Economics » News

Zoning rules don’t work in isolation: combined reforms deliver the biggest housing gains

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:21:00 GMT

Housing costs are pricing many people out of city living, as demand outstrips supply in areas where there is limited or no new land to release for construction. A new study examines zoning laws in Greater Boston, USA, to better understand what local authorities can do to help.

Since vacant land is scarce in built-up cities and towns and they can’t create new land, local governments must explore other options to tackle this problem.

One approach is to review the zoning regulations which place barriers in the way of building more densely in cities – but until now, the impact of zoning regulations has typically been studied one at a time and there has been limited evidence on which combination of reforms have the biggest effect on supply and affordability.

For example, allowing apartment buildings in certain areas (a popular current policy suggestion) can not achieve much as long as height and density restrictions limit the number of units and floors that can be built.

In their recent paper – Under the (Neighbor)Hood: Understanding Interactions Among Zoning Regulations, published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, Dr Amrita Kulka and her co-authors present the first evaluation of how zoning restrictions combine to impact supply, prices and rents of homes and apartments.

“Being unable to afford a home that meets your needs isn’t just a private problem,” Dr Kulka explains. “It hurts the regional and national economy if people can’t live near the jobs they could do best, it stops young people from building savings and equity in their homes, and prevents people from moving to access better jobs or schools.”

“We found 54 state and local governments around the world which have relaxed one or more zoning regulations in an attempt to increase affordability in their areas – but there is limited evidence on what options work best.

“Our work is the first to create a framework to study how zoning regulations interact and which combination of reforms have the greatest effect on housing supply and affordability.”

The research team chose the three most typical zoning regulations in US cities for the study – regulations which limit construction to single-family homes; maximum height restrictions; and density restrictions – such as rules on how large lot sizes must be, how far houses must be set back from the road, and maximum numbers of units per development.

To simulate the effect of relaxing regulations, or upzoning, the team identified zoning boundaries which ran within Greater Boston municipalities, rather than exploring differences across local government boundaries where other factors might come into play.

The 26,078 zoning boundaries across which at least one type of zoning restriction differs were carefully sifted to remove any boundaries where price and density might be affected by other factors such as access to high-quality schools or other amenities. This left 2,835 boundaries to analyse.

Using lot-level zoning data and housing data from property tax records, the team tested how the different zoning rules each side of the border influenced housing supply, housing type, housing characteristics, land values, and prices or rents per unit.

To increase housing supply, the key combination of regulations proved to be density and height restrictions – areas where both of these regulations were more relaxed had up to 85 per cent more housing units per lot than those where the rules were strict, but with no effect of housing prices. Where density rules alone were relaxed, supply increased by only 7 per cent, while loose height restrictions alone had almost no effect.

To tackle affordability, the key regulations in Greater Boston were density, alone or in combination with relaxation of the other regulations. Where density rules were less strict, prices for single-family homes were around 4.4% lower than the other side of the boundary. Rents were also lower. Allowing more density along with allowing flats increased units per lot by 62 per cent and also increased affordability.

Dr Kulka attributes this in part to the way restrictive zoning regulations influence the composition of a neighbourhood’s housing mix.

“Restrictive zoning regulations push developers towards larger family houses and rental units with more floorspace and rooms, which command higher prices. This means that some households, who would prefer living in a smaller unit, have to overconsume housing, making it harder to live in certain attractive neighborhoods and leaving less disposable income for spending on non-housing items.”

The researchers applied their model to simulate the long-term effects of reforms in Massachusetts. In 2021 the city passed a reform which required municipal authorities to permit multi-family housing and increased density near public transit stops. The simulation found that such small-scale upzoning policies can be an effective way to increase supply and reduce prices, particularly in neighborhoods surrounding train stations in suburban municipalities.

Dr Kulka said:

“Our Greater Boston evidence shows that the most effective way to increase supply and lower prices is to relax density restrictions while allowing the construction of multi-family homes. In other cities and countries, different regulations might be the most restrictive.

“For example, there is evidence of height restrictions being particularly burdensome in Japan. On the other hand, under a non-zoned planning system in the UK, local governments make it difficult to densify areas by designating sites for new residential development that are often on the fringes of cities and towns.

“Our methodology can be applied to any zoning-based system, offering a robust way to identify which combination of regulations policymakers should focus on if they want to increase housing availability and affordability in their city centres.”

Amrita Kulka, Aradhya Sood, and Nicholas Chiumenti; Under the (Neighbor)Hood: Understanding Interactions Among Zoning Regulations. The Review of Economics and Statistics 2026; doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/REST.a.1736

The generation gap isn’t about wages – it’s about who has a job at all

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:13:19 GMT

The economic gap between old and young is becoming a political concern in many countries. Ever since the “baby boomers” generation, young people have expected to out-earn their parents. But this is no longer automatic. New research explores what is driving intergenerational inequality and warns of a “structural generational divide that will not fix itself”

In a new study published in the European Economic Review, economists Roberto Pancrazi (��ɫ��Ƶ) and Gabriele Guaitoli (UAB) reveal that there is more to rising inequality between young and old than wage levels alone; that while in rich countries, older workers have been pulling ahead of younger ones, in middle-income countries the opposite is happening; and warn that richer countries are facing a permanent generation gap that will not self-correct.

Over the last 15 years, on average in rich countries the income advantage of individuals aged 55-64 compared to young people has more than quadrupled – from 6% in 2004 to 26% in 2018.

“This is not only a question of salaries,” explains Professor Pancrazi. “Comparing hourly pay alone misses most of the story – the gap is largely driven by who has a job at all. Over this same period, the employment rate for older workers has risen 23 percentage points while young people are struggling to gain a foothold in the labour market. This explains about two-thirds of the widening gap."

“What’s giving older workers the advantage? Our main finding is something we call “skill congestion,” explains co-author Dr Gabriele Guaitoli. “We find that, in richer countries, older generations have almost caught up with the young in education — so they now compete for the same skilled jobs, and end up crowding younger workers out. The effect ripples through the whole job market. Pay and openings for the young go down, while they rise for the old.”

To understand the drivers of the age-income gap, the researchers studied data from 32 countries and compared the total take-home income of people aged 55–64 with those aged 25–34 from 2004 to 2018. This offers a far more complete picture than comparable research to date. They find that in richer countries the older group pulled ahead over time; in middle-income countries the young started in a similar place but gained ground.

Alongside skills congestion, other factors driving the gap include labour preferences, skill-biased technical change, experience premia, transfers (pensions and benefits), and demographic ageing. The key issue here is that these mechanisms lift young and old alike, while skills congestion permanently restricts young people’s lifetime earnings.

The study provides vital insight to policymakers. If the age-income gap is simply a factor of lifetime wages increasing to reflect higher skills and greater productivity in older workers, then young starters will eventually catch up as they advance in their careers. But if the gap reflects intergenerational competition in skills, the current generation of young workers face being trapped in lower-skilled roles, with permanently lower lifetime earnings than their predecessors – a structural generational divide with no self-correcting mechanism.

Gabriele Guaitoli, Roberto Pancrazi. Age-income gaps: The role of skill congestion, European Economic Review, Volume 188, 2026 105408,ISSN 0014-2921. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2026.105408.

Training for one career, working in another – new study uncovers the cost

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:24:00 GMT

The German dual-apprenticeship system is highly regarded around the world as an alternative to university education for young people who would prefer to start working while they learn.

But is there a risk to committing to a long-term occupation when you are only in your teens?

In a recent paper published in Econometrica, Dr Dita Eckardt explores what proportion of apprentices stay in the occupation for which they trained, what costs are incurred by those who change their minds, and what could be done to reduce these.

Dr Eckardt explains:

“While Germany’s apprentice system is praised for preparing young people for work with high quality occupational skills training, there is a potential risk – apprentices may find themselves locked onto a career path they chose when they were still very young.

“As we move forward in our working lives, we often update our understanding of the skills we like to use or the fields we want to work in. There is also the risk that developments in technology may make whole occupations obsolete, forcing workers with specialist skills to find new careers.”

Dr Eckardt’s paper offers the first analysis of the scale and costs of this lack of flexibility.

Drawing on a database of German social security records from 1975 to 2010 to create a training/occupation matrix with 13 occupational categories, she finds that at any given point in time, 40 per cent of workers are in occupations that they did not train for.

Establishing the causal wage effect of this type of occupational mismatch is not straightforward. For instance, workers who decide to work outside their training field may do so because they realise they have a particular talent in a different field, and they may earn higher wages in this new field because of their talent, regardless of their original training.

To overcome this challenge and estimate the costs of mismatch, Dr Eckardt combined the occupation data with information on apprenticeship vacancies posted by employment agencies. Because lower demand in one field may push people to work in another for reasons that are unrelated to their talents, fluctuations in vacancies make it possible to isolate the causal effect of occupational mismatch.

The analysis found that the average costs of mismatch were a wage penalty of 14 per cent, or the equivalent of losing two years’ work experience.

The costs become smaller with time, suggesting that workers catch up by learning on the job in their new occupations, but are larger if the new occupation is radically different to the one the worker trained for.

Why do so many people end up working in occupations they did not train for? Dr Eckardt’s analysis suggests that young people may not hold enough information on their true talents, interests, or future labour market developments when making their training choice.

She explains:

“We know from other work that such information problems tend to be more pronounced for students from less advantaged backgrounds. The relatively young age of apprentices compared to university graduates may also be a factor.”

What could policymakers do to tackle the problem? One option would be to improve the information provided to young people before they choose their apprenticeship, but it is difficult to know how much mismatch this would prevent. Another option would be to offer retraining programmes for apprentices who want to switch paths. Dr Eckardt calculates that the up-front costs of retraining would be recovered by a majority of workers and recommends that policymakers should expand retraining schemes.

The paper’s findings carry lessons that extend beyond Germany. Many countries are considering expanding their apprenticeship training systems and Dr Eckardt’s research suggests that policymakers should pay close attention not only to the quality of specific skills provided, but also to the flexibility that is allowed for within those systems.

Training Specificity and Occupational Mobility: Evidence From German Apprenticeships (2026) Eckardt, Dita. Econometrica, Vol. 94, No. 3 (May, 2026), 741–766

Professor Anant Sudarshan wins prestigious environmental research prize

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:29:00 GMT

Professor Anant Sudarshan and his co-author Eyal Frank (University of Chicago) have won the 2026 Erik Kempe Award in Environmental and Resource Economics for their paper The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence from the Decline of Vultures in India.

The prestigious prize is awarded every other year by the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) to the paper which, in the opinion of an expert panel of judges, is the best paper in the field of environmental and resource economics.

Anant and Eyal’s winning paper was published in the October 2024 issue of the American Economic Review. Their findings on the human health consequences of the accidental collapse of the Indian vulture population caused by changes in farming practices received global press attention.

Their research concluded that the functional extinction of vultures—efficient scavengers that removed carcasses from the environment—increased human mortality by over 4 percent because of a large negative shock to sanitation, with an estimated cost of $69.4 billion per year.

The EAERE prize committee said “Eyal Frank and Anant Sudarshan receive the Erik Kempe Award for an insightful contribution to the measurement of [the] value of ecosystem services which, in turn, is essential for cost-benefit analysis of conservation policy.

“By recovering the mechanisms underlying species collapse, the results may inform efforts to recover [the] vulture in India, and more broadly show how local population extinction can be used to analyze the effects of species extinction on human well-being.”

EAERE also said that Frank and Sudarshan “contributed substantially” to both academic research on species collapse and conservation policy.

Frank, Eyal, and Anant Sudarshan. 2024. "The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence from the Decline of Vultures in India." American Economic Review 114 (10): 3007–40.DOI: 10.1257/aer.20230016

Sébastien Montpetit wins best paper award at the Network of Industrial Economists Symposium and Conference 2026

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 11:18:00 GMT

Dr Sébastien Montpetit, ��ɫ��Ƶ Economics Postdoctoral Fellow, has been awarded the prize for the Best Paper in Industrial Economics at the Network of Industrial Economists Symposium 2026.

His paper, Are Climate Policies Marginal? A Welfare Evaluation of Environmental Reforms, co-authored with Jean-Francois Fournel of Harvard University, proposes a new empirical framework to help policymakers decide which climate investments to prioritise, given limited public funds.

The new framework combines the Marginal Value of Public Funds (MVPF) with structural models of demand for green technologies to evaluate the welfare effects of environmental reforms. The authors argue that this new methodology has several advantages over the standard sufficient-statistics tradition in public economics.

As proof-of-concept, the paper applies the new framework to evaluate the effectiveness of Canadian electric vehicle subsidies. The analysis found that initial subsidies yielded substantial welfare gains, but these did not last. These diminishing returns make large subsidies inefficient.

They also find that investing in charging-station deployment generated the highest welfare gains in the Canadian setting, while taxing fuel-inefficient vehicles was not an efficient funding source.

Commenting on the award, Dr Montpetit said:

"I am honoured to receive this prize, especially given how recently my collaboration with Jean-François, my coauthor, began.

I also greatly appreciated the very positive feedback on our paper from the conference participants, and the insightful suggestions for improvement from my discussant, David Paton.

We see this paper as bridging the welfare analysis tradition in public economics with methods from industrial economics—two approaches that have largely evolved in isolation.

It is therefore especially rewarding that experts in industrial economics have recognized our contribution, and I am grateful for this recognition."

The Best Paper Award is sponsored by Charles River Associates and recognises outstanding early career research in theoretical and empirical industrial economics.

The Department congratulates Sébastien on this well-deserved recognition.

NOTES

Dr Montpetit is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of ��ɫ��Ƶ. He received his PhD from the Toulouse School of Economics. More information about his research can be found on his personal website: Sébastien Montpetit
Established in the 1970s, the Network of Industrial Economists is a forum for interchange among university economists in the UK and the world, and for interaction between academia, business, and government.
Details of the 2026 NIE Conference and PhD Symposium can be found here: https://ind-econ.github.io/conference2026/

New research maps the regional cost of Brexit: UK "levelled down", not levelled up

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:58:00 GMT

Brexit has imposed large and widespread economic costs across the UK, but the burden has fallen most heavily on initially prosperous, trade-integrated regions including London, the South East and Scotland, according to new analysis co-authored by Professor Thiemo Fetzer and published at https://brexitcost.org/.

The new study, Measuring the Regional Economic Cost of Brexit: Evidence as of 2026, estimates how Brexit affected output and nominal household income across UK local authorities, regions and constituent countries.

Using a synthetic control approach, the researchers compare each UK area’s actual economic path with a data-driven counterfactual: how that area might have evolved had Brexit not happened.

The research finds:

Brexit has reduced UK economic performance substantially. Quarterly GDP estimates suggest a shortfall of around 3–5 percentage points by the end of the sample, while annual GVA estimates point to a UK-level gap of around 7–8%.
The economic cost is widespread. Around 70% of local authority districts are estimated to be below their synthetic counterfactual, meaning most places performed worse than comparable non-Brexit trajectories.
The burden is unevenly distributed. Losses are concentrated in initially prosperous, trade-integrated areas, especially London, the South East and Scotland.
Brexit appears to have “levelled down” the UK. Regional gaps may have narrowed not because poorer regions caught up, but because richer and more internationally integrated regions were pulled down.
Northern Ireland is the major exception. Its estimated gaps are near-zero or positive, consistent with its distinctive post-Brexit trading position and continued partial integration with the EU single market.
Production losses and household-income losses do not always align. These gaps, measured by GVA and GDHI (see below) diverge across places, showing that Brexit’s effects travel through commuting, income flows, ownership claims, taxes and transfers.
The areas that voted most strongly for Brexit are not generally the areas that have borne the largest economic costs. The deepest losses are concentrated in many Remain-leaning, internationally exposed regions.

The analysis uses two complementary measures: real Gross Value Added (GVA), capturing where production takes place, and Gross Disposable Household Income (GDHI), capturing the income households can spend or save after taxes and transfers.

Professor Fetzer said:

"The research finds that Brexit has been a negative-sum shock for the UK economy. While the aggregate cost is large, the spatial distribution of that cost is politically revealing. Rather than delivering gains to left-behind places, Brexit appears to have damaged the UK’s strongest regional economies most severely.

"The result is a form of “levelling up by levelling down”: regional inequality may be compressed, but through decline at the top rather than improvement at the bottom. This reduces the ability to redistribute tax revenues from the south into the rest of the United Kingdom.

"The study also shows why a single national estimate misses much of the story. GVA captures where economic activity occurs, while GDHI captures where household income is received. The latter is being cushioned through transfers and the UK’s commuting economy. Comparing the two reveals how local production shocks spread through the wider economy via commuting patterns, income ownership, fiscal redistribution and interregional dependence."

Dr Eleonora Alabrese, co-author, said:

"Our findings suggest a troubling spiral. Austerity drove protest voting in left-behind places, and the anti-immigrant narrative proved a powerful tool precisely in areas with little direct experience of immigration. Brexit was the result — yet the economic costs have landed elsewhere: on the internationally integrated, high-immigration areas. The places that generated the political mandate for Brexit have, so far, been relatively shielded from its economic consequences.

"That is not a coincidence — it is a pattern that risks feeding further disillusionment and further support for the politics that produced Brexit in the first place. Brexit may be a self-sustaining political economy."

Professor Fetzer added:

"Brexit did not make left-behind places meaningfully richer. It made the UK poorer, with the largest losses concentrated in the places that were most exposed to European integration. That is why the regional pattern looks like levelling up only in the most perverse sense: not by lifting lagging regions, but by pulling down the places that were doing best."

Notes:

The paper is available at: /fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2026/twerp_1617-fetzer.pdf
The authors estimate Brexit’s regional economic impact using placebo-weighted synthetic control methods. They construct counterfactual economic trajectories for UK local authorities, ITL regions and constituent countries using a wide range of donor-pool specifications and evaluates both post-2016 and post-2020 treatment windows.
The analysis covers real GVA and GDHI, enabling the researchers to distinguish between where output is produced and where household income is ultimately received.
An interactive explorer of the findings and regional estimates, their sensitivity along with broader narration that is specific to different areas can be found on https://www.brexitcost.org.

Expert comment: Professor Andrew Oswald comments on social media ban for under 16s

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:21:00 GMT

The Prime Minister has announced plans to ban social media platforms from offering services to under-16s.

Professor Andrew Oswald, who has spent the last three decades studying human happiness and mental health, comments:

On the balance of the scientific evidence, the Prime Minister’s decision is defensible. It is a good choice in a complicated and emotive area of life.

Bans are, admittedly, coarse instruments. They fray at the edges. Some young people will be tenacious in finding their way through this particular block.

But I have spent the last two months reviewing the evidence in preparation for a keynote address to European wellbeing researchers on the topic later this week at a conference in Luxembourg. The literature now spans more than 5000 articles in scientific journals. It covers a range of evidence, including randomized controlled trials and statistical studies from multiple nations.

My assessment is that, overall, social media hurts the happiness and mental health of young females – mainly through constant and harmful ‘comparisons’. For males, I am not so convinced. Yet there is little evidence that, overall, social media makes youngish males happier.

I support Mr Starmer.

Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science, University of ��ɫ��Ƶ.

From economics to art: a final year student reflects on her ��ɫ��Ƶ journey

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:06:00 GMT

As she graduates this July, Balqis Rezuan reflects on three defining years at ��ɫ��Ƶ, where academic challenge and artistic passion have taken her from Malaysia to exhibitions across the UK.

We asked Balqis about her remarkable journey which combines academic rigour, creativity and an artistic practice.

Academic journey

Why did you choose to study Economics at ��ɫ��Ƶ?

I’m from Ampang, Selangor, near Kuala Lumpur, and feel incredibly grateful to have been sponsored by the Malaysian government to study at ��ɫ��Ƶ.

Economics was my favourite subject in college, thanks to my teacher Miss Ashikin who made it engaging and accessible. I loved how practical it felt - economics is everywhere, from the choices we make each day to the global events shaping the world. ��ɫ��Ƶ’s reputation in the field made it my top choice, and I still feel blessed to call myself a student here.

What has been the most rewarding part of your course?

My final year has been the most rewarding. I challenged myself to take Research in Applied Economics and chose a Health Economics dissertation topic that was both unconventional and complex. I worked with European datasets and applied advanced econometric models that built on what we had learnt in Year 2.

There were moments when I genuinely wondered whether I’d taken on too much, but with steady guidance from my supervisor Dr Juliana Cunha Carneiro Pinto, encouragement from family and friends, and a notebook full of detective-style scribbles, I kept going. Little by little, the pieces began to make sense, and I had produced a dissertation I was truly proud of.

That experience showed me what makes studying Economics at ��ɫ��Ƶ so special. You are pushed to tackle real-world questions that seem daunting at first, but you are supported every step of the way. It gives students like me the confidence to engage with complex ideas and contribute to conversations shaped by leading economists.

How has your degree shaped the way you see the world?

This degree has shown me just how interconnected the world is. I now see everyday decisions - whether it’s choosing to cook at home rather than eat out (Microeconomics) or tackling tasks early to avoid procrastination (Behavioural Economics) - through an economic lens. It has also helped me understand why some places thrive more than others (Development Economics), and to make better sense of global news, from trade policies and who they affect (International Economics and International Trade) to the evolution of major organisations (World Economic History). ��ɫ��Ƶing Economics at ��ɫ��Ƶ has given me a genuinely well rounded way of understanding how the world works.

Artistic practice and creativity

How did your journey as a self taught painter begin?

It started when I was 15, bored in my boarding school dorm room, and rediscovered an old watercolour set. I painted my first galaxy scene and secretly dreamed of having an art fanbase and exhibitions. I never imagined those daydreams would come true - but today I’ve shipped hundreds of paintings, exhibited across the UK, designed magazine covers, and taken on commissions, all while studying full time.

What inspires your artwork?

In my early years, I spent a lot of time experimenting with different artistic media between study sessions and holidays, which is how I became a self taught watercolour, acrylic, oil, Arabic calligraphy and henna artist. As I’ve grown, my work has become more intentional. I still paint to unwind, but my collections now draw on real experiences and personal reflections. I’ve learnt that people connect deeply with stories, and that thoughtfulness has shaped the way I create today.

What has been the highlight of your artistic journey?

I’ve taken part in seven exhibitions over the past two years, including three at the ��ɫ��Ƶ Student Arts Festival. I’ve gifted a painting to a former Malaysian Prime Minister, illustrated magazine covers, created a postcard collection, and recently paired acrylic pour paintings which is a type of fluid art with reflections on the 99 names of Allah. Art has given me a voice and a platform I never expected.

“Everyone is in the middle of becoming, and there is no right or wrong timeline.”

Balancing study and art

How have you balanced a demanding degree with your art practice?

Art has never been a distraction — it’s what keeps me grounded. I plan study time and painting time, and I follow inspiration whenever it arrives, even if it’s while folding laundry.

Do you see any connections between Economics and art in your work or thinking?

Art has shaped the way I think, especially when it comes to creative problem-solving. It’s never just about producing something beautiful – it pushes you to experiment with new approaches and take ownership of the outcome. I’ve found the same mindset in my studies, where I adapt my methods depending on the module, switching between numerical techniques and essay-based strategies to find what works best.

What challenges have you faced, and how did you overcome them?

There were difficult moments, especially when my grandfather passed away during Year 2. Art became a coping mechanism that helped me continue with my studies. I’m grateful for the support of my family, friends, and the ��ɫ��Ƶ Economics Pastoral Team — their reassurance made a lasting difference.

Future plans and ambitions

How do you hope to develop your artistic and professional career?

Artistically, I want to grow my brand through collaborations, commissions, workshops, exhibitions, and new merchandise. Professionally, I’m drawn to roles that bridge policy and research - work that has real impact on people’s lives.

Personal reflections

What advice would you give to students pursuing creative passions alongside their studies?

There is nothing wrong with being creative while studying something else. Your passion can become your motivation and even open unexpected doors. Keep creating, whether privately or publicly, because it is part of who you are.

How has university shaped who you are today?

��ɫ��Ƶ has taught me that any dream is possible when you put yourself out there. From debating and leadership roles to internships and meeting high profile stakeholders, each experience led to the next. Being open, sincere, and willing to learn has been key. Everyone is in the middle of becoming, and there is no fixed timeline.

Can you describe your journey in three words?

Ambition. Resilience. Transformation.

Thank you for sharing your story with us. We wish you every success in the future.

Promoting women in academia creates lasting benefits for future generations of female scholars

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:54:00 GMT

Research shows that early-career promotion decisions have long-term consequences for women’s academic careers and significantly strengthen the pipeline of future female academics.

Securing a permanent academic position early in one’s career is particularly important for women, according to new research by Manuel Bagues and Natalia Zinovyeva (��ɫ��Ƶ Economics) with co-authors Giulia Vattuone (SOFI, Stockholm University) and Milan Makany of Erasmus School of Economics, Rotterdam.

The study, Female Promotions and the Academic Pipeline: Evidence from a Natural Experiment analyses data from 4,000 university departments across Spain and reveals that promotion decisions can shape not only individual careers but also the future composition of academia.

The researchers found that women who narrowly miss out on tenure face substantially greater long-term career consequences than men. Fifteen years later, women who failed to obtain tenure are 83 percentage points less likely to hold a tenured position compared with women who narrowly qualified. For men, the corresponding gap is only 38 percentage points. ‘Our findings suggest that the tenure stage is a critical bottleneck for women in academia,’ Makany said. ‘When talented women leave the academic pipeline at this point, the losses extend far beyond their individual careers.’

The study also uncovers strong evidence of a “trickle-down” effect when women do obtain permanent academic positions. Departments that promote a woman to Associate Professor gain, on average, 1.5 additional female faculty members within fifteen years and produce six additional female PhD graduates over the following decade. Moreover, female graduates of these departments are also more likely to remain in academia and advance to tenured positions themselves.

Setting in motion a chain of effects

Although the precise mechanisms remain an open question, the findings are consistent with several possible channels, including role-model effects, mentoring, and a more inclusive workplace climate. Importantly, the effects are concentrated in departments where women are present but not yet in the majority, suggesting that spillovers may build up gradually and require some pre-existing female presence rather than being triggered by the promotion of a first woman in an otherwise all-male department.

The findings provide new causal evidence supporting policies that reduce barriers to promotion for highly qualified women. These results underscore the value of ensuring that highly qualified women are not overlooked at key career stages, as their advancement can generate substantial and persistent benefits for universities and the broader research community.

About the Research

The research exploits a change in the Spanish academic qualification system that introduced quasi-random variation in candidates’ evaluation committees to explore the consequences of failing to obtain tenure. Women who failed to obtain tenure during the change were less likely than men to obtain it later in their careers, while departments that promoted a woman went on to promote more women and graduate more female PhDs than comparable departments

Read a VoxEU column by the researchers here.

“quote test”

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:38:00 GMT

these are curly “quote test”

these are not "quote test"