See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

This week

Closed seminar

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Seminar in Economic History – joint event with Alesina Seminar. 

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See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

James Fearon (Stanford University), "A Theory of Elite-Initiated Democratization, Illustrated With the Case of Myanmar"

Abstract

Around half of democratic transitions are “top down" in the sense that the autocrats write the constitution that governs post-transition democracy (Albertus and Menaldo 2015).  We analyze a model of elite-driven democratization, illustrating its logic and implications with the case of Myanmar.  In the model, continued dictatorship is costly and inefficient due to risk of a violent rebellion and, possibly, the increase in aid, trade, and geopolitical support that would follow democratization. But the autocrats fear that fair elections would lead quickly to their marginalization.  We argue, contrary to a common suggestion, that paper constitutions that provide veto points for the old elite are not by themselves sufficient protection.  Top-down “democratic transitions" are really cases of power-sharing, in which the old elite retains de facto control of rent streams that the opposition cannot unilaterally seize simply by changing laws.  As the military's coup threat gradually declines over time, democracy may eventually "consolidate."  If the coup threat declines rapidly, and is anticipated to do so, a reversion back to autocracy is possible. We also show how the prospect of increased international aid, trade, and investment make top-down transitions more likely, though only when post-transition power-sharing is feasible.
... Read more about James Fearon (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Benjamin Olken (MIT), "Emigration During Turbulent Times"(joint with Kaicheng Luo and David Yang)

Abstract

Migration to another country is one approach to avoiding risks from political turmoil, but many more people stay behind than leave. In part, this may be because the economic costs of uprooting families or businesses are large. We explore the economic calculus behind migration during times of political turmoil through two major episodes in China over the past century: movement from Shanghai to Hong Kong in advance of the possible Communist takeover in the 1940s, and exit from Hong Kong in more recent years as the mainland government increased political control over the city. In each case, we document the extent to which exit decisions are responsive to (i) wealth shocks, as measured by differential real estate appreciation, and (ii) changes in the differential "price'' of moving vs. staying put, using quasi-random destruction of businesses by errant bombs in historical Shanghai and Bartik-type unemployment shocks in contemporary Hong Kong. In both episodes, we document a large, positive wealth elasticity of migration and a negative relative price elasticity. Importantly, in both cases, people became more elastic, not less, when the perception of political turbulence became salient. Economic incentives play an important role in shaping migration decisions even during highly politically uncertain times.... Read more about Benjamin Olken (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Alexandra Cirone (Cornell University), "When Widows Win: Land Lotteries and Individual Prospects in Georgia" (w/Aaron Childree and Harry Dienes)

Abstract

We know that property rights and wealth are important for economic and individual prospects, but how do women respond to significant changes in their economic fortunes, particularly in settings where they are disadvantaged? We exploit the 1805 Georgia Land Lottery as a natural experiment to estimate the effect of a wealth windfall on individual social and political outcomes. Importantly, we also focus on a never before studied population -- that of female land lottery applicants and winners, who were widows allowed to enter Georgia’s first land lottery. Using micro-level data on land lottery entrants, land plots, and petition outcomes from 1805-1820, we estimate the causal effect of winning a land plot on longevity and remarriage, and whether this windfall incentivized winners to protect their new assets using democratic channels via petitioning. Despite the high value of the land lottery, we find no effects on social or political prospects.  While a historical case, our results speak volumes about how wealth transfers designed to improve social and economic prospects mean little if women are not able to capitalize on the windfall.... Read more about Alexandra Cirone (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Amy Pond (Washington University in St. Louis), "The Electoral Costs of Reforming Political Institutions"

Abstract

Biased political institutions can privilege one party over others, helping to assure that party’s future electoral success. Yet, despite controlling enough votes to make reforms, parties fre quently abstain from reforming institutions. What explains their forbearance? We elaborate a formal model in which citizens punish parties for any sort of reform, as they believe that parties could benefit themselves with biased reforms. Even if citizens are not informed about the content of the reform, they anticipate that biased parties are likely to implement biased reforms and they punish parties for any reform at all. Drawing on a survey experiment, we then evaluate the model using real proposals for electoral reforms in Germany. In line with the model, citizens become less supportive of the opposition and the opposition’s proposed electoral reform, when they are informed that the opposition is associated with the reform. By contrast, the coalition government’s proposal is perceived as less biased, arguably because it is already a compromise of three parties. The model thus helps explain the endurance of inefficient electoral institutions: if any reform is punished, even unbiased reforms are untenable.... Read more about Amy Pond (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Charles Angelucci (MIT), "Beliefs About Political News in the Run-up to an Election" (w/Michel Gutmann and Andrea Prat)

Abstract

We use a large-scale news knowledge survey conducted just before the 2020 US presidential election, alongside monthly survey data, to explore how partisan differences in political news beliefs evolve. We exploit questions repeated in multiple surveys to identify changes in beliefs about the same news stories as the election approaches. Our findings indicate that partisan bias intensifies two to threefold during election periods. Within a framework of motivated beliefs, this change in partisan bias is predominantly driven by an amplification of the partisan identity effect, rather than differences in partisan recall. We also present findings from a counterfactual analysis that assesses the impact of a hypothetical targeted misinformation campaign during and outside of elections.
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See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Melissa Dell (Department of Economics), "Deep Learning for Political Economy"

Abstract

Deep learning provides a robust method for learning a mapping between unstructured data (e.g., text, images, audio) and computable representations that can power downstream analyses. These methods, which have already transformed a variety of disciplines, allow us to process traditional data sources at an unprecedented scale and to bring completely new types of data into political economy analyses. Yet taking existing methods off-the-shelf often has significant limitations - particularly for historical applications or those in non-Western societies – given the domain shift from the pre-training corpora that power much of deep learning. This talk will provide an overview of work developing novel datasets and methods for using deep learning to examine social science questions. These include a series of user-friendly open-source packages for deep learning-powered document layout analysis, OCR, record linkage, and other data wrangling tasks, designed to be highly extensible to a diversity of societies. I will also introduce massive-scale open-source text datasets that we curated by applying deep learning to historical newspapers. These are useful both for large-scale pre-training and for social science research. Finally, I will discuss deep learning methods designed to examine the influence of historical media.... Read more about Melissa Dell (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Alex Fouirnaies (University of Chicago), "Can Interest Groups Influence Elections? Evidence from Unions in Great Britain 1900-2019"

Abstract

Unions sponsor electoral candidates around the world, yet little is known about the consequences of these arrangements. I study how union sponsorship affected the electoral prospect of British parliamentary candidates throughout the 20th century. From archival material, I collect new data on the universe of union-sponsored candidates. Employing a difference-in-differences design, I document that sponsorship caused a six percentage-point increase in candidate vote shares. I outline theoretical mechanisms and examine whether sponsees improved their electoral fortune because of changes in constituencies, opponents, resources, mobilization, or information. The evidence supports the constituency and resource mechanisms: Sponsorship helped candidates get nominated in attractive constituencies, accounting for two-thirds of the effect, and caused an inflow of campaign resources into constituency-party organizations. Overall, sponsorship promoted the representation of union-friendly candidates in parliament, but it only led to moderate shifts in the balance of power between parties.... Read more about Alex Fouirnaies (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Leander Heldring (Northwestern University), "Bureaucracy as a tool for Politicians: Evidence from Germany" (link to PDF)

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of a well-functioning bureaucracy on the effectiveness of repression, in the context of Germany’s Nazi regime. I compare former Prussian to non-Prussian municipalities within unified Germany in a regression discontinuity framework. When the Nazis persecuted the German Jews, Prussian areas implemented deportations of Jews more efficiently. During the Weimar republic, when Jews were legally protected, violence against Jews is lower in former Prussian areas. In both periods, Prussian local governments had greater ‘capacity’: They were more effective at raising taxes and collecting trash. Capacity derived from greater specialization and better information processing rather than from effort. Specialization may have created the moral wiggle room to implement repugnant directives.... Read more about Leander Heldring (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Stephanie Zonszein (UC Berkeley), "Turn On, Tune In, Turn Out: Ethnic Radio and Immigrants’ Political Engagement"

Abstract

Does the ethnic media promote the political engagement of minority ethnic immigrants? This is a salient question in Western democracies, where the political incorporation of immigrants is a continuous challenge. Prevailing accounts place the media as a primary cause of growing public disengagement. In contrast, this article argues that the entry of informative-based ethnic media can increase immigrants’ political engagement by changing their informational environment and their representation in media and state institutions. In 2004 the UK Parliament enacted the Community Radio Order to allow the licensing of community radio stations. Leveraging the introduction of this law and geographical variation in the distribution of licenses with a difference-in-differences approach, this article shows that the exposure of minority ethnic immigrants to radio programming targeted at their community substantively increases their turnout in local elections. The results suggest that immigrants’ participation in politics is stimulated by accommodating diversity within common institutions.

Link to paper

... Read more about Stephanie Zonszein (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Brian Knight (Brown University), "The Rise of the Religious Right: Evidence from the Moral Majority and the Jimmy Carter Presidency"

Abstract

We investigate the rise of the religious right in the context of the Moral Majority and Jimmy Carter, the first Evangelical President. During Carter’s Presidency, Jerry Falwell, a key televangelist, headed the newly formed Moral Majority, which turned against the incumbent Carter, a Democrat, and campaigned for Ronald Reagan, a Republican, in the 1980 Election. To investigate the role of religious leaders in the political persuasion of followers, we first develop a theoretical model of multidimensional politics in which single issue voters follow issue leaders when choosing which candidates to support. Using data from county-level voting returns, exit polls, and surveys, we find that, consistent with our model predictions, Evangelical voters followed the lead of the Moral Majority, shifting from supporting Carter in 1976 to Reagan in 1980. Using the irregular terrain model, we also find persuasion effects in counties that were exposed to the televised ministry of Jerry Falwell.... Read more about Brian Knight (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Max Miller (HBS), "Who Values Democracy?"

Abstract

This paper tests redistribution-based theories of democratization using data from stock markets. Consistent with these models, I show democratizations have a large, negative impact on asset valuations driven by a rise in redistribution risk. Across 90 countries over 200 years, risk premia are substantially elevated in democratizations, similar in magnitude to financial crises. Using a shift in Catholic church doctrine in support of democracy, I provide causal evidence that democratizations increase risk premia. Successful democratizations lead to substantial redistribution: the size of the public sector grows, income inequality falls, and the labor share of income rises. A model of asset prices and political regimes in which wealthy asset market participants face redistribution risk in democratizations can quantitatively explain these effects. The model also explains the negligible asset pricing response to autocratizations. Neither an increase in macroeconomic risk nor generic political risk can explain the results.... Read more about Max Miller (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Chris Blattman (University of Chicago), "Gang Rule: Understanding and Countering Criminal Governance" (link to paper)

Abstract

Criminal groups govern millions worldwide. Even in strong states, gangs resolve disputes and provide security. Why do these duopolies of coercion emerge? Often, gangs fill vacuums of official power, suggesting that increasing state presence should crowd out criminal governance. We show, however, that state and gang rule are sometimes complements. In particular, gangs could minimize seizures and arrests by keeping neighborhoods orderly and loyal. If true, increasing state presence could increase incentives for gang rule. In Medellín, Colombia, criminal leaders told us they rule to protect drug rents from police. We test gang responses to state presence using a geographic discontinuity. Internal border changes in 1987 assigned blocks to be closer or further from state security for three decades. Gangs exogenously closer to state presence developed more governance over time. They primarily did so in neighborhoods with the greatest potential drug rents. This suggests new strategies for countering criminal governance.... Read more about Chris Blattman (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Awa Ambra Seck (HBS), “En Route: The French Colonial Army, Emigration, and Development in Morocco”

Abstract

Between 1830 and 1962, six million Africans living under colonial rule served in the French army.  Most were deployed internationally to maintain order or fight French wars.  After independence, all were repatriated and granted the right to move to France. We estimate the effect of military deployment on the soldiers' long-term outcomes,  as well as on their communities of origin,  using historical data on Moroccan soldiers, and exploiting the arbitrary assignment of troops to international locations. We show that, within a municipality,  cohorts with a higher share of soldiers deployed to France were more likely to relocate there after independence. In contrast, deployment to other locations did not affect emigration.  Consistent with the establishment of emigration networks, we find that the effects persist for decades after independence. Furthermore, communities with a higher share of soldiers deployed to France have experienced better economic outcomes and a shift from the agricultural to the service sector today. These results highlight the role that colonial rule played in shaping emigration networks from the colonies and in contributing to persistent changes in their patterns of economic development.... Read more about Awa Ambra Seck (Alesina Seminar)