Economizing Time: Economics Power Couple Ulrike Malmendier and Stefano DellaVigna offer Words of Wisdom on Balancing Career and Family

Interview by IBER’s Casondra Sobieralski, Fall 2008

CS: What kind of research do you both do?

SD: We both do research broadly defined as psychology in economics. That means we take insights from psychology and apply them to economics. This approach was pioneered by scholars in our department, professors George Akerlof and Matthew Rabin, so we are fortunate to be here with them. Ulrike works more on behavioral aspects of finance, I work more on the effect of media on behavior. We have done work together, though, on self-control, studies looking at the health club contracts people choose. (They choose contracts that they think will make them exercise more.)

CS: With academia being such a competitive field, how have you had to rearrange career goals to meet the personal goal of having a family?

UM: For us, it is fantastic that our jobs are so flexible in terms of where and when we do our work. We basically just need a powerful computer each, as opposed to a whole science lab.

SD: The day after the baby’s delivery--two weeks earlier than expected--we were both sitting on the hospital bed and writing our undergraduate exams. For the rest of the summer, we mostly worked from home. Right after the birth, Ulrike’s students came to our house for advising. We moved to Berkeley from San Francisco.

UM: The flexibility of living close helps. But the type of work we do also makes it possible.

SD: It’s never easy, but we are lucky that, being in the same field, we have been able to combine goals. Plus, for both of us, economics is a passion. So when we spend time together, and we are talking economics, is that fun, or is that work?

UM: The other big part of our academic life is conferences. We can go together, with the baby, and one of us looks after the child while the other presents a paper. I have had a lot of good advice from more senior women about how to plan for a baby, and how to get help once a child arrives. I had not heard about “night nurses,” for example. It sounded like a luxury for nineteenth century aristocrats! But this tip has been so helpful towards academic productivity. Be with your kid, do your research, and the other stuff get help with; that is the advice that female colleagues gave me. It has been working out very well. Honestly, I expected it to be even tougher.

CS: Do you think having a child will change the scope of your research at all? Do you expect that concerns will change, and that you will want to investigate certain research topics as a result?

SD: I don’t know. It has not so far, but it may. I find my research is sometimes motivated by things I care about personally, like the impact of media bias on voting—media bias is so blatant in the Italian media! As a parent, things like health care and the quality of schools—those topics could fold into research questions. Here is an example of how what is going on in life can influence research questions: Ulrike mentioned night nurses. These are nurses that come at night so new parents can sleep. Interviewing them we found that they all told us up front, “My rate is $18 an hour.” Conversely, we have found that nannies all asked, “What are you willing to pay?” It is almost the same job. As economists we ask, what does this difference express about these two markets?

CS: UC Berkeley is known for having family-friendly policies. Are there any policies in place that you feel have benefited you? Any that we do not have yet that you think would be useful to implement?

SD: Berkeley does have family-friendly policies. Some were implemented recently, such as reduction of teaching loads for new parents. Berkeley is one of the most generous universities now in this regard. However, while the policies are generous, the University does not necessarily support the department chair by offering more money to hire temporary instructors to fill in. So if five people have children in one year, the department is severely impacted in terms of course offerings. I would like to see the University give more funding to cover this.

UM: On the other hand, the new policies are a big step ahead. Berkeley used to be worse than Stanford at supporting families. Then Berkeley updated their policies two years ago. When making the decision to leave Stanford and to take a position here, their improved maternity leave became a plus, whereas previously (when I was first on the job market six years ago) their poor policies were a minus. In my case, family leave was not a dominant factor in my choosing to teach here; there were other reasons, especially the strength of the department. But perhaps other talented candidates would have weighted factors differently.

SD: We have two other couples working in our department, David and Christina Romer, George Akerlof and Janet Yellen. It is an honor for Ulrike and me to have those examples. If we can even come close to their level of productivity—a Nobel laureate, the CEO of the San Francisco Fed, top advisors to Barack Obama… These two couples are also among the nicest people we know. It is very encouraging to have such role models in the department, people combining research and teaching excellence with a very warm human side.

UM: Comparing us to previous couples, I’d like to add that having had my first child, experiencing and understanding a bit better how much it changes everything, how much busier we are, I appreciate how much more difficult even it must have been for women who came before me. They didn’t have good maternity leave or the same sort of support. It gives me a whole new level of respect for what they accomplished.

CS: Who changes more diapers, and would you actually agree upon the answer?

SD: At least in the first two weeks, changing diapers was something I really wanted to do, since there were places I could not fill in for Ulrike as the mom. Now it is more shared

UM: I definitely agree. Stefano is great that way! He is very involved. We both want to be close to the baby, and as the mom I have an advantage in that I am the one feeding him. So Stefano likes to play and take care of him.

CS: Any last bits of advice to other scholar couples?

SD: I learned a joke from another economics power couple, Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson at Penn. They say it is both fun and difficult to work together, but you know you’ve crossed the boundary when one person says, “Have you revised chapter three of the book yet?” and the other says, “No, but I finished the laundry.”

To be further inspired by the amazing professional accomplishments of these unstoppable young professors, see their profiles at: http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/econ/faculty/malmendier_u.shtml

http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/econ/faculty/dellavigna_s.shtml