Ian Tonks

Ian Tonks, professor of Finance, Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Bristol, gave a talk titled “Let Us Share Things Fairly: Wealth Differences Following a Reform to Divorce Legislation in GB”. He analyzed a significant reform to divorce law in GB, which required married couples to split their property in the event of divorce. He also analyzed the remarriage rate and how the reform would affect particular groups such as low versus high income.

Ricky Kanabar

Dr. Ricky Kanabar, assistant professor of Social Policy, Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath, made a speech titled “The Effect of an Increased UK State Pension Age on Expected Working Life of Employees”. He said, in response to an increase in statutary retirement age men do not adjust their expectations upward as would be consistent with the policy objective. For women, who experienced a more rapid increase in their statutary retirement over the sample period, partial adjustment takes place: for each one-year increase in the statutary retirement age the early retirement age increases, by an average of 0.3 years.

Wang Jian, associate professor of SHU-UTS SILC Business School, gave a talk titled “Urbanization, Agglomeration and Fertility: Theory and Evidence”. He discussed the association between economic agglomeration and fertility. First, he proposed a theoretical framework to explore the mechanism of agglomeration impacts on total fertility rate. Then, he cited the empirical evidence from cross-country to show that the total fertility rates are negatively related to urbanization controlling other factors. In addition, the effects of urbanization on fertility are heterogenous across countries.