Event Details: 

Join our general mailing list to receive the zoom link for each date.

The Canadian Women Economist Committee (CWEC/CFEC) is pleased to present the brownbag seminar schedule for winter/spring 2026. The seminars are held on the last Monday of every month (10 AM PT/11 AM MT/12 PM CT/1 PM ET/2 PM AT)

April 27

Justine Guillochon, Laval University, Green Tax Pass-Through to Retail Fuel Prices and Firm Heterogeneity: Evidence from France

Combining a natural experiment and high-frequency information on retail fuel prices, we investigate the level, dynamic, heterogeneity, and dependence of the pass-through of a green tax. The green tax’s economic incidence passes largely to consumers but with significant heterogeneity across gas stations. The magnitudeand speed of pass-through vary between 84% and 100%, and two and eleven days. The frequency of price changes shapes the tax’s incidence. Firms frequently adjusting prices pass through the tax, whereas those that do not, adjust their high markups due to strategic complementarities that slow down the pass-through according to a heterogeneous-firm model.

Apoorva Babbar, University of Calgari, Generative AI in Corporate Settings: Does Gender Matter?

What is the impact of firms’ responses to Generative AI on investor behaviour? This paper studies this question by analyzing gender differences in executive communication about AI during earnings calls of U.S. publicly traded firms. Using earnings call transcripts combined with stock return data, I study how investors react to AI-related discussions by male and female executives specifically around the ChatGPT launch. The results show that markets respond differently to AI communication depending on the gender of the speaker. Mentions of AI by female executives are associated with lower short-run abnormal returns, while AI mentions by male executives do not significantly affect market reactions. However, expressions of certainty about AI by female executives generate positive market responses, suggesting that tone of communication play an important role in how investors interpret AI-related discussions.