LONDON, England – As if to embrace former President Jeffrey S. Lehman’s ’77 call for an international university, Cornell spread its tendrils across the Atlantic last week.
Prof. Francesca Molinari, economics, returned to Ithaca last week after presenting her research on a European tour of sorts.
Molinari, a native of northern Italy, first visited the University of Mannheim, near Frankfurt, Germany. She presented her recent work, “Asymptotic Properties For a Class of Partially Identified Models,” coauthored with Prof. Arie Beresteanu, economics, Duke University.
After a brief visit to her home country, Molinari served as visiting professor at University College London from Feb. 15 to 23. In addition to presenting her results at the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Econometrics Lunch Seminar, Molinari had time to consult with colleagues, exchange opinions and receive feedback.
“In part it was a discussion of whether they can apply the methods from this paper to the problems they’re working on. This is a methodological paper,” Molinari said. “We propose a method to test hypotheses for complex problems.”
Many of Molinari’s colleagues seemed impressed with her work.
“She develops the econometric theory that allows us to draw inferences in situations where we cannot estimate particular points, but can only estimate the range in which a set of parameters might exist,” said Prof. Costas Meghir, chair of the Department of Economics at UCL. “We work a bit in that area as well, so there’s a shared interest.”