Seminar on Institutions and Positive Political Theory (PPT)

This seminar is supported by the Political Science Department, the Institute of Governmental Studies, the Ford Foundation Crossing Borders program and the Institute of International Studies.

Positive Political Theory (PPT) is the use of formal methods to study politics and, especially, institutions. The PPT Seminar meets every other Monday and is co-sponsored by the Political Science Department, the Institute of Governmental Studies, and the Ford Foundation Crossing Borders Program.

For more information, contact Professor Robert Powell, rpowell@socrates.berkeley.edu, (510) 642-4635, Professor Rui de Figueiredo, rui@haas.berkeley.edu, (510) 642-6452, or seminar coordinator Benjamin Lessing, lessing@berkeley.edu.

Spring 2008 Schedule of Speakers

Time: All seminars will be held from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m.
Location: Unless otherwise noted, all seminars take place in Room 119, Moses Hall.

• 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"

Past Speakers

Fall 2007 Schedule of Speakers

• 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 2007 Schedule of Speakers

• 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 2006 Schedule of Speakers

• 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 2006 Schedule of Speakers

• 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 2005 Schedule of Speakers

• 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 2005 Schedule of Speakers

• 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 2004 Schedule of Speakers

• 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 2004 Schedule of Speakers

• 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"

• March 22
  Spring Break

• 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)
  

Fall 2003 Schedule of Speakers

• 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
  TBA
  
  
• 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
  To be announced
  
  
• 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"