European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics

Title : Female Jobs and Fertility:Long-term Experimental Evidence from Ethiopian Factories

Abstract : We conducted an experiment with 27 factories in Ethiopia to test the widespread hypothesisthat formal employment among women reduces fertility. Tracking respondents over eight years,we find that women who were randomly offered a job had more children than the control group:total births rose by 5% and childlessness fell by almost half. The effect on fertility emergedonly after the effect on wage employment had vanished, around three years after the initial joboffer. There is no effect on fertility preferences, bargaining power, or marital status, but cleareffects on savings and household income. These patterns are consistent with a sequential modelin which households face money and time constraints to achieve their fertility goals: the incomeeffect is offset by the opportunity cost of time in the short run, but prevails in the long run. Ourresults suggest that women taking up factory jobs played little role in explaining why fertilitydeclined as the country industrialized.

Title : Foreign Bonds, Territorial Change andRepudiation: The Silesian Bonds Saga

Abstract : Once a famous tale of conquest, law and foreign bond markets, thesaga of the Silesian Bonds of 1734-37 is missing from the literature on sovereigndebt. The Silesian Bonds were among the earliest foreign currency sovereignbonds issued, about 75 years earlier than the often invoked 1818 Prussian issuethat has been described as the first Eurobond. The Silesian bonds were issued by Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor of theHouse of Habsburg, to investors in London and Amsterdam.  They were tradable, denominated in foreigncurrency, and secured by a pledge of revenues from the estates of Silesia.  Although bondholders seemed well-protected bya variety of covenants promising that the sovereign would refrain from raisingdefenses, there was reluctance to pay, delay, and ultimately partialrepudiation. The story we tell centers around what happens to the debts after FrederickII of Prussia seized much of Silesia in 1740–42, then agreed in the 1742 Peaceof Berlin to take over from Austria the liability of the Silesian bonds, whilefinding excuses to not pay. The tale that follows is about what happened to theclaims of the two sets of bondholders, Dutch and English. 

On March 19, 2026, Finance for Society will host a high-level conference bringing together policymakers, economists and business leaders to reflect on the future of the European policy agenda in the wake of the Draghi report.

The conference will focus on two major transitions that will shape the next chapter of Europe - the green transition and the security transition - and on the crucial political issue of financing these transitions in an increasingly constrained global environment.
This conference is organised with the support of the Helios Foundation.

https://sbsem.ulb.be/research/solvay-public-policy-house/events/conference-managing-european-transitions-in-a-challenging-world

Registration is required due to limited capacity.