The Oliver E. Williamson Seminar on Institutional Analysis, named after our esteemed colleague who founded the seminar, features current research by faculty, from UCB and elsewhere, and by advanced doctoral students. The research investigates governance and its links with economic and political forces. Markets, hierarchies, hybrids, and the supporting institutions of law and politics all come under scrutiny in the seminar. Over the years, the seminar has contributed to pushing the frontier of knowledge on governance, and on the norms and institutions that lead to societal success or failure.

The OEW Seminar meets on Thursdays from 12:00 – 1:30 pm in room C325 Cheit Hall. Outside speakers normally meet with interested students from 3:00 – 3:45 pm in room F589 (in the Faculty Wing of the Haas School).

To see past OEW Seminars, go to the archive.

To see the current OEW Seminar schedule click here.

Spring 2020 Schedule
Date Speaker Title of Talk/Paper
January 23
Na’ama Shenhav (Dartmouth) Long-Run Effects of Incentivizing Work Post-Birth
January 30
Melanie Morton (Stanford)
Migration and Informal Insurance
February 6
Filipe Campante (SAIS & John Hopkins)
Internet, Social Media, and the Behavior of Politicians: Evidence from Facebook in Brazil
February 13 Luis Martinez (Chicago Harris) Children of the Dictatorship: The Intergenerational Transmission of College (Un)enrollment in Chile
February 20 No Seminar No Seminar
February 27 No Seminar No Seminar
March 5 Joseph Altonji (Yale) The Labor Market Returns to Advanced Degrees
March 12 Andrew Newman (Boston University) Competing for the Quiet Life: An Organizational Theory of Market Structure
March 23
Spring Break
Spring Break
April 9
Paul Oyer (Stanford) – Canceled
April 16
Sharat Ganapati (Georgetown) – Canceled
May 6
Lisa Kahn (Rochester) – Canceled
Fall 2019 Schedule
Date Speaker Title of Talk/Paper
August 29
Oren Reshef (Berkeley) Smaller Slices of a Larger Pie: The Effect of Entry in Platform Markets
September 5
Matilde Bombardini (Vancouver School of Economics)
Trade, Pollution, and Mortality in China
September 12
Arun Chandrasekhar (Stanford)
Stigma in Social Learning: Theory, Evidence, and Policy
September 19 Diana Moreira (UC Davis) Political Turnover, Bureaucratic Turnover and The Quality of Public Services
September 26 Stephen Haber (Stanford) The Ecological Origins of Economic and Political Systems
October 1
Susanna Vasserman (Stanford GSB) Scaling Auctions as Insurance: A Case Study in Infrastructure Procurement
October 10 Tobias Salz (MIT) Auto Dealer Loan Intermediation: Consumer Behavior and Competitive Effects
October 24 Suresh Naidu (Columbia) Intergenerational Mobility Over the 20th Century: Evidence From U.S. Survey Data
October 31
Heather Sarsons (UofChicago)
Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals
November 7
Nick Ryan (Yale)
Rationing the Commons
November 14
Jimmy Roberts (Duke)
Tax Advantages and Imperfect Competition in Auctions for Municipal Bonds
November 21
Meredith Startz (Stanford)
Cutting out the middleman: The structure of chains of intermediation
December 5
Federico Huneeus (Yale)
The Effects of Firms’ Lobbying on Resource Misallocation