EcoEchoes

In this episode, Judith Bom and Gaia Bagnasco discuss their latest paper mapping care pathways for people in their last 6 years before death with dementia in the Netherlands. You can find the paper here. First, we talk about why studying ageing and dementia matters and how the Dutch long-term care system works. We then move on to discuss what their latent class analysis reveals about three distinct care trajectories: the late formal care group, the mixed care group and the early nursing home group. We also talk about the important roles of informal care, income, gender and the home environment in predicting these pathways. Finally, we discuss their upcoming research on dementia-friendly housing and cross-country comparisons.
Guest: Judith Bom (Assistant professor) and Gaia Bagnasco (PhD), both in health economics at the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management
Hosts: Fanny Tallgren, Dyllis De Pessemier
Mentioned resources:
Dementie in kaart 

This episode’s guest is Anna Stirner, a PhD Candidate in Health Economics at the University of Cologne. She discusses her experimental study on physicians’ use of therapeutic decision support (DS) systems in pediatric antibiotic prescribing, examining how access, effort costs, and quality incentives shape uptake and care quality. The conversation explores the challenge of antibiotic overprescription, how younger versus more experienced physicians respond to DS, and policy implications for integrating DS into clinical practice. At the end, Anna also shares her next research steps and gives advice to PhD students.
Guest: Anna Stirner, PhD Candidate, University of CologneHost: Andrea De Palma
Timestamps:
(00:13) Anna’s research background and interest in decision support
(02:40) Decision support systems in German healthcare
(04:01) Research design and experimental setup
(12:54) Main results: effort costs, incentives, and uptake
(15:20) Case severity, physician experience, and heterogeneity
(21:00) Policy takeaways and implementation challenges
(23:52) Future research directions and advice for PhD students

Episode Description
This episode’s guest is Vahid, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Erasmus School of Economics. His work is focused on the intersection between labor and health economics. In this episode, he presents his working paper on childhood mental health effects of early life exposure to paternal job loss. The discussion sheds light on a critical aspect of job loss and how this scenario can hit harder on families by emotional and psychological challenges.  
Guest: Vahid Moghani, Postdoctoral Researcher, Erasmus School of Economics.
Host: Fanny Tallgren
Timestamps:
(06:02) Introduction to the study: job loss and effects on people
(10:14) Details on the dataset used (e.g., sample characteristics)
(21:40) Main findings of the study related to children’s medication use
(29:51) Reflections on policy implications
(35:50) Causal random forest as an alternative method to assess heterogeneity
(42:18) Recommendations on the use of AI in the scientific field

This episode’s guest is Professor Hans van Kippersluis from Erasmus School of Economics. He discusses his working paper “Skipping your workout, again? Measuring and understanding time inconsistency in physical activity”, co-authored with Diarmaid Ó Ceallaigh and Kirsten Rohde. The paper studies time inconsistency in physical activity using survey data from the Dutch Lifelines cohort. They find that participants not only overestimate but also underestimate their future exercise. We talk about why present bias may not be the only explanation for the misalignment between intentions and behaviour, and how it may not be a stable personality trait. Hans also explains the use of choice matching to incentivise honest survey responses. Finally, we discuss how to write well-structured papers, the use of econometric methods for causal inference, and how Hans keeps up with developments in the econometrics literature.
Guest: Hans van Kippersluis, Professor of Applied Economics at Erasmus School of EconomicsHosts: Fanny Tallgren & Prithviraj Basu Mallik
Timestamps:
(00:23) Introduction to Professor Hans and his research journey(03:43) Motivation for the study on physical activity and time inconsistency(08:21) Choice matching method to incentivise honest survey responses(13:33) Key findings of the paper(30:40) How to write a good economics paper(39:05) Causal inference and staying up to date with econometrics

This episode’s guest is Amal Ahmad, an Assistent Professor at the Development Economics group at Wageningen University. She presents her working paper on the effect of early mother's marriage on child growth in India. The authors explore this causal relationship using age at menarche as an instrumental variable. The conversation discusses the data and methods used, as well as policy implications and their political feasibility in the Indian context.
Guest: Amal Ahmad, Assistent Professor, Development Economics group, Wageningen University
Hosts: Prithviraj Basu Mallik & Dyllis De Pessemier

This episode's guest is Michael Haylock, a health economist now working in consulting after a postdoc at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He presents his paper “Improving the availability of stem cell donors,  a letter and email intervention” which looks at the effects of a behavioural intervention to reduce attrition among registered donors. We talk about the importance and logistics of stem cell donation, how commitment nudges can help identify more reliable donors, and the challenges of working with large registries. Michael also discusses a second paper on pro-social workplace behaviour, showing how leadership and personality shape helping cultures. The working paper is titled "Helping in the Workplace: The Role of Leadership and Employee Personality and Preferences". The episode ends with reflections on PhD life advice and transitioning to consultancy. 
Guest: Michael Haylock, Health Economist at bcmed GmbHHosts: Fanny Tallgren & Prithviraj Basu MallikDisclaimer: The views expressed are Michael’s own and do not represent those of his current or previous institutions.
Timestamps:
(00:23) Introduction to Michael Haylock and his research background
(03:56) What is the bone marrow registry and why stem cell donation matters
(08:29) How the donor–patient matching and international coordination works
(13:16) High attrition rates among registered donors and behavioural intervention design
(18:03) Summary of key findings: commitment nudges and donor reliability
(30:13) Second paper: helping behaviour in the workplace and leadership roles
(36:00) Trust, altruism, and personality as drivers of workplace cooperation
(43:39) Transitioning from academia to consulting: motivation and differences
(51:00) Productivity advice for PhD students and research workflow tips

This episode’s guest is Benjamin Chibuye, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Danish Centre for Health Economics (DaCHE) in Department of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark. He presents his working paper on physician altruism and opioid prescribing, focusing on how Danish general practitioners respond to national guidelines in light of their professional motivations. The conversation explores the complexities of health provider behaviour, the role of public service motivation, and the broader policy implications for addressing opioid overuse.
Guest: Benjamin Chibuye, Postdoctoral Researcher, Danish Centre for Health Economics, University of Southern Denmark
Hosts: Fanny Tallgren & Andrea De Palma
Timestamps:
(01:05) Benjamin’s academic journey and research interests in development and health economics
(06:08) Study overview: physician altruism, opioid guidelines, and the double agency problem
(14:16) Measuring altruism through survey data and linking it to prescribing behaviour
(20:00) Analytical strategy: using registry data and a difference-in-differences design
(27:25) Why physician heterogeneity matters for health policy effectiveness
(32:57) Reflections on the supply side of the opioid crisis and advice for early-career researchers
 

This one is for the experimental economists. Fanny shares her experience attending the Economic Science Association’s European Meeting in Helsinki in September 2024. This was Fanny's first experience attending a non-health conference. Listen to find out why the conference is worth attending if you run experiments. The next European meeting will take place in Brno, Czech Republic from Wednesday 3 September until Saturday 6 September 2025. Find out more about the conference by clicking this link. Deadline for submitting an abstract is 5th May. 
Also, this episode was recorded back in October 2024, which is before we had a proper studio. Therefore, this episode has rougher audio than in our latest episodes. Thanks for your patience with the sound quality!
Timestamps:
(0:00) Why try an "econ” conference & what the ESA actually does(2:00) Keynote #1 – Ingvil Almas(4:30) Keynote #2 – Douglas Bernheim(9:20) Keynote #3 – Leonardo Bursztyn (12:00) Special sessions: How to scale experiments with John List and Abhijeet Singh, The importance of reproducibility of experiments, How to get tenure(18:10) The range of experiments presented (Field, lab and online)(21:00) Conference culture—walking tours, beer tasting, reindeer-spotting & Sunday-9 a.m. presentations(24:00) Main take-aways

In this episode we introduce our co-host Dyllis De Pessemier. She briefly introduces herself and shares her experience attending the 34th Alzheimer Europe Conference in Geneva. She presented her first project there, titled "The effect of a person with dementia's permanent nursing home admission on their partner's mental well-being". We also talk about our experiences attending conferences alone. 
The next Alzheimer Europe conference will be from 6th to 8th October 2025 in Bologna, Italy. Abstract submission closes 30th April 2025! Link to the conference is here.
 

This episode's guest is Benoit Decerf, a Senior Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank, presenting his paper named "Attitudes on the trade-off between poverty and longevity". The discussion explores how mortality can be integrated into poverty measurement, the methodology used to estimate people's willingness to trade income for additional years of life, and the implications of these findings for policy and economic modeling. Benoit also shares insights into working at the World Bank compared to academia and provides advice for those interested in research roles at international institutions.
Guest: Benoit Decerf, Senior Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank
Hosts: Fanny Tallgren & Andrea De Palma
Disclaimer: The discussion from this podcast episode reflects Benoit's views, not those of the World Bank.
Timestamps: 
(01:19) Objectives and overview of Benoit's research
(05:54) Methodology for estimating the trade-off between poverty and mortality
(16:56) Key findings and cross-country comparisons
(32:55) Implications of the study and future research
(35:43) Working at the World Bank and tips for young researchers