Fall Semester 2025-2026
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Date:24/09/2025 - 13:30 to 15:00
Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Title: The café economy: Structural transformation in Greece in the wake of austerity and “reforms”
Speaker: Associate Professor Michalis Nikiforos, Department of History, Economics and Society, University of Geneva
Host: Assistant Professor Kospentaris Ioannis, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 13.30 -15.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36
Attachments:
PDF of Relevant PaperAbstract: This paper investigates the structural transformation of the Greek economy over the past fifteen years, focusing on the increasing dominance of the Accommodation and Food Service Activities (AFSA) sector in the aftermath of austerity and structural reforms. Despite promises of productivity gains through labor market and product market reforms, the Greek economy has experienced a sharp decline in labor productivity and a significant reallocation of employment towards low-productivity sectors, especially AFSA, reminiscent of a Lewis-type dual sector economy. Using a simple Panel-VAR model we find that declining aggregate demand and real wages were key drivers of this productivity collapse. Our findings support theories of technological change that emphasize output growth and the cost of labor as fundamental determinants of productivity growth.
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Date:16/10/2025 - 15:30 to 17:00
Title: Refugees and entrepreneurship: Evidence from Ukrainians in Poland (with Cevat Giray Aksoy and Piotr Lewandowski)
Speaker: Professor Pierre-Louis Vezina, King's College London
Host: Assistant Professor Kospentaris Ioannis, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 15.30 -17.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36
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Date:23/10/2025 - 15:30 to 17:00
Title: "Updating Density Estimates using Conditional Information Projection: Stock Index Returns and Stochastic Dominance Relations"
(co-authored with Stelios Arvanitis, Richard McGee)Speaker: Professor Thierry Post, Nazarbayev University
Host: Assistant Professor Alexopoulos Angelos, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 15.30 -17.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36
Attachments:
PDF of Relevant PaperAbstract: We propose, analyze, and apply a Conditional Information Projection Density Estimator (CIPDE) that estimates latent conditional density functions by projecting a prior timeseries estimator onto distributions that satisfy a set of conditional moment conditions with functional nuisance parameters. The derivation of limit theory coupled with informationtheoretic results characterizes the estimator and its improvements over the prior estimator. Theoretically, CIPDE is shown to achieve a lower limiting relative entropy to the latent distribution, provided that the prior is inconsistent and the moment conditions are well specified. An application to stock index options is presented using conditional moment restrictions based on market prices and pricing restrictions for index options. CIPDE is shown to enhance index return density forecasts out-of-sample and improve the out-ofsample investment performance of index option strategies by better timing protective put purchases and covered call writing.
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Date:30/10/2025 - 15:30 to 17:00
Title: ""Bayesian binary classification under label uncertainty with network-informed Gaussian Processes""
Speaker: Postdoctoral Researcher Konstantinos Bourazas, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business.
Host: Assistant Professor Alexopoulos Angelos, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 15.30 -17.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36
Abstract: We study Bayesian binary classification under one-sided (positive-only) label noise—known as positive–unlabeled (PU) learning—with both covariate and multi-layer network data. We combine these modalities through a Product-of-Experts (PoE) model, where each expert handles one data source, the latent logits combine additively, and the likelihood accounts for missed positives via a false-negative rate η. Our main contributions are: (i) identifiability under mild calibration conditions; (ii) posterior contraction of the latent function at the near-minimax nonparametric rate; and (iii) parametric $n^{-1/2}$ contraction for η. We show the PoE model is distributionally equivalent to a single Gaussian process with composite covariance, and that expert agreement tightens finite-sample bounds. We develop a bespoken Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to estimate under the Bayesian paradigm this PU–PoE setting, proving scalability as the number of experts grows. Empirically, our method outperforms strong PU baselines and proves useful in real fuel-tax fraud detection data from the Greek economy, providing calibrated uncertainty for decision support.
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Date:06/11/2025 - 15:30 to 17:00
Title: “Wealth Tax Enforcement: The Role of Tax and Institutional Design”
(with José Maria Durán-Cabré, Alejandro Esteller-Moré and Christos Kotsogiannis)Speaker: Assistant Professor Luca Salvadori, Autonomous Univ. of Barcelona
Host: Assistant Professor Alexopoulos Angelos, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 15.30 -17.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36
Abstract: Enforcing wealth tax compliance among high-net-worth individuals is particularly challenging. Using administrative data on the Net Wealth Tax for Catalan taxpayers over the 2011-2020 period, this paper evaluates the impact of audits on voluntary compliance. The evidence suggests that wealth tax audits do enhance compliance, but the impact is short-lived — and driven by taxpayers rebalancing their tax evasion and avoidance responses. On the institutional side, the results indicate that Spain’s overlapping tax audit mandates can create coordination frictions that reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of audit-based enforcement of the New Wealth Tax. Effective enforcement depends not only on robust audit strategies, but also on coherent institutional design and sound tax policy.
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Date:20/11/2025 - 15:30 to 17:00
Title: "TBA"
Speaker: Assistant Professor Spyridon Lazarakis, Lancaster University
Host: Assistant Professor Alexopoulos Angelos, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 15.30 -17.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36
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Date:27/11/2025 - 15:30 to 17:00
Title: "ΤΒΑ"
Speaker: Professor Christodoulos Stefanadis, University of Piraeus
Host: Assistant Professor Efthymios Athanasiou, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 15.30 -17.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Derigny Wing, 4th floor, Room D4
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Date:04/12/2025 - 15:30 to 17:00
Title: "ΤΒΑ"
Speaker: Associate Professor Costas Cavounidis, University of Warwick
Host: Assistant Professor Efthymios Athanasiou, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 15.30 -17.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36
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Date:12/02/2026 - 15:30 to 17:00
Title: "TBA"
Speaker: Professor Xavier D’Haultfoeuille, CREST–ENSAE (IP Paris)
Host: Assistant Professor Alexopoulos Angelos, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business
Time: 15.30 -17.00
Room: 76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36
