In this episode, Alexander Ahammer, an applied microeconomist, chats with and Prithvi and Andrea after his presentation about his working paper "The labor and health economics of breast cancer" co-authored with Gerald J. Pruckner and Flora Stiftinger. The paper uses Austrian microdata to study how a breast cancer diagnosis impacts health expenditures and labor market outcomes. They find that a diagnosis increases inpatient health expenditure, imposes a wage penalty and reduces work hours in comparison to other women of similar age who do not get diagnosed with breast cancer. They argue that a potential reason for reduced work hours is a change in time preferences rather than incapacitation or employer discrimination. Ahammer also shares his research interests in general and gives advice for early-career researchers on finding meaningful research questions and improving presentation skills. Guest: Alexander Ahammer (Assistant professor at the Johannes Kepler University Linz and a Research Affiliate at IZA Institute of Labor Economics)   Hosts: Prithviraj Basu Mallik and Andrea De Palma    Timestamps:  (01:14) Ahammer introduces himself and summarizes the paper (07:00) The paper's research methodology and data  (14:17) Ahammer’s broader research agenda (18:23) Discussion of how to choose research projects. Low hanging fruit vs "big" research ideas (23:40) The importance of presentation skills and telling a story   If you would like to donate for breast cancer research, we have put a link for you here.