gobbi
14.30: Welcome café gourmand
15.00: Neil Cummins (LSE)
“The Evolution of Performative and Sincere Faith in England, 1258-1858”
Discussant: Fabio Mariani
15.50: Coffee break
16.20: Sandra de Pleijt (Wageningen University) - Julius Koschnick (University of Southern Denmark)
“Alienated Intellectuals”.
Discussant : Pau Insa Sánchez
17.10: Coffee break
17.40: Philipp Ager (University of Mannheim)
"Ministers and Minds: The Legacy of Colonial America’s Knowledge Class"
(joint with Paola Giuliano)
Discussant: Luca Pensieroso
18.30: End
19.30: Dinner
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Chairwoman: Amma Panin
09.00: Sebastian Maes (University of Antwerp)
"Polycentrism and the Spatial Allocation of Human Capital”.
Discussant: Chiara Zanardello
09.50: Coffee break
10.20: Thomas Baudin (IESEG School of Management)
Inheritance and Migration: Evidence from 19th Century Italy
with Tommaso D’Amelio. Paula E. Gobbi and Simone Moriconi
Discussant: Karine Moukaddem
11.10: Coffee Break
Plenary session
11.40: Romain Wacziarg (UCLA Anderson)
“Malthusian Migrations”
12.40: Lunch
14.00: David de la Croix (UCLouvain, LIDAM, IRES)
"Seeds of knowledge: scholars, universities, and academies in premodern Europe"
14.50: Coffee break
15.20: Sebastian Ottinger (CERGE-EI)
"Political Fragmentation, Forced Mobility, and Knowledge Accumulation in Europe before 1800"
(joint work with Sascha Becker, David de la Croix, and Nico Voigtländer).
Discussant : Fabio Blasutto
16.10: Coffee break
16.40: Caterina Chiopris (Columbia University)
"The Diffusion of Ideas"
Discussant: Cecilia Garcia-Peñalosa
17.30: Break
18:20: Marc Goñi (University of Bergen)
"The AI before the Law: LLMs versus Expert Coding of Women's Rights in French Customary Law"
Discussant: Alice Fabre
19.30: Gala Dinner
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Chairwoman: Sandra de Pleijt
09.00: Fabian Waldinger (University of Munich)
"Dictators, Democracies, and Discoveries: Political Institutions and the Creation of Knowledge"
Discussant: Chun Chee Kok
09.50 : Coffee break
10.20: Rossana Scebba (UCLouvain, LIDAM, IRES and KU Leuven, Research Unit of Early Modern History)
"Network-mediated screening under uncertainty: Evidence from early modern academic publishing"
Discussant: Pauline Morault
11.10: Coffee Break
11.40: Karol Borowiecki (University of Southern Denmark) – Matthew Curtis (University of Southern Denmark)
“Counterpoint: Do Peers Shape the Direction of Ideas in Music History?”
Discussant: Morgane Laouenan
12.30: Goodbye Lunch
14:00: The End
Other participants from ERC project: Virginia Calabrese, Mara Vitale
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13 January 2026Workshop Building for the futureThe workshop “Building for the Future” will take place at UCLouvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) Louvain House - Espace du Lac on 2-3 July, 2026. The event is co-organized by the University of Luxembourg and UCLouvain, with the support of the FNR and FNRS through the ROAD project. -
2 June 2026Dreze lecture by Raj ChettyOn June 12, 2026 at 2pm in Louvain-la-Neuve (Aula Magna) Raj Chetty will give a presentation on: The Social Origins of Economic Opportunity: Theory and Evidence. Raj Chetty is the William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the Director of Opportunity Insights, which uses big data to study the science of economic opportunity: how we can give children from all backgrounds better chances of succeeding? Chetty’s work has been widely cited in academia, media outlets, and policy discussions in the United States and beyond.
