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Department of Economics seminars

We host experts in different areas of economics, including academics and practitioners from around the world. View our upcoming seminars on this page.

Upcoming seminars

Details about our scheduled seminars. All seminars will take place on our University of Bath campus, unless otherwise stated.


14 May 2025

About this seminar

In this seminar, Professor Yiannis Vailakis will discuss the below research:

We revisit the welfare properties of competitive credit markets with endogenous debt limits that arise from limited commitment. We introduce a novel concept of constrained efficiency to encompass economies where market interest rates influence default values and participation constraints. We explore this concept through a baseline economy featuring heterogeneous agents with cyclical endowments. The analysis shows that the efficiency of market equilibria and welfare outcomes are sensitive to the nature of default punishments. It suggests that laissez-faire debt limits, while supportive of risk-sharing, might not always optimize welfare. The study illustrates how credit rationing — tightening future debt limits — can enhance current risk-sharing and overall welfare. This occurs because such interventions influence market interest rates and the default option’s value, thereby affecting agents’ present consumption and saving choices, and enabling a more efficient allocation of resources.

To be arranged

This seminar has been postponed. We will update this page with a new time and date soon.

  • Title: Public Service Delivery, Exclusion, and Externalities: Theory and Experimental Evidence from India
  • Speaker: Professor Maitreesh Ghatak, London School of Economics
  • Location: Room 2.2, 3 East
  • Time: 2.45pm – 4pm

About this seminar

Professor Maitreesh Ghatak will discuss the research work outlined below.

This study explores the interaction between the quality of public services, the implementation of user fees, and the resulting potential for exclusion, that can lead to negative externalities. Our theoretical framework takes account of the possible externalities that result from excluded users accessing alternative options in the context of sanitation, i.e., open defecation, and challenges the conventional wisdom that higher quality unequivocally leads to increased use. Instead, it highlights the ambiguity that results from a simultaneous increase in usage due to improved services (quality effect) and a decrease caused by the fees (price-elasticity effect). We then provide empirical evidence from a randomized controlled trial, where we incentivized the quality of water and sanitation services in the two largest cities of Uttar Pradesh, India. We show that higher service quality increases fee compliance but excludes some users, leading to unintended negative health externalities. Our detailed data provides evidence that results are driven by changes in caretaker behaviour. This finding highlights the need to be cautious regarding user fees, especially for public services involving significant externalities, and in settings where the users are very poor.

Please contact Professor Ajit Mishra if you would like to join for lunch or dinner or meet with Maitreesh during the day.


Previous seminars

Find details of past events from the Department of Economics seminar series.


2025

7 May 2025

  • Title: Optimal regime switching and energy transitions
  • Speaker: Professor Simone Valente, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

30 April 2025

  • Title: Research waves (joint with Gilat Levy (LSE) and Mariagiovanna Baccara (Olin Business School, Washington University)
  • Speaker: Professor Ronny Razin, London School of Economics

23 April 2025

  • Title: Sectoral labour flows” (joint with Alex Clymo, Camila Comunello, Ludo Visschers and David Zentler-Munro)
  • Speaker: Professor Carlos Carrillo-Tudela, University of Essex

19 March 2025

  • Title: Born too soon? The educational costs of early elective deliveries (with Parijat Maitra)
  • Speaker: Professor Libertad Gonzalez, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and The Barcelona School of Economics

19 March 2025

  • Title: Does wealth inhibit criminal behavior? Evidence from Lottery winners in Sweden and the US
  • Speaker: Professor Erik Lindqvist, Stockholm University

19 March 2025

  • Title: Optimising immigration quotas: Exploring per capita GDP, sectoral allocation and voter preferences
  • Speaker: Professor Carmen Bevia, Universitat d'Alacant

12 March 2025

  • Title: Firm responses to legislation on workplace sexual harassment
  • Speaker: Professor Sonia Bhalotra, University of Warwick

5 March 2025

  • Title: When geography shapes preferences: redesigning teacher assignment in Italy (co-author: Mariagrazia Cavallo)
  • Speaker: Dr Battal Dogan, University of Bristol

26 February 2025

  • Title: Digital lifelines: Mobile information and peer networks for small businesses in India (with Amrit Amirapu and Bansi Malde)
  • Speaker: Professor Irma Clots-Figueras, University of Kent

19 February 2025

5 February 2025

2024

20 November 2024

13 November 2024

23 October 2024

16 October 2024

24 April

1 May

8 May

15 May

22 May

29 May

27 March

20 March

13 March

6 March

  • Speaker: Dr Jonathan Chapman
  • Title: Justices of the peace: legal foundations of the industrial revolution

28 February

21 February

  • Speaker: Dr Britta Augsburg
  • (Working) Title: Pregnancy and (un)healthy nutrition choices

14 February

7 February

  • Speaker: Dr Irem Guceri
  • Title: Tax Policy, Investment and Profit-Shifting

2023

13 December 2023

  • Speaker: David Jaeger, University of St. Andrews
  • Title: Sheepskin effects and heterogenous wage-setting behaviour: evidence from Mozambique (with Edward Sam Jones, UNU-WIDER, Mozambique)

Contact us

If you would like to attend one of these seminars or if you have an enquiry then you can contact the seminar organisers.