Robert Powell Political Economy Seminar

The Political Economy Seminar brings faculty and students together from across the campus. The seminar primarily focuses on formal or applied (game) theory analysis of topics in political economy or political science, e.g., voting, learning in elections, corruption, political selection and bad governments, civil and interstate conflict.
Fall 2023 Faculty Convener: Professor Andrew Little 

Spring 2024 Faculty Convener: Professor Maria Carreri

Fall 2023 Schedule

Time and place: Mondays 7:30 to 9:00 PM in 223 Philosophy Hall and virtually (if noted under individual seminar date). If virtual, the Zoom links to virtual seminars will be sent via email closer to the seminar date. To be added to the PE Seminar Mailing List, please contact Kristie Dinh

DateSpeakerEvent
09/18/2023Nathan Nunn (UBC)"Zero-Sum Thinking and the Roots of U.S. Political Divides"
09/25/2023John Huber (Columbia)TBA
10/09/2023Edoardo Teso (Northwestern)TBA
10/23/2023Carlo Prato (Columbia)TBA
10/30/2023Student JM Prep: Lukas Leucht (Internal)TBA
11/13/2023Student JM Prep: Miguel Ortiz (Internal)TBA
11/20/2023Stephanie Zonszein (Internal)TBA
12/04/2023Adam Bonica (Stanford)TBA

Past Events

Fall 2018

September 10
"How Do Electoral Incentives Affect Legislator Behavior"
Speaker: Andy Hall (Stanford University)

September 24 
"Pledge-and Review Bargaining" 
Speaker: Bard Harstad (University of Oslo)

October 8 
"Searching for Policy Reforms" 
Speaker: Juan Ortner (Boston University)

October 22 
"The Long-Lasting Effects of Living Under Communism on Financial Risk-Taking"
Speaker: Ulrike Malmendier (UC Berkeley) 

November 5 
"Lobbying as Cooperative Policy Development"
Speaker: Ian Turner (Yale University)

December 3 
"Decentralization and the Gamble for Unity"
Speaker: Mike Gibilisco (Cal Tech)

Spring 2018

January 15
Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 29
"Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence"
Speaker: Matilde Bombardini (University of British Columbia)
Joint with International Economics

February 12
Speaker: Guo Xu, University of California, Berkeley

February 26
"Politics from the Bench? Evidence from SCOTUS"
Speaker: Jörg Spenkuch (Northwestern University)

March 12
Ben OlkenMIT
Joint with Development Seminar. LOCATION: Evans hall 648 4:00pm-5:30pm

March 26
SPRING BREAK

April 2
Speaker: Francesco Trebbi (University of British Columbia)
Joint with Development Seminar. LOCATION: Evans hall 648 4:00pm-5:30pm

April 23
Speaker: Sebastian Siegloch (Universität Mannheim)

Fall 2017

September 11 
Speaker: Alessandro Lizzeri (NYU)

September 18
PERL

September 25 
Speaker: Paul Novosad (Dartmouth)

October 2 
PERL

October 9 
Columbus Day 

October 16 
Speaker: Na'ama Shenhav (Dartmouth)

October 23 
PERL

October 30 
Speaker: Bill Easterly (NYU)

November 6 
PERL

November 13 
Speaker: Saad Gulzar (Stanford)

November 20 
PERL

December 4 
PERL

Spring 2017

February 6
Speaker: Andrea Matranga (New Economic School, Russia)

February 20
Speaker: Francesco Squintani (University of Warwick)

March 6
Speaker: Antonin Macé (Aix-Marseille School of Economics)

March 20
Speaker: Jeremiah Dittmar (London School of Economics)

April 3
Speaker: Joachim Voth (University of Zurich)

April 17
Speaker: Dana Foarta (Stanford University)

Fall 2016

September 12
“Valence Candidates and Ambiguous Platforms in Policy Announcement Games”
Speaker: Yuichiro Kamada (UC Berkeley Haas)

September 26
“Policy Advice in a Complicated World”
Speaker: Steve Callander (Stanford GSB) 

October 10
Speaker: Mike Ting (Columbia Poli Sci)

October 24
Speaker: Pierre Yared (Columbia GSB)

November 7
Speaker: Aniol Llorente Saguer (Queen Mary University of London)

November 21
Speaker: Sean Gailmard (UC Berkeley, Political Science)

Spring 2016

Monday, February 8
“Individual vs. Social Motives in Identity Choice: Theory and Evidence from China"
Speaker: Ruixue Jia (UC San Diego)
Monday, February 29

"Bargaining with Asymmetric Information: An Empirical Study of Plea Negotiations"
Speaker: Bernardo Santos Da Silveira (Washington University)

Monday, March 14
"A Principal-Agent Theory of Progressive Learning and Path Dependence"
Speaker: Avi Acharya (Stanford)

Monday, April 4
"Social Mobility and Support for Democracy: Re-evaluating de Tocqueville"
Speaker: Konstantin Sonin (Chicago)
Monday, April 18
"Ship-napping: the relationship between patronage and exortion during the Sicily-Tunisia Fish War, 1960-1995"
Speaker: Nao Ben-Yehoyada (Cambridge)
Monday, April 25
“Geography, Transpareny, and Institutions"
Speaker: Omer Maov (Warwick)
Joint with Micro Theory seminar.
Monday, May 2
"Policy Advice in a Complicated World"
Speaker: Steve Callander (Stanford)

Fall 2015

Monday, September 28
"Voter Turnout and Preference Aggregation"
Speaker: Kei Kawai (Berkeley)
Monday, October 12
"The Lobbyist's Dilemma"
Speaker: Alex Hirsch (Cal Tech)
Monday, October 26
"Backlash: The Unintended Effects of Language Prohibition in US Schools after World War I"
Speaker: Vicky Fouka (Stanford)
Monday, November 16
“Conservation Contracts and Political Regimes"
Speaker: Bard Harstad (UiO)
Monday, November 23
“Dynamics of Policymaking: Stepping Back to Leap Forward, Stepping Forward to Keep Back"
Speaker: Peter Buisseter (Chicago)

Spring 2015

Monday, February 2
"The Distributional Preferences of Americans"
Speaker: Shachar Kariv (Berkeley)
Monday, February 9
"Curriculum and Ideology"
Speaker: Noam Yuchtman (Berkeley)
Monday, March 2
"State Capacity, Local Governance and Economic Development in Vietnam." Joint paper with Melissa Dell and Nathan Lane
Speaker: Pablo Querubin (NYU)
Monday, March 16
“Tailoring Intertemporal Incentives: An Application to Polio Vaccination Drives in Pakistan"
Speaker: Michael Callen (Harvard)
Monday, April 6
“Informative Cheap Talk in Elections"
Speaker: Richard Van Weelden (Chicago)
Monday, April 20
“Informative Voting in Large Elections"
Speaker: Adam Meirowitz (Princeton)
Monday, May 4
“Norms, Enforcement, and Tax Evasion"
Speaker: Torsten Persson (Stockholm University)

Fall 2014

Monday, September 15
Speaker: Stelios Michalopoulos (Brown) 
Monday, September 29
Speaker: Camilo Garcia-Jimeno (Penn)
Monday, October 13
"Informative Voting in Large Elections"
Speaker: Adam Meirowitz (Princeton)
Monday, October 27
Speaker: Melissa Dell (Harvard)
Monday, November 10
"A Theory of Power Wars"
Speaker: Salvatore Nunnari (Columbia)
Monday, November 24
“On the Joint Dynamics of Culture and Institutions"
Speaker: Alberto Bisin (NYU)

Spring 2014

Monday, January 27
“A Political Economy Theory of Fiscal Policy and Unemployment"
Speaker: Marco Battaglini (Princeton) 
Monday, February 10
"One in a Million: A Field Experiment on Pivotal Voting and Belief Formation"
Speaker: John Morgan (UC Berkeley)
Monday, February 24
"Political Ideology and Racial Preferences in Online Dating"
Speaker: Neil Malhotra (Stanford)
Monday, March 10
Title TBA
Speaker: Pablo Montagnes (Chicago)
Monday, March 31
"Electoral Control and the Human Capital of Politicians"
Speaker: Carlo Prato (Georgetown)
Monday, April 14
“Guns and Votes"
Speaker: Paola Conconi (Brussels)
Monday, April 28
TBA
Speaker: Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (CalTech)

Fall 2013

Monday, September 9, 12-2 p.m.
223 Moses Hall
“The Demand for Bad Policy When Voters Underappreciate Equilibirium Effects"  
Speaker: Ernesto Dal Bo 
Monday, September 23, 12-2 p.m.
223 Moses Hall
"Moderating Political Extremism: Single Round vs. Runoff Elections Under Plurality Rule"
Speaker: Guido Tabellini (Bocconi University)
Monday, October 7, 12-2 p.m.
223 Moses Hall
"Discrimination and Assimilation"
Speaker: Jon Eguia (NYU)
Monday, Monday, October 21, 12-2 p.m.
223 Moses Hall
“Political Violence Cycles”
Speaker: Andrew Little (Cornell)
Monday, November 4, 12-2 p.m.
223 Moses Hall
"Are Social Media More Social than Media? Evidence from Ideological segregation on Twitter"
Speaker: Yosh Halberstam (University of Toronto)
Monday, November 25, 12-2 p.m.
223 Moses Hall
“Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan"
Speaker: Filipe Campante (Harvard)