Department of Economics

Job market candidates

About 10 people obtain their PhD from the Department of Economics each year. These highly qualified economists would add value to any organisation. Some are still considering their options and may be your perfect new hire. Please click on a candidate's name to view their details.

Kalle Hirvonen

Job market paper

Risk Sharing and Internal Migration [PDF 774KB]

Over the past two decades, more than half the population in rural Tanzania migrated within the country, profoundly changing the nature of traditional institutions such as informal risk sharing. Mass internal migration has created geographically disperse networks, on which the authors collected detailed panel data. By quantifying how shocks and consumption co-vary across linked households, they show how migrants unilaterally insure their extended family members at home. This finding contradicts risk-sharing models based on reciprocity, but is consistent with assistance driven by social norms. Migrants sacrifice 3 to 7 percent of their very substantial consumption growth to provide this insurance, which seems too trivial to have any stifling effect on their growth through migration.

Fola Malomo

Job market paper 

Factors Influencing The Propensity To Bribe And Size Of Informal Payments: Evidence From Formal Manufacturing Firms In Nigeria [PDF 568KB]

This paper uses two unique datasets on manufacturing fi rms in Nigeria to examine the factors which in influence who pays a bribe and how much is paid. The regional and industry sub-sector variation in the prevalence of bribery is also investigated. The data shows that Taraba and Benue are among the most graft intensive states whilst Lagos and Cross-River are the least. The study finds strong evidence for the control rights hypothesis, interactions with public officials are positively associated with the incidence of bribery. Evidence is also found for the bargaining hypothesis: that the amount of bribe that a fi rm pays will depend on its current and future ability to pay as well as its outside options. The investigation contributes to the literature by disaggregating: type of bribe; and instigator of the bribe transaction. Among the di fferent types of informal payment, traffic off ences seem to attract the most bribe demands (from public officials) and o ffers (from companies).

Paola Salardi

Job market paper

Wage Disparities and Occupational Intensity by Gender and Race in Brazil: An Empirical Analysis Using Quantile Decomposition techniques [PDF 549KB] 

In this paper, we attempt to provide a comprehensive portrait, over the last two decades, of gender and racial wage gaps across the entire wage distribution and of the impact of gender and racial occupational segregation on wage determination in the context of the Brazilian labour market.  Adopting an occupational classification consistent over twenty years, our analysis particularly focuses on the evolution of the impact of female and non-white occupational intensity on wage disparities.  We first employ quantile regression analysis in order to investigate the role of female and non-white occupational intensity at different points along the conditional wage distribution.  We then apply two different decomposition techniques, proposed by Machado and Mata (2005) and Melly (2006) and by Firpo, Fortin and Lemieux (2009) in order to investigate the determinants of wage disparities at these different points in the wage distribution, and in order to understand how these determinants vary at different wage levels.

Contact

Professor Richard Tol is the main contact person for potential employers who have questions about a candidate's vita, experience, or other academic items:

E R.Tol@sussex.ac.uk
T +44 (0)1273 877282