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Friday March 25th, 8:30 - 9:45am, BeijingTime
Abstract: We estimate the impact of changes in state minimum wage laws on demand for lab personnel and scientific productivity. Using an event study difference-in-differences framework and rich administrative data from the accounting records of thousands of labs at U.S. research universities, we find that increased labor costs matter for the employment of trainee research assistants and staff and the rate and direction of scientific activity, particularly among labs that are more dependent on employing low-wage workers. Our analysis demonstrates the need for insurance mechanisms or increased budget flexibility for PIs, particularly for universities seeking to provide undergraduates with research experience.
Speaker: Prof. Ina Ganguli from Dept. of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
https://www.umass.edu/economics/ganguli
Dr. Ganguli earned her PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University. Her research is in the areas of labor economics, the economics of science and innovation, international development and economic history. Her work has been featured at Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, AEJ-Applied, The Journal of Labor Economics.