Applied Microeconomics
Applied Microeconomics
The Applied Microeconomics research group unites researchers working on a broad array of topics within such areas as labour economics, economics of education, health economics, family economics, urban economics, environmental economics, and the economics of science and innovation. The group operates in close collaboration with the CAGE Research Centre.
The group participates in the CAGE seminar on Applied Economics, which runs weekly on Tuesdays at 2:15pm. Students and faculty members of the group present their ongoing work in two brown bag seminars, held weekly on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 1pm. Students, in collaboration with faculty members, also organise a bi-weekly reading group in applied econometrics on Thursdays at 1pm. The group organises numerous events throughout the year, including the Research Away Day and several thematic workshops.
Our activities
Work in Progress seminars
Tuesdays and Wednesdays 1-2pm
Students and faculty members of the group present their work in progress in two brown bag seminars. See below for a detailed scheduled of speakers.
Applied Econometrics reading group
Thursdays (bi-weekly) 1-2pm
Organised by students in collaboration with faculty members. See the Events calendar below for further details
People
Academics
Academics associated with the Applied Microeconomics Group are:
Research Students
Events
Macro/International Seminar - Keith Head (UBC)
Title: Industrial Policies for Multi-stage Production: The Battle for Battery-powered Vehicles
Many countries have implemented policies to promote transition from combustion engines to electric vehicles (EVs). As batteries constitute about one third of the cost of EVs and are costly to transport, firms need to establish low-cost battery supply chains in order to make EVs attractive to consumers. At the same time, governments increasingly use tax and subsidy schemes to induce firms to place more stages of the supply chain within their jurisdictions. We specify a multi-stage supply chain for EVs from battery cell production to vehicle distribution. Each car producer selects where to open facilities at each stage considering production costs, trade costs, and subsidies. This is a difficult combinatorial choice problem that cannot be solved using existing ``squeezing'' algorithms that have been used in the recent literature analyzing global supply chain location choices. Instead, we use a mixed integer linear program formulation that can computationally solve our real-scale multi-stage application in seconds. We use this method to estimate the parameters of our model---which include the variable production costs and fixed plant activation costs---using observed sourcing decisions for all production stages over the period 2015 to 2023. We then investigate counterfactual simulations for different types of industrial and trade policies and describe how those affect the production location choices across the global chains for EVs and the trade patterns from battery through assembly to final consumption destinations.