On September the 19^th of 2016, the 49^thBNU Business School Celebrity Forum was held in Jingshi Building of Beijing Normal University. The specially invited guest speaker was Prof. David Neumark from the University of California.

This forum was hosted by Prof. Li Shi from the Business Administration Department of BNU Business School. Prof. Li began by giving a brief introduction of Prof. David Neumark. Prof. Neumark is Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where he directs the Center for Economics & Public Policy, and is a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.Prior to joining the faculty at UCI, Prof. Neumark was an Economist at the Federal Reserve Board, an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Professor at Michigan State University. He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Prof. Li Shi Hosting the Forum

Prof. DavidNeumark’s Presentation

Prof. Neumark’s presentation was focused on he and his colleague’s research on “Is it Harder for Older Workers to Find Jobs? New and Improved Evidence from a Field Experiment”. At present, correlation studies showed ample and clear evidence ofage discrimination in employment relationships. Their research designed and implemented a large-scale field experiment - a resume correspondence study - to address a number of potential limitations of existing field experiments testing for age discrimination, which may bias their results. They also studied ages closer to retirement than in past studies, and used a richer set of job profiles for older workers to test for differences associated with transitions to less demanding jobs (“bridge jobs”) at older ages. Based on evidence from over 40,000 job applications, which is by far the largest-scale correspondence study ofhiring discrimination that has been attempted, they found stronger and more robustevidence of age discrimination against older women than older men. Policy efforts made to extend working lives might productively help to reduce discriminatory barriersto older women’s employment. Prof. Neumark endedhisspeech by hoping that their research would contribute to the social development, also thanked BNU Business School for their invitationto this forum.

After Prof. Neumark’s presentation, Prof. Li Shi gave a brief summary of his speech, then invited all attendants to discuss relevant issues such as employment and the aging population. The forum ended in heated discussion and warm applause.

Article Submission: Song Jing