Join us to hear from Ben Marx, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, presenting, "Disparities in Aid for Natural Disasters". Abstract: Private transfers of aid provide ex-post support to victims of risky events, but the social insurance value of these transfers depends on how they vary with severity of the event and victim characteristics. Using detailed daily data on donations to the American Red Cross, we study patterns of natural-disaster giving using a heterogeneity robust difference-in-differences estimator. After deadly tornadoes, donations are elevated for 10 to 15 weeks within a 200-mile radius of the affected area, and responses are increasing in tornado severity. The relative giving response is similar whether a tornado strikes a high-income or low-income area, but the dollar value of donations is steeply increasing in the income of the affected area. This disparity arises because higher-income sites are located near larger and higher-income populations and because the donation response decreases in the distance between donors and the affected area. These findings suggest a role for redistribution to offset regressivity that donors themselves did not intend. The Clarence Tow Lectures in Economics Series brings high-profile researchers to Tippie College of Business to present to an audience of faculty, PhD students, and researchers from around the University of Iowa.

Boli Xu is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Tippie College of Business. He will be discussing "Reserve Price Signaling with Public Information: Evidence from Online Auto Auctions."

Join us to hear from Yi Hao, University of Iowa.

Join us to hear from Huiyi Guo, Texas A&M University.

Join us to hear from Martin Grace, Temple University.

Join us to hear from Daniel Bauer, University of Wisconsin.