Program on Political Economy Seminar

Date: 

Thursday, November 29, 2018, 4:30pm to 5:45pm

Location: 

Littauer Center, 1805 Cambridge St, Hansen-Mason Room (3rd floor lounge)
This week's presenter: Nancy Qian (Northwestern University) presents "Distrust and Political Turnover." "We present findings that document one way in which a society's culture can affect political outcomes. Examining an annual panel of democratic countries over six decades, we show that severe economic downturns are more likely to cause political turnover in countries that have lower levels of generalized trust. The relationship is only found among democracies and for regular leader turnover, which suggests that the underlying mechanism works through leader accountability and the electoral process. Moreover, we find that the effects of trust on turnover are greatest during years with regularly-scheduled elections, and within democracies with a parliamentary system, a fully free media, and greater stability. We are also find evidence that similar patterns hold for United States presidential elections and county-level trust. The estimates suggest that generalized trust affects political institutions by influencing the extent to which citizens attribute economic downturns to the mistakes of politicians." All interested faculty and students are invited to attend. Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Program on Political Economy (PE) supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.