I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.
🧵 1/7
(1) banger
(2) i wish non-economists would realise just how much time each economics paper takes to write (because of our norms about how thorough each paper has to be)
This fall, 1,499 students are enrolled in Econ 101 - looking forward to the semester ahead. 🚀📚
📦 The impact of unconditional cash transfers on poverty and consumption
🤖How the introduction of AI affects worker productivity
🌍The effectiveness of the European emissions trading system
Over the years my Econ 101 class has become much more empirically grounded.
We now discuss:
💘Experimental evidence on supply shocks in dating markets
🗳️How social preferences for redistribution shape voting
💊Unintended consequences of price collusion in the pill market🤰
🎉 Teaching Milestone 🎉
This semester, I’m teaching my 10,000th student in Econ 101 (Micro 1).
Over the past 8 years, it’s been a lot of fun and a privilege to teach the fundamentals of economics - scarcity, demand and supply, opportunity costs, game theory and externalities.
Weitere Informationen: studentservices.uzh.ch/uzh/anonym/v...
Die UZH bietet dieses Jahr erneut das Modul «Mentoring für die nächste Generation» an. 54 Studierende begleiten ein Jahr lang je ein Primarschulkind als Mentor*in, nehmen an interdisziplinären Vorlesungen zur Kinder- und Jugendentwicklung teil und setzen Theorie in die Praxis um.
🆕 RFBerlin Discussion Paper: @xshan.bsky.social, @ulfzoelitz.bsky.social, and Uschi Backes-Gellner provide first-time evidence that online instruction disproportionally harms the learning outcomes of women compared to men. www.rfberlin.com/network-pape...
You can read the full paper here:
www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo...
Shan, Zölitz & Backes-Gellner (2025). "Disconnecting Women: Gender Disparities in the Impact of Online Instruction" CESifo Working Paper #11997.
Are these results new?
Our meta-analysis shows that we already knew that online instruction generally hurts performance (avg −0.20 SD), but with a median sample size of 491 observations, most prior work lacked the power to detect the hidden equity cost of online instruction.
Why does online instruction disproportionally harm women? Survey & zoom attendance data show that women more strongly prefer in-person lectures. When assigned more online lectures, they perceive the course as less enjoyable, less comprehensible, and instructors as less engaging.
The negative effect of online instruction on women is concentrated in math-intensive courses and lasting. Here, women exposed to more online earn fewer credits and become more likely to drop out of the program.
🚨🚨🚨
For the first paper documenting a gender gap in the impact of online instruction, we must worry about the possibility of a false positive. It’s not! The gap remains highly precise after multiple-testing corrections (Bonferroni p=0.0036).
More online instruction significantly lowers women’s performance, while leaving men’s unaffected. A 10 ppt shift toward online instruction decreases women’s exam score by 0.038 SD (p<0.001).
🚨 New working paper! 🚨
We ran a field experiment with >1,300 university students randomly assigned to online vs in-person lectures. What happens? Online instruction hurts performance, but only for women♀️📉
with Xiaoyue Shan & Uschi Backes-Gellner
www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo...
I appreciate the multiple hypothesis testing reason for indices. But think of a meta-analysis that can't use the study b/c disaggregated results aren't shown.
I'd be fine if people just shared this post-publication.
(My use case: an index that combines women's gender attitudes and employment.)
A new paper by @xshan.bsky.social and @ulfzoelitz.bsky.social presents evidence from a randomised field experiment showing that peer groups can influence students’ conscientiousness, openness, and competitiveness - but have no spillover effects on extraversion, agreeableness, or neuroticism.
Link👇
IZA has been a key player in shaping labor economics, fostering collaborations, and providing a valuable platform for Economists worldwide.
Hard to accept that IZA will simply vanish.
When cleaning up I found this old business card of mine. During the 3 years I worked at IZA/briq as a postdoc I had an incredible productive time and terrific colleagues.
📢 Call for papers:
🚀 3rd CESifo/ifo Junior Workshop on the Economics of Education 🥳
12-13 May 2025, Munich
Keynote: Alexander Willen
PhD students & early postdocs, please apply!
www.cesifo.org/en/event/202...
Deadline: 16 Feb 2025
Co-organizer: Caterina Pavese @cesifo.org #EconSky
We have have scheduled 3 flyouts taking place in the second half of January.
Now heading to UNSW for ESCoE conference to present « Same-sex teacher effects in education » with @econfeld.bsky.social @nsalamanca.bsky.social @ulfzoelitz.bsky.social — paper here 👉🏽 adegendre.github.io/papers/deGen... — we even made a website with interactive effects ! www.role-model-effects.com
We received many excellent applications and have scheduled 11 interviews with candidates that fit the position.
📢 We are hiring 📢
ifo is looking to fill 5 positions, incl. one
6-year Postdoc 👩🎓
to join our team at the ifo Center for the Economics of Education!
👉https://econjobmarket.org/positions/11131
Deadline: 24 Nov 2024
Please spread the word! #EconSky
We received 255 applications and have started screening. 35% of applications came in on the last day. Number of applications is down 20% compared to previous years where we had positions with a similar focus.
🚨 Job alert! 🚨
The Jacobscenter and Department of Economics is looking for an Assistant Professor specializing in the Economics of Child and Youth Development.
📅 Deadline: TOMORROW!
Apply here: econjobmarket.org/positions/10...
Are teachers *generally* better at teaching students of their own sex?
NO in primary education,
YES in secondary education.
A 🧵 generalizability and same-sex teacher effects
www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/23...
Come to Zurich and work with me.
I am hiring a predoc.
More info is here:
ulfzoelitz.com/wp-content/u...
That’s awesome!
Congratulations!!!!