The Navarra Center for International Development (NCID) has received visits from the three candidates it selected in the European Job Market of the European Economic Association. After interviewing 16 candidates for a position at NCID, they were the three finalists who have been invited to present their Job Market Paper in Pamplona.
On 21th January, David Andrés Cerezo, PhD candidate of the European University Institute, presented his Job Market Paper 'The Construction of National Identities'. In it, he explores the dynamics of nation-building policies and the conditions under which a state can promote a shared national identity in its territory. One case study he focuses in is the difference between Kenya and Tanzania.
Despite having a similar cultural background and colonial history, the former hasn’t been able to create a national identity whilst the latter has. This has been because Kenya has larger and more powerful heterogeneous groups than Tanzania, but also because the Tanzanian government quickly pushed for Swahili to be assimilated as the national language and didn’t let ethnic divisions root, something that wasn’t successful in Kenya.
María Hernández de Benito, PhD candidate at Georgetown University, presented her Job Market Paper on the 29th. “The Effect of Violent Crime on Intra-household Allocations and Bargaining Power” studies the effects of violent crime on household expenditure and intra-household bargaining power by exploiting the unexpected and geographically heterogeneous increase in drug-related violence in Mexico in the late 2000s.
Hernández de Benito has estimated a household demand model using a panel survey of Mexican households. The results show the escalation in violence increased the expenditure share of male private goods, at the expense of food and other household necessities. These findings would typically be interpreted as a deterioration in women’s bargaining power. However, changes in local violence may have also affected consumption preferences. To show that the results can be explained by changes in bargaining power, she has complemented the analysis with three empirical exercises.
Finally, Miriam Artiles, PhD candidate at Pompeu Fabra University, presented yesterday "Within-Group Heterogeneity in a Multi-Ethnic Society". Her Job Market Paper explores whether ethnic diversity is good or bad for economic development.
Artiles has collected new data on a natural experiment from Peru’s colonial history: the forced resettlement of native populations in the 16th century. This intervention forced together various ethnic groups in new jurisdictions. Where these groups were composed of more heterogeneous subpopulations, working in different ecological zones of the Andes prior to colonization, ethnic diversity had systematically lower costs, showing that ethnic heterogeneity may even be advantageous.