Alessandra Voena

Last updated
Alessandra Voena
NationalityItalian
Alma materStanford University (MA, PhD); University of Turin (BA)
Spouse Neale Mahoney
Awards Sloan Research Fellowship; Carlo Alberto Medal; Fellow of the Econometric Society
Scientific career
FieldsEconomics
Institutions Stanford University
Thesis Essays in applied microeconomics (2011)
Academic advisors Petra Moser; Caroline Hoxby; Luigi Pistaferri; Michèle Tertilt; Monika Piazzesi
Website avoena.people.stanford.edu

Alessandra Voena is an Italian development and labor economist currently serving as Professor of Economics at Stanford University. [1] Her research focuses on the economics of the family, in addition to the study of science and innovation. [1] Voena is an elected fellow of the Econometric Society, [2] and is the recipient of a Sloan Research Fellowship. [3] In 2017, she received the Carlo Alberto Medal, awarded biennially by the Collegio Carlo Alberto to the best Italian economist under the age of 40. [4]

Contents

Biography

Voena received her BA from the University of Turin in 2005, and her MA and PhD in Economics from Stanford University in 2011. [5] Her dissertation research was supervised by Petra Moser, Caroline Hoxby, Michèle Tertilt, Monika Piazzesi, and Luigi Pistaferri. [6]

After completing her PhD, Voena joined the Harvard Kennedy School as a post-doctoral fellow, followed by the University of Chicago as an assistant professor. [7] In 2020, she moved to Stanford University, where she currently serves as Professor of Economics. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. [1]

In addition to her academic appointments, Voena is an Editor of the Journal of Labor Economics [1] and a Foreign Editor at the Review of Economic Studies. [8] She is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research [9] and Centre for Economic Policy Research. [5]

In 2017, Voena received a Sloan Research Fellowship, [3] awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to early-career scientists in recognition of distinguished performance. The same year, she won the Carlo Alberto Medal, awarded biennially by the Collegio Carlo Alberto to the best Italian economist under 40. [4] In 2022, Voena was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. [2]

Voena is married to Neale Mahoney, also a professor of economics at Stanford University. [10]

Research

Voena's research focuses on the economics of the household, in addition to the economics of science and innovation. [5] According to Research Papers in Economics, she is among the top 500 female economists in the world. [11]

Science and innovation

Voena's early work examined the impact of migration and intellectual property on scientific discovery. In work with Petra Moser and Fabian Waldinger in the American Economic Review, [12] Voena shows that German-Jewish immigration to the United States as a result of World War II increased patenting in subfields of chemistry specialized in by the arriving scientists. [13]

In related work, Voena and Moser study the Trading with the Enemy Act, [14] which allowed American firms to violate foreign intellectual property during World War I if deemed valuable to the US military effort. The paper showed that compulsory licensing of foreign patents increased downstream domestic patenting in affected chemical subclasses by nearly 20%. [15]

Economics of the family

In recent years, Voena has focused on development economics and the economics of the family. [1] In work with Nava Ashraf, Nathan Nunn, and Natalie Bau, Voena shows that there exists a positive relationship between female education and bride price, [16] such that the effects of school construction programs such as Indonesia's INPRES are strongest in ethnic groups that maintain the practice. [17]

In another paper with Lucia Corno and Nicole Hildebrandt, Voena leverages plausibly exogenous variation in incomes resulting from drought to show that economic conditions affect the timing of marriage and child-bearing. [18] In India (where dowry is common), drought reduces the rate of child marriage, while in Sub-Saharan Africa (where bride price prevails), drought increases its incidence. [18] This is consistent with a model in which households use marriage payments (either from or to the bride's family) to smooth consumption over time. [19]

Selected publications

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Alessandra Voena | Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)". siepr.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  2. 1 2 "Current Fellows". www.econometricsociety.org. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  3. 1 2 "Five UChicago scholars awarded Sloan Research Fellowships | University of Chicago News". news.uchicago.edu. 2017-02-21. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  4. 1 2 "The Carlo Alberto Medal | Collegio Carlo Alberto". www.carloalberto.org. 2018-05-01. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  5. 1 2 3 "Alessandra Voena". CEPR. 2021-08-06. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  6. ↑ University, © Stanford; Stanford; California 94305. "Essays in applied microeconomics". purl.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ↑ "The Neubauer Collegium". The Neubauer Collegium. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  8. ↑ "Editorial Board - The Review of Economic Studies". www.restud.com. 2022-06-21. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  9. ↑ "Alessandra Voena". NBER. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  10. ↑ ""He's just a normal dude": SIEPR colleagues celebrate Nobel winner Guido Imbens | Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)". siepr.stanford.edu. 2021-10-11. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  11. ↑ "Top Female Economists Rankings | IDEAS/RePEc". ideas.repec.org. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  12. ↑ Moser, Petra; Voena, Alessandra; Waldinger, Fabian (2014-10-01). "German Jewish Émigrés and US Invention". American Economic Review. 104 (10): 3222–3255. doi:10.1257/aer.104.10.3222. ISSN   0002-8282.
  13. ↑ "How German Anti-Semitism Spurred US Science". The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  14. ↑ Moser, Petra; Voena, Alessandra (2012-02-01). "Compulsory Licensing: Evidence from the Trading with the Enemy Act" (PDF). American Economic Review. 102 (1): 396–427. doi:10.1257/aer.102.1.396. ISSN   0002-8282.
  15. ↑ Baten, Joerg; Bianchi, Nicola; Moser, Petra (2017-05-01). "Compulsory licensing and innovation – Historical evidence from German patents after WWI". Journal of Development Economics. 126: 231–242. doi: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2017.01.002 . ISSN   0304-3878.
  16. ↑ Hudson, Valerie M.; Matfess, Hilary (2017). "In Plain Sight: The Neglected Linkage between Brideprice and Violent Conflict". International Security. 42 (1): 7–40. doi:10.1162/isec_a_00289. ISSN   0162-2889.
  17. ↑ Ashraf, Nava; Bau, Natalie; Nunn, Nathan; Voena, Alessandra (2020-02-01). "Bride Price and Female Education". Journal of Political Economy. 128 (2): 591–641. doi:10.1086/704572. ISSN   0022-3808.
  18. 1 2 "Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments". BFI. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  19. ↑ Corno, Lucia; Hildebrandt, Nicole; Voena, Alessandra (May 2020). "Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments". Econometrica . 88 (3): 879–915.
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