VILLANOVA DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS SEMINAR SERIES

This seminar series extends our department's curriculum by welcoming renowned scholars and experts to engage with our faculty and students on cutting-edge research across a wide array of topics related to economics. Through conversations and stimulating presentations, our seminar series exposes students to the advanced knowledge and insights needed to navigate the complexities of today's economic landscape, and reflects and supports Villanova’s teacher-scholar model.

SPRING 2026 SEMINAR SERIES

Viviane Sanfelice presents: The Long Run Dynamic Effects of Maternal Labor Supply on Children

Abstract: This paper studies the long-run effects of maternal labor supply during childhood on children’s cognitive and socioeconomic outcomes. Using linked data from the NLSY79 and CNLSY, we exploit bunching at zero hours of work to identify the causal impact of maternal labor supply at different stages of a child’s life. Maternal work hours during the first three years of life reduce cognitive skills in early and middle childhood. These early exposures translate into lower years of education, earnings, and wages in adulthood, with no significant effects on employment or hours worked. Maternal labor supply later in childhood also negatively affects outcomes, while labor supply during high school years has positive effects on educational attainment. The results highlight the dynamic importance of early maternal time investments for long-run human capital formation. 

Andrew Samuel presents:  Market Structure and Retail Format Entry with Tempted Consumers

Abstract: Various insights from behavioral economics, and psychology more broadly, show that consumption patterns are shaped by conflicting concerns, such as a commitment to eating healthy, while also being tempted by junk food. We model these choices utilizing \citep{GulPesendorfer2001}'s preferences for self-control in the presence of temptation, where consumers first choose a menu and then an item from that menu - so that agents with self-control choose menus with fewer tempting options as a commitment device to avoid subsequently being tempted. We interpret this framework as the decision to first choose a store (a menu) and then items from it, and study how retailers’ market entry and pricing decisions are shaped by consumer temptation. We show retail formats that restrict tempting options (``commitment retailers") can sustain higher prices and can profitably enter markets where temptation is high even when low-quality formats cannot. We then extend the model to environments with multiple retailers and heterogeneous consumers, highlighting how income, temptation, and outside options jointly determine local market structure and consumer sorting. These results generate testable predictions about retail entry, pricing, and the effectiveness of policies that add healthy options versus those that restrict low-quality alternatives. The model also offers insights into policy debates such as why the introduction of farmers markets in food deserts often has limited effects on average dietary outcomes. 

Olena Ogrokhina presents: Forget Reserves, Just Target Inflation: Attracting Debt Inflows During Crises in Developing Countries (with Patricia Gomez-Gonzalez and Cesar Rodriguez)  

Abstract: This paper analyzes whether inflation targeting can substitute for foreign exchange reserve accumulation in attracting debt inflows during crises in developing countries. Using a panel of 65 developing countries, we find that reserve accumulation increases debt inflows during crises primarily in non-targeting countries. In contrast, targeting countries experience rising debt inflows during crises even as reserves decline. This pattern is especially pronounced for private sector debt inflows. Our results suggest that inflation targeting offers developing countries an alternative mechanism for maintaining capital inflows during crises without incurring the opportunity costs of reserve accumulation. 

Andrew W Nutting presents: Causes and Consequences of Playing the Second Semifinal Game in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament 

Abstract: Regional and national semifinal games in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament are played back-to-back in the evening, and second semifinals often have unusually late start times. Estimations show the top seed in the East region tends to play the late regional semifinal, the top seed in the Midwest region plays the early regional semifinal, and the late national semifinal tends to be the game featuring better-seeded teams. OLS estimations show small, insignificantly positive effects of playing the second regional semifinal on probability of winning the regional final two days later. IV estimates show substantial negative effects but are insignificant. As for national semifinals, OLS estimations suggest playing the second game hurts a team’s chance of winning the national championship two days later. Effects are massive and significant when the final is a close game, and are not explained by having played better opponents or had closer games in the semifinals. 

Dennis Patrick Scanlon presents: Its the Healthcare Production Function Dummy  ..... and Still the Prices Stupid! 

Abstract: While health care transaction prices get significant attention, policy, and regulatory discussions often ignore the link between production costs and prices, resulting in less attention to the underlying economic issues that contribute to both inefficient production and non-competitive markets in health care.  This talk will highlight key limitations in data and publicly available information currently accessible to policymakers, researchers, and consumers to better understand the costs of production and their relationship to pricing.  Key insights and suggestions on how to improve the collection of coherent cost, price, and production data, and how such information can lead to better policy making, including changing value-based payment schemes to incentivize more efficient production of health care services 

Jessica Goldberg presents: Hiring Women vs. Hiring Men: Experimental Evidence on Workers and Firms in Bangladesh

Abstract: Employment improves women’s welfare, but women’s labor force participation lags behind men’s globally and particularly in South Asia.  In Bangladesh, 44% of women, compared to 84% of men, are in the labor force.  Both supply and demand side factors may contribute to low rates of employment for women.  We run an experiment to measure the effects of employment on women vs. men, and the effects of having woman vs. man as an employee on firm’s outcomes and owner’s attitudes towards hiring women.  We recruit small retail businesses that are interested in expanding by adding an employee and ask them to identify two women and two men who they would be willing to hire.  We randomly choose some businesses to receive subsidies towards the wages of a randomly selected candidate employee for 6 months.  This randomization provides variation in whether shops have female employees, male employees, or no employees; it also provides variation in whether qualified women and men receive jobs.  Initial take-up of the subsidized jobs is high for both men and women and persists throughout the six month intervention period.  Six months after the subsidies end, there are positive but imprecisely estimated effects on the probability that treated businesses have employees and on their profits, with no differences between businesses that were assigned to hire women and those assigned to hire men.  For employees, the subsidized jobs increase the probability that women are employed for a wage and raised their skills across a range of technical and soft skills, but appear to decrease men’s employment and to have no effect on men’s skills.  The subsidies appear to have improved employer’s relative perceptions of women as employees, but there are no differences between employers who experienced a woman employee compared to those who experienced a male employee.