
BENJAMIN ELSNER

HELLO
I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at University College Dublin. The central themes of my research are
1) causes and consequences of migration
2) determinants of human capital (education, environmental factors)
I am a Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Bonn/Germany, the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy and the Centre for Research & Analysis of Migration at UCL.
Contact: benjamin(dot)elsner(at)ucd(dot)ie
Follow me on Twitter: @ben_elsner
Follow me on Mastodon: @ben_elsner@econtwitter.net
WORKING PAPERS
joint with Arnaud Chevalier, Andreas Lichter and Nico Pestel, 2019
R & R at Journal of the European Economic Association

joint with Emanuele Albarosa, 2021.
R&R at World Development
This paper was funded by the World Bank as part of the "Preventing Social Conflict and Promoting Social Cohesion in Forced Displacement Contexts" activity.
[Presentation at the ECA Talk on Forced Displacement (02:00)]

joint with Luna Bellani, Stefano Ceolotto & Nico Pestel, 2021
[Video of IZA panel discussion on the effects of air pollution]

joint with Costanza Biavaschi 2014

PUBLICATIONS
joint with Florian Wozny
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, forthcoming
Winner of the Best Paper Award at the Spring Meeting of Young Economists 2018
Winner of the Novartis Prize in Health Economics 2018

joint with Ingo Isphording and Ulf Zölitz
Economic Journal, Volume 131, Issue 640, November 2021, Pages 3182–3206.

joint with Costanza Biavaschi, Michał Burzyński and Joël Machado
Journal of Development Economics, 2020, 142
Best Paper Award at the Warsaw International Economic Meeting (WIEM) 2016

joint with Florian Buhlmann and Andreas Peichl
International Tax and Public Finance, 2018, 25(6), 1490-1518

joint with Gaia Narciso and Jacco Thijssen
Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2018, 80(3), 659-688

joint with Ingo E. Isphording
Journal of Human Resources, 2018, 53(2), 356-381.
Media coverage: Bloomberg, Boston Globe, BBC


IZA World of Labor, 2015

Journal of International Economics, 2014, 91(1), 154-163

Journal of Population Economics, 2013, 26(2), 531-553
Winner of the FEEM Award by the European Economic Association in 2010

OTHER WRITING
Policy Reports, Book Chapters, and Books
EDITED BOOK: FOUNDATIONS OF MIGRATION ECONOMICS
This book celebrates the contributions of George Borjas and Barry Chiswick – winners of the IZA Prize in Labor Economics 2011 – to the economics of migration.
Published 2019 with Oxford University Press
CHAPTER: IMMIGRATION AND REDISTRIBUTION
This chapter reviews the literature on the effect of immigration on preferences for redistribution as well as the effect of immigration on taxation and spending.
Joint work with Jeff Concannon. Forthcoming 2022 in: Handbook of Global Migration, edited by Robert. M. Sauer.
This chapter summarizes Germany's experience with immigration in the 10 years following the EU Enlargement of 2004.
Joint work with Klaus F. Zimmermann. Published in: M. Kahanec and K.F. Zimmermann (eds.): Labor Migration, EU Enlargement, and the Great Recession, Springer: Berlin, et al. 2016, 85 - 101
TEACHING
At UCD, I teach econometrics and public economics. I also taught courses in microeconomics, labor economics and the economics of migration at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Luxembourg, and the University of Regensburg and gave workshops and masterclasses at the Central Bank of Ireland, Eurofound, the University of Örebro, the UCD Geary Institute, and the European Business School.
For my contribution to teaching and learning I received the Teaching Excellence Award by the College of Social Sciences and Law at UCD.

ECONOMETRICS TRAININGS
I regularly provide econometrics trainings, ranging from crash courses for incoming PhD students at the European Business School to staff trainings in the latest causal inference methods at the Central Bank of Ireland. The trainings typically last 2-3 days and include theory lectures as well as lab sessions with Stata and R.
[Syllabus Causal Inference Training]
I have posted videos of two online courses on YouTube:
1) Causal Inference (M.Sc or PhD level)
2) Public Economics (B.Sc level)
GET IN TOUCH
University College Dublin
School of Economics, Office G208
Belfield, Dublin 4
Ireland
+353 716 8446