The Political Economy Seminar focuses on formal and quantitative work in the political economy field, including formal political theory.
Fall 2022
- August 29: Tara Slough (NYU)
- September 12: Alessandra Fenizia (GWU)
- September 26: Sarah Moshary (Berkeley)
- Topic: “Market Structure and Political Influence in the Auto Retail Industry”
- October 3: Martin Fiszbein (Boston U)
- Topic: “Frontier Gender Norms: History and Legacy”
- October 10: Suresh Naidu (Columbia), Joint w/ Economic History Seminar
- Topic: “Compensate the Losers? Economic Policy and Partisan Realignment in the US”
- October 24: Nico Voigtländer (UCLA), Joint w/ Economic History Seminar – Note change in time and place: 639 Evans Hall, 2-3:30 PM
- Topic: “Organizing a Kingdom”
- November 7: Milena Djourelova (U Chicago)
- November 21: Brian Knight (Brown)
- December 5: Thomas Palfrey (Caltech)
- Topic: “Organizing for Collective Action: Olson Revisited”
Spring 2023
- February 27: Matias Iaryczower (Princeton)
- “Reputation in a Committee with Multiple Principals: The Case of the FOMC”
- March 13: Sergio Montero (Rochester)
- March 20: Claudio Ferraz (U British Columbia)
- “Distribution of Power, Schooling, and Structural Transformation: Evidence from Industrialization in Brazil”
- April 3 (Virtual): Massimo Morelli (Bocconi U)
- “Does Position Taking Crowd Out Policy-Making? Congressional Capacity and the Quality of Laws”
- April 10: Vicky Fouka (Stanford)
- April 24: Diana Moreira (UC Davis)
- “State Paralysis: The Impacts of Procurement Risk on Government Effectiveness”
- May 1: Nicolas Longuet Marx (Columbia)
- “Party Lines or Voter Preferences? Explaining Political Realignment”
- September 20: Mattias Polborn (Vanderbilt) – Virtually via Zoom (link will be provided via email, do not go to the building location)
- October 4: Murilo Ramos (Ph.D. Student – Berkeley)
- “Corrupt Politicians and the Power of a Threat: Evidence from a Policy Experiment in Brazil”
- October 11: Gérard Roland (Berkeley)
- “Hobbesian Wars and Democracy”
- October 18: Germán S. Gieczewski (Princeton)
- November 1: Jaya Wen (Harvard)
- November 15: Karam Kang (CMU) – Virtually via Zoom (link will be provided via email, do not go to the building location)
- November 29: Maria Carreri (UCSD)
Fall 2018
- September 10: Andy Hall, Stanford, “How do Electoral Incentives Affect Legislator Behavior?”
- September 24: Bard Harstad, UIO, “Pledge-and-Review Bargaining”
- October 8: Juan Ortner, BU, “Searching for Policy Reforms”
- October 22: Ulrike Malmendier, UCB, “The Long-lasting Effects of Living Under Communism on Financial Risk-Taking”
- November 5: Ian Turner, Yale, “Reviewing Procedure vs. Judging Substance: The Scope of Review and Bureaucratic Policymaking“
- November 19: No Seminar
- December 3: Mike Gibilisco, Cal Tech, “Decentralization and the Gamble for Unity”
Spring 2019
- January 28: Bob Powell, (UC Berkeley), “Endogenous Intractability: Why Some Persistent Problems Persist.”
- February 11: Patrick Francois and Jim Fearon, (University of British Columbia), “A Theory of Elite Initiated Democratization, Illustrated With the Case of Myanmar”
- February 25: David Yang, (Stanford), “The Coordination Consequences of Media Censorship: Experimental Evidence from China”
- March 4: Santiago Oliveros, (University of Essex), “Collective Hold-Up” (joint with Matias Iaryczower)
- March 18: Paola Giuliano, (UCLA), “Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Educational Performance of Natives”
- April 8: Imran Rasul, (University College London), “Skills, Signals and Search in Low-income Labor Markets: Evidence from a Six Year Two-Sided Field Experiment”
- April 15: Fabrizio Zilibotti, (Yale), “Business Cycle during Structural Change: Arthur Lewis’ Theory from a Neoclassical Perspective”
- April 29: Massimo Morelli, (Bocconi), From Weber to Kafka: Political Instability and the Overproduction of Laws
Fall 2017
- September 11: Alessandro Lizzeri, New York University
- September 25: Paul Novosad, Dartmouth (Room: Moses Hall 201) “Estimating Intergenerational Mobility with Coarse Data: A Nonparametric Approach”
- October 16: Na’ama Shenhav, Dartmouth (“Women’s Enfranchisement and Children’s Education: The Long-Run Impact of the U.S. Suffrage Movement”)
- October 30: Bill Easterly, New York University (“Shrinking Dictators: How much Economic Growth can we attribute to National Leaders?”)
- November 13: Saad Gulzar, Stanford (“Politicians: Experimental Evidence on Candidacy and Performance”)
- November 27: Claudio Ferraz, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (“Can Entertainment Media Undermine Dictatorships? Evidence from Brazil’s Novelas”)
Spring 2018
- January 15: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- January 29: Matilde Bombardini, University of British Columbia (Joint with International Economics) “Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence”
- February 12: Guo Xu, University of California, Berkeley “Ties that bind? Social proximity and bureaucrat performance: Evidence from India”
- February 26: Jörg Spenkuch, Northwestern “Politics from the Bench? Evidence from SCOTUS”
- March 12: Ben Olken, MIT (Joint with Development Seminar. LOCATION: Evans Hall 648 4:00pm-5:30pm) Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats through Performance-Based Postings
- April 2: Francesco Trebbi, University of British Columbia (Joint with Development Seminar. LOCATION: Evans hall 648 4:00pm-5:30pm) “Making Policy Matter: Voter Responses to Campaign Promises”
- April 23: Sebastian Siegloch, Universität Mannheim. “The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany”
- September 12: Yuichiro Kamada, UC Berkeley Haas, “Valence Candidates and Ambiguous Platforms in Policy Announcement Games”
- September 26: Steve Callander, Stanford GSB, “Policy Advice in a Complicated World”
- October 10: Mike Ting, Columbia Poli Sci
- October 24: Pierre Yared, Columbia GSB
- November 7: Aniol Llorente Saguer, Queen Mary University of London
- November 21: Sean Gailmard, UC Berkeley Poli Sci
Fall 2015
- Sept 28: Kei Kawai, Berkeley, “Voter Turnout and Preference Aggregation”
- Oct 12: Alex Hirsch, Cal Tech, “The Lobbyist’s Dilemma”
- Oct 26: Vicky Fouka, Stanford, “Backlash: The Unintended Effects of Language Prohibition in US Schools after World War I”
- Nov 16: Bard Harstad, UiO, “Conservation Contracts and Political Regimes.”
- Nov 23: Peter Buisseret, Chicago, “Dynamics of Policymaking: Stepping Back to Leap Forward, Stepping Forward to Keep Back“
Spring 2016
- Feb. 8: Ruixue Jia, UC San Diego, “Generational Culture Gap and Elderly Suicide” (working title)
- Feb. 29: Bernardo Santos Da Silveira, Washington University, “Bargaining with Asymmetric Information: An Empirical Study of Plea Negotiations”
- Mar. 14: Avidit Acharya, Stanford University, “Improving the Relationship: A Principal-Agent Model of Progressive Learning and Path Dependence.”
- Apr. 4: Konstantin Sonin, University of Chicago “Social Mobility and Support for Democracy: Re-evaluating de Tocqueville”
- Apr. 18: Naor Ben-Yehoyada, Cambridge University, “Ship-napping: the relationship between patronage and extortion during the Sicily-Tunisia Fish War, 1960-1995,”
- Apr. 25: Omer Moav, Warwick, “Geography, Transparency, and Institutions.” Joint with Micro Theory seminar, note special time and location: 4:00pm, Location: 639 Evans Hall.
- CANCELLED May 2: Steve Callander, Stanford University, “Policy Advice in a Complicated World.”
Fall 2014
- Sep 15: Stelios Michalopoulos, Brown, “The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa” (Joint with Econ History Seminar)
- Sep 29: Camilo Garcia-Jimeno, Penn, “State Capacity and Economic Development: A Network Approach” (Joint with Econ History Seminar)
- Oct 13: Johanna Rickne & Olle Folke, Columbia, “Economic Effects of Political Dynasties”
- Oct 27: Melissa Dell, Harvard, “Path Dependence in Development: Evidence from the Mexican Revolution” (Joint with Econ History Seminar)
- Nov 10: Salvatore Nunnari, Columbia, “A Theory of Power Wars”
- Nov 24: Alberto Bisin, NYU, “On the Joint Evolution of Culture and Institutions”
Spring 2015
- Feb 2: Shachar Kariv, Berkeley, “The Distributional Preferences of Americans”
- Feb 9: Noam Yuchtman, Berkeley, “Curriculum and Ideology”
- Mar 2: Pablo Querubin, NYU, “State Capacity, Local Governance and Economic Development in Vietnam.” Joint paper with Melissa Dell and Nathan Lane.
- Mar 16: Michael Callen, Harvard, “Tailoring Intertemporal Incentives: An Application to Polio Vaccination Drives in Pakistan”
- Apr 6: Richard Van Weelden, Chicago, “Informative Cheap Talk in Elections”
- Apr 20: Adam Meirowitz, Princeton, “Informative Voting in Large Elections”
- May 4: Torsten Persson, Stockholm University, “Norms, Enforcement, and Tax Evasion”
Fall 2013
- Sept 9: Ernesto Dal Bó, Berkeley, “The Demand for Bad Policy When Voters Underappreciate Equilibrium Effects“
- Sept 23: Guido Tabellini, Bocconi, “Moderating Political Extremism: Single Round vs Runoff Elections Under Plurality Rule“
- Oct 7: Jon Eguia, NYU, “Discrimination and Assimilation“
- Oct 21: Andrew Little, Cornell, “The Political Violence Cycle“
- Nov 4: Yosh Halberstam, Toronto, “Are Social Media More Social than Media? Evidence from Ideological Segregation on Twitter”
- Nov 25: Filipe Campante, Harvard, “Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan“
Spring 2014
- Jan 27: Marco Battaglini, Princeton, “A Political Economy Theory of Fiscal Policy and Unemployment” (Joint with Micro Theory)
- Feb 10: John Morgan, Berkeley, “One in a Million: A Field Experiment on Belief Formation and Pivotal Voting“
- Feb 24: Neil Malhotra, Stanford, “Political Ideology and Racial Preferences in Online Dating“
- March 10: Pablo Montagnes, Chicago, “Political Incentives to Privatize“
- March 31: Carlo Prato, Georgetown, “Electoral Control and the Human Capital of Politicians“
- April 14: Paola Conconi, Brussels, “Guns and Votes“
- April 28: Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, CalTech, “Income Versus Sanitation: Mortality Decline in Paris, 1880-1914” (Joint with Economic History, 2pm, Evans 597)
Fall 2012
- Sept 10: Alessandro Lizzeri, NYU, “Government Policy with Time Inconsistent Voters“
- Sept 24: Pablo Hernandez, Berkeley, “Experiments on Emergent Leadership, Lying Aversion, and Reciprocal Altruism: The Importance of Context“
- Oct 8: Maria Petrova, New School, “Do Political Blogs Matter? Corruption in State-Controlled Companies, Blog Postings, and DDoS Attacks“
- Oct 22: Mehdi Shadmehr, Miami, “A Theory of State Censorship“
- Nov 5: Macartan Humphreys, Columbia, “Policing Politicians: Citizen Empowerment and Political Accountability in Uganda“
- Nov 19: Andrea Vindigni, Lucca, “A Theory of Political Entrenchment“
- Nov 26: Eric Chaney, Harvard, “Pirates of the Mediterranean: An Empirical Investigation of Bargaining with Asymmetric Information“
Spring 2013
- Jan 28: Saumitra Jha, Stanford, “Trade Shocks and pro-Democracy Mass Movements: Evidence from India’s Independence Struggle” (Joint with Econ History Seminar. Note special time and location: 2PM, Room 597, Evans Hall)
- Feb 11: Ana De La O, Yale, “Looking Beyond the Incumbent: The Effects of Exposing Corruption on Electoral Outcomes“
- Feb 25: Tiberiu Dragu, NYU, “An Agenda-Setting Theory of Electoral Competition“
- March 11: Gerard Roland, Berkeley, “Culture, Institutions and Democratization“
- April 1: Rafael Hortala-Vallve, LSE, “Electoral Competition: Learning and Control”
- April 15: Ruben Enikolopov, New School, “Do Elected Councils Improve Governance Outcomes? Experimental Evidence on Local Institutions in Afghanistan“
- April 29: Brian Knight, Brown, “Evaluating Competing Explanations for The Midterm Gap: A Unified Econometric Approach with Microfoundations“
Fall 2011
- Sept 12: Eric Weese, Yale, “Inefficient Boundaries” (note special location: room C330 at Haas)
- Sept 26: Francesco Squintani, Warwick, “Information Aggregation and Optimal Structure of the Executive” (Joint with Micro/Yahoo! Research Seminar)
- Oct 10: Alex Debs, Yale, “The Effect of Regular and Public Competition for Office on Interstate Conflict
- Oct 24: César Martinelli, ITAM, “Ignorance and Naivete in Large Elections” (Joint with Micro/Yahoo! Research Seminar)
- Nov 7: Ken Scheve, Yale, “Democracy, War, and Wealth: Lessons from Two Centuries of Inheritance Taxation“
- Nov 21: Bard Harstad, Kellogg, “Boycotts and (Self-) Regulation in a Dynamic Game“
Spring 2012
- Jan 30: Melissa Dell, MIT, “Trafficking Networks and the Mexican Drug War” (Note special location: Room 201, Moses Hall)
- Feb 13: Dave Donaldson, MIT, “How Large are the Gains from Economic Integration? Theory and Evidence from U.S. Agriculture, 1880-2002” (Joint with Econ History Seminar. Note special time and location: 2-3:30pm: Room 597, Evans Hall)
- Feb 27: Sean Gailmard, Berkeley, “Information & Contestation: A Formal Model of Notice and Comment” (Joint with Theory Seminar)
- March 5: Rick Hornbeck, Harvard, “Railroads and American Economic Growth: New Data and Theory” (Joint with Econ History Seminar. Note special time and location: 2-3:30pm: Room 597, Evans Hall)
- March 19: Vijay Krishna, Penn State, “Majority Rule and Utilitarian Welfare” (joint with Theory Seminar)
- April 2: Torun Dewan, LSE, “Party Factions and Platform Design: An Information Aggregation Approach”
- April 16: Scott Ashworth, Chicago, “Bundling and Unbundling Tasks in a Political Agency Framework”
- April 30: Bart Wilson, Chapman, “The Ecological and Civil Mainsprings of Property: An Experimental Economic History of Whalers’ Rules of Capture” (joint with Econ History Seminar).
- June 4: Alessandro Pavan, Northwestern, “Information Acquisition and Welfare” (C132, Haas, 12:00-1:30 pm)
Fall 2009
- August 31: Michael Peress, Rochester University, “Estimating Proposal and Status Quo Locations Using Voting and Cosponsorship Data”
- September 14: Jonathan Bendor, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business
- September 28: Leeat Yariv, Caltech
- October 12: Vikram Maheshri (PhD candidate), UC Berkeley
- October 26: Suresh Naidu (PhD candidate), UC Berkeley
- November 9: Dimitri Landa, New York University
- November 23: Claire Lim, Stanford University Graduate School of Business
- December 7: Sophie Bade, Max Planck Institute, Bonn, Germany
Spring 2010
- Jan 31: Santiago Oliveros, Berkeley, “Media Bias, Endogenous Information, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem”
- Feb 14: Branislav Slantchev, UCSD, “On the Organization of International Cooperation”
- Feb 28: Jeff Ely, Northwestern, “Torture”
- March 7: Noam Yuchtman, Berkeley, “Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution,” (joint with the Economic History seminar, note special time and place).
- March 11: Tim Besley, LSE, “Dynastic Leaders and Economic Growth”
- March 14: Luz Marina Arias, Juan March Institute, “Indigenous Origins of Colonial Institutions” (joint with the Economic History Seminar).
- March 25: Robert Powell, Berkeley, “Fighting, Bargaining, and State Consolidation”*The March 28 seminar has been canceled. The seminar will resume as scheduled on April 11.*
- April 11: Hao Li, UBC, “Sincere Voting in Large Elections”
- April 25: Andy Eggers, Yale, “Electoral Corruption and Institutional Change in 19th-Century Britain“
Fall 2008
- September 8: Matthew Jackson, Stanford University, “Disclosure of Information, Deliberation, and Voting in Committees”
- September 22: John Morgan, Haas School of Business and Department of Economics, UC Berkeley, “Negative Vote Buying and the Secret Ballot”
- October 6: Georgy Egorov, Harvard University, “Political Selection and Persistence of Bad Governments”
- October 20: Sean Gailmard, University of California at Berkeley, “Moral Bias in Large Elections”
- November 3: Peter Lorentzen, University of California at Berkeley, “Deliberately Incomplete Press Repression”
- November 17: Balazs Szentes, University of Chicago, “A Resurrection of the Condorcet Jury Theorem”
- December 1: S. Nageeb Ali, University of California at San Diego, “Social Learning in Elections”
Spring 2009
- January 26: Pohan Fong, Northwestern University, “Endogenous Limits on Proposal Power.”
- February 9: Jon Eguia, New York University, “Foundations of Spatial Preferences”
- February 23: David Ahn, UC Berkeley, “Combinatorial Voting”
- March 16: Edward Miguel, UC Berkeley, “Government Transfers and Political Support”
- March 30: Vincenzo Galasso, IGIER, Bocconi University, CEPR, “The Double Dividend of Political Competition
- April 13: Navin Kartik, UC San Diego, “Opinions as Incentives”
- April 27: Matias Iaryczower, CalTech, “Voting in Bicameral Legislatures: The US Congress”
- April 24 and 25: Workshop
Fall 2007
- September 10: Matthias Doepke, University of California at Los Angeles
“Women’s Liberation: What’s in It for Men?” - September 24: James Fearon, Stanford University
“Fighting Rather than Bargaining” - October 8: Andrea Matozzi, California Institute of Technology
“Personal Influence: Social Context and Political Competition” - October 22: Ethan Kaplan, Institute for International Economic Studies
“Coups, Corporations, and Common Knowledge” - November 5: James Alt, Harvard University
“Accountability, Selection, and Experience: Theory and Evidence from U.S. Term Limits” - November 19: Gary Cox, University of California at San Diego
“Authoritarian Elections and Leadership Succession, 1975-2000” - December 3: Ernesto dal Bò, University of California at Berkeley/Stanford University
“A Model of Self-Discovery, Moral Capital, and Aggregate Wrongdoing”
Spring 2008
- January 28: Eli Berman, University of California at San Diego
“Religion, Terrorism and Public Goods: Testing the Club Model” - February 11: Eric Dickson, New York University
“Leadership, Followership, and Beliefs about the World: Theory and Experiment” - February 25: John Friedman, University of California at Berkeley
“Optimal Gerrymandering: Sometimes Pack, But Never Crack”
“Optimal Gerrymandering in a Competitive Environment” - March 10: Hülya Eraslan, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
“Strategic Voting Over Strategic Proposals” - April 7: Matthew Stephenson, Harvard University
“Political Accountability under Alternative Institutional Regimes” - April 21: Craig Volden, Ohio State University
“A Theory of Government Regulation and Self-Regulation with the Specter of Nonmarket Threats” - May 5: Scott Gehlbach, University of Wisconsin – Madison
“Government Control of the Media”
Fall 2006
- September 11: Sandeep Baliga, Northwestern University
“Strategic Ambiguity and Arms Proliferation” - September 25: Jasjeet Sekhon, UC Berkeley
“Genetic Matching for Estimating Causal Effects: A General Multivariate Matching Method for Achieving Balance in Observational Studies” - October 9: Marco Battaglini, Princeton University
“A Dynamic Theory of Public Spending, Taxation and Debt” - October 23: Gerard Padro-i-Miquel, Stanford University
“A Theory of Conflict as a Coordination Failure in Anarchic Environments” - November 6: Michael Ting, Columbia University
“Whistleblowing” - November 20: Mattias Polborn, University of Illinois
“Majority-Efficiency and Competition-Efficiency in a Binary Policy Model” - December 4: Jonathan Katz, California Institute of Technology
“Auctioning off the Agenda: Bargaining in Legislatures with Endogenous Scheduling”
Spring 2007
- January 22: Santiago Oliveros, Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley
“Who Abstains in Equilibrium?” - February 5: Adam Meirowitz, Princeton University
“Secrecy and War: The Origins of Private Information” - March 5: Sergei Guriev, New Economic School
“Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives, and the Resource Curse” - March 19: Massimo Morelli, Ohio State University
- April 2: Steven Callander, Northwestern University
“Political Motivations” - April 16: John Morgan, University of California at Berkeley
“On the Buyability of Voting Bodies” - April 30: Ken Shotts, Stanford University
“Pivots and Signals in Elections”
Fall 2005
- September 12: Eric Talley, USC
“Optimal Liability for Terrorism“ - September 26: Rui de Figueiredo, UC Berkeley
“Does Private Money Buy Public Policy? Campaign Contributions and Regulatory Outcomes in Telecommunications“ - October 10: Tom Romer, Princeton University
“Local Public Good Provision: Voting, Peer Effects, and Mobility“ - October 24: Matias Iaryczower, Cal Tech
“Contestable Leaderships, Party Discipline and Vote Buying in Legislatures” - November 7: Torben Iverson, Harvard University
“Electoral Institutions, Parties, and the Politics of Class: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More than Others” - November 21: Fred Finan, UC Berkeley
“Reelection Incentives and Political Corruption: Evidence from Brazil’s Municipal Audit Reports” - December 5: Per Pettersson-Lidbom, University of Stockholm
“An Empirical Approach for Estimating the Causal Effect of Soft Budget Constraints on Economic Outcomes”
Spring 2006
- January 23: Patrick Egan, UC Berkeley
“Issue Ownership and Representation” - February 6: Scott Page, University of Michigan
“A Games Theory Model of Culture and Institutional Path Dependence”
See Mr. Page’s paper, “Culture, Institutional Performance, and Path Dependence” - March 6: Alberto Alesina, Harvard
“Good Bye Lenin (or Not?): The Effect of Communism on People’s Preferences” - March 13: Matt Jackson, Cal Tech
“Political Bias and War”
Note: This talk will be held in Room 223, Moses Hall. - April 3: Elizabeth Maggie Penn, Harvard
“Political Institutions and Group Identity” - April 24: Abhinay Muthoo, University of Essex
“Information, Institutions, and Constitutional Arrangements” - May 1: Gene Grossman, Princeton University
“Party Discipline and Pork-Barrel Politics”
Fall 2004
- September 13: Georges Casamatta, University of Toulouse
Ex Post Inefficiency in a Political Agency Model - September 27: Ethan Kaplan, UC Berkeley
“Political Threats and Patterns of Campaign Contributions: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis” - October 4: Ragnar Torvik, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
A Political Economy Theory of the Soft Budget Constraint - October 11: Nolan McCarty, Princeton
The Policy Consequences of Political Polarization - October 25: Jana Kunicova, Cal Tech
“When Are Opposition’s Lips Sealed? Political Corruption in Democracies” - November 8: Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Washington University
States and Mafias: Competing for Enforcement - November 22: Leonard Wantchekon, New York University
“Information, Social Networks and the Demand for Public Goods: Experimental Evidence from Benin” - December 6: Mathew McCubbins, UC San Diego
“Courts and Markets: Testing the Influence of Court Decisions on Public Policy”
Spring 2005
- January 24: Konstantin Sonin, Institute for Advanced Study
“Dictators and their Viziers: Agency Problems in Dictatorships“ - February 7*: Ernesto Dal Bo, UC Berkeley
“Workers, Warriors and Criminals: Social Conflict in General Equilibrium“ - February 28: Simon Hix, London School of Economics
“Reconsidering the Economic Effects of Constitutions“ - March 7: Guido Tabellini, Università Bocconi
“Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe“ - March 14: Bard Harstad, Northwestern University
“Harmonization and Side Payments in Political Cooperation“ - April 4: John Duggan, University of Rochester
“Private Polling in Elections and Voter Welfare“ - April 11: Eliana La Ferrara, Università Bocconi
To be announced - April 18*: James Robinson, Harvard University
“Income and Democracy“ - May 2: John Londregan, Princeton University
To be announced
* Joint with the Comparative Politics and Development Seminars
Fall 2003
- September 8: Nicola Persico, University of Pennsylvania
“Public Goods, Redistribution, and Constitutional Design”;
(Links to other articles: “The Drawbacks of Electoral Competition“; “Why Did the Elites Extend the Suffrage? Democracy and the Scope of Government, with an Application to Britain’s ‘Age of Reform’“ - September 13: Georges Casamatta, University of Toulouse
“Ex Post Inefficiency in a Political Agency Model” - September 22: John Morgan, UC Berkeley
“Contracting for Information in Committees“ - September 27: Ethan Kaplan, UC Berkeley
- October 4: Ragnar Torvik, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, “A Political Economy Theory of the Soft Budget Constraint”
- October 6: 4-6 pm, 608-7 Evans Hall (Joint with Comparative and Development Economics Seminars) Katya Zhuravskaya, Center for Economic and Financial Research (Moscow),
“Decentralization and Political Institutions” - October 11: Nolan McCarty, Princeton, “The Policy Consequences of Political Polarization”
- October 25: Jana Kunicova, Cal Tech, “Political Institutions and Corruption”
- October 27: Patrick Bolton, Princeton, “Law Enforcement, Fiscal Responsibility, and Economic Development”
- November 3: John Huber, Columbia, “Bureaucratic Capacity, Delegation, and Political Reform“
- November 8: Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Washington University, “States and Mafias: Competing for Enforcement”
- November 17: Branislav Slantchev, UC San Diego, “Repression and Persistent Policy Failure”
- November 22: Leonard Wantchekon, New York University
- December 1: David Baron, Stanford University, “Persistent Media Bias“
- December 6: Mathew McCubbins, UC San Diego, “Courts and Markets: Testing the Influence of Court Decisions on Public Policy”
Spring 2004
- January 26: Gerard Roland, UC Berkeley
“How Do Electoral Rules Shape Party Structures, Government Coalitions, and Economic Policies?” - February 9: Keith Poole, University of Houston
“The Polarization of American Politics”
Including portions of the following papers: “Changing Minds? Not in Congress!” and “Political Polarization and Income Inequality“ - February 23: Stergios Skaperdas, UC Irvine
“What Kind of Order out of Anarchy? Self-Governance, Autocracy, and Predatory Competition“ - March 8: Ernesto Dal Bo, UC Berkeley
“Plata o Plomo?: Bribe and Punishment in a Theory of Political Influence” - March 15: Jason Snyder, UC Berkeley
“Biased Elections” - April 5: Rafael di Tella, Harvard
“Why Doesn’t Capitalism Flow to Poor Countries?” - April 19: Tom Palfrey, California Institute of Technology,
“Social Learning with Private Values” (PDF 1) (PDF 2) - May 3: Scott Ashworth, Harvard
“Legislative Cohesion and Particularism” (PDF1) (PDF2)