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Dear colleague,
join us for the upcoming MUES seminars. All seminars are conducted in English and are comprised of a 50-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute discussion session. These seminars are open to the public, and we warmly welcome spontaneous attendance. If you would like to have a bilateral conversation with any of our guests, join us for lunch, or attend the dinner with guests, please let us know in advance.
With best wishes,
MUES team
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Internal Research Seminar - Economics | 19 November - 12:00 PM | Academic Club | Ondřej Krčál | Department of Economics
Willingness to Pay for HPV Vaccination: Evidence from a Survey Experiment with Parents
We examine parental willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in a survey experiment conducted with 3,694 parents in the Czech Republic. Respondents indicated the maximum payment they would make, or the minimum compensation they would require, to state an intention to vaccinate their 14-year-old daughter in a hypothetical decision scenario. In a between-subjects design, we varied (i) the stated population-level effectiveness of the vaccine across three levels and (ii) the rules governing a bonus payment, comparing unconditional rewards with rewards paid only if overall vaccination uptake surpassed a predefined threshold. We find no significant effect of bonus-payment rules on either WTA or WTP. Relative to a baseline effectiveness level, the lowest vaccine effectiveness significantly reduces willingness to pay, whereas a moderate increase in effectiveness yields no significant change. Even in the highest-effectiveness condition, 16% of parents would not vaccinate their daughter even when offered a hypothetical reward exceeding the equivalent of two average monthly wages. These results point to substantial residual resistance to HPV vaccination and motivate further investigation—planned in follow-up data collection—into whether reluctance is heightened when decisions are made on behalf of others rather than for oneself.
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Research Seminar - Economics | 20 November - 2:00 PM | Hybrid Meeting Room | Matej Lorko | Personal website | University of Economics in Bratislava
Five experiments on the effect of prebunking vs. debunking on disinformation discernment
The spread of disinformation is widely regarded as one of the most serious short-term global risks and a major societal challenge. In one laboratory and three online experiments, we measured trust in true, false, and disinformation statements related to the Russo-Ukrainian war, politics, climate, and health. We examined the effects of refuting disinformation using a corrective message containing factual information. By manipulating the timing of the message, we tested whether it is more effective to intervene before exposure to disinformation (i.e., to prebunk) or after exposure (i.e., to debunk). We found that debunking significantly outperformed prebunking. The positive effects of debunking persisted for at least two weeks. In the fifth experiment, we examined both direct and indirect (i.e., spillover) effects of endorsing some of the true statements and refuting some of the disinformation statements with either fact-based or logic-based corrective message. The two interventions performed similarly overall, but fact-based corrective messages resulted in marginally larger positive direct effects, while logic-based corrective messages generated significantly larger positive spillover effects. This event is both online and in person. Join the Teams meeting
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Internal Research Seminar - Economics | 26 November - 12:00 PM | Academic Club | Laura Fónadová | Department of Public Economics
Segmented Acceptability of Interactions with the Roma in the Czech Republic: Latent Class Analysis of Contact Types
Prejudice and social distance have long been the topic of research in the social sciences and are significantly linked to the majority's relationship with various minorities, particularly ethnic groups. In this study, we explore how the attitudes of the majority population towards the Roma differ according to the intensity (degree) and types of contact with Roma individuals. The theoretical framework is grounded in contact theory, which emphasizes the role of intergroup interactions in reducing prejudice. Recent research shows the importance of the context and the type or form of contact, which can significantly influence prejudiced attitudes. Based on these research findings, we analyze whether the acceptability of interactions with the Roma in the Czech context differs depending on various types of interethnic contacts. Descriptive analysis reveals a slight correlation between the intensity of contacts and its acceptability. However, advanced latent class analysis (LCA) indicates that this relationship is not uniform (one-dimensional). We identified four distinct social groups differing in both their interethnic contact patterns and affective attitudes toward the Roma. These results emphasize that when testing the contact hypothesis, it is important to consider not only the intensity but also the types of interethnic interactions.
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Research Seminar - Economics | 27 November - 2:00 PM | Hybrid Meeting Room | Keyu Wu | Personal website | University of Zurich
Recover true economic preferences in the presence of behavioral attenuation bias
This event is both online and in person. Join the Teams meeting
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Research Seminar - Economics | 03 December - 12:00 PM | Hybrid meeting room | Stefania Paredes Fuentes | Personal website | The National Bank of Slovakia and University of Southampton
The Economics Pipeline: Entry, Leakages, and Outcomes
Despite the potential of economics to serve as a vehicle for social mobility and its impact on society, persistent disparities in participation and progression raise important concerns for the discipline. This presentation examines the structure of the economics education pipeline in the UK, focusing on patterns of entry, attrition, and academic outcomes across key demographic dimensions. Using institutional-level data from UK universities, I analyse variations in enrolment, continuation rates, and degree attainment by gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic background. The analysis identifies systemic barriers and points of attrition that disproportionately affect students from underrepresented groups.
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Research Seminar - Economics | 04 December - 2:00 PM | Hybrid meeting room | Jakub Lonsky | Personal website | University of Edinburgh, IZA and GLO
Breaking the Early Bell: Lessons from the First Statewide Mandate on School Start Times
This study investigates the effects of California’s Senate Bill 328 (SB 328)—the first state legislation requiring later school start times for middle and high schools—on adolescent sleep, mental health, and academic outcomes. Drawing on data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS) for high school students (grades 9–12) and the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which includes sleep duration for adolescents aged 15 above and bedtimes and wake-up times for children under 13, we analyze shifts in sleep patterns and mental health metrics. We then examine the impact on academic performance using district-level data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) for students in grades 3–8 and SAT scores for high school students. Employing difference-in-differences (DID) and matched DID methods, we find that SB 328 led to a 14% increase in the share of students sleeping at least 8 hours per night, consistent with CDC recommendations for adolescents. We find suggestive evidence of a reduction in certain mental health problems, particularly difficulties concentrating, though the results are imprecisely estimated and not robust across specifications. Finally, we find evidence of significant improvements in math and English scores in grades 3–8 (approximately a .1 standard deviation increase), while SAT scores rose by 2%. We uncover substantial heterogeneity in the policy's effects, with larger improvements in sleep and mental health among boys and Hispanic students, and larger academic gains among Hispanic students.
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Research Seminar - Economics | 11 December - 2:00 PM | Hybrid meeting room | Julie Chytilová | Personal website | Charles University
Hitting Rock Bottom: Economic Hardship and Cheating
This paper investigates whether severe economic hardship undermines preferences for honesty. We use controlled, incentivized measures of cheating for private benefit in a large, diverse sample of 5,676 Kenyans, exploiting three complementary sources of variation: experimentally manipulated monetary incentives, randomized increase in salience of own financial situation, and the Covid‑19 income shock, exploiting randomized survey timing as a natural experiment with respondents surveyed before and during the crisis. We find that severe economic hardship—marked by a 50% drop in monthly earnings— leads to a sharp increase in the prevalence of cheating, from 43% to 72%. Cheating behavior is highly responsive to financial incentives and increases gradually with prolonged hardship. The effects are largest among the most economically impacted and are amplified when salience of own financial situation is experimentally increased. Predictable seasonal income fluctuations, in contrast, do not affect honesty. The results demonstrate that while most individuals exhibit a strong preference against cheating under normal conditions, severe economic hardship substantially erodes honesty.
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