Occasional Political Economy Seminar Series

OPESS

The Occasional Political Economy Seminar Series (OPESS) presents speakers working in the area of political economy. Presentations are of papers that use economic methods as well as papers that substantively study the intersection of economics and politics. The series is organized by Miriam Golden and Natalia Garbiras-Díaz, along with Susanna Garside and Julian Vierlinger.

The Team

• Miriam A. Golden

  Full-time Professor

  Department of Political and Social Sciences

  View Miriam A. Golden profile

• Daniel Urquijo

  Researcher

  Department of Political and Social Sciences

  View Daniel Urquijo profile

What is OPESS?

OPESS presents speakers working in the area of political economy. Presentations are of papers that use economic methods as well as papers that substantively study the intersection of economics and politics. Presentations are expected to run for 30-40 minutes, followed by an hour of open discussion. Following the events, discussants and participants may join the speaker and organizers for dinner –– unfortunately, this will have to be at their own expense. Participants may also sign up to meet up with speakers outside the event –– for example to show them around on EUI premises.

Registration is required for online attendance. Attendance is generally restricted to members of the EUI community.

register here

When?

OPESS meets occasionally on Thursdays from 5:00-6:30pm, and not more often than every other week.

Where?

Badia Fiesolana, EUI. See below for the exact location for each meeting. The event is in-person and on-line. Registration is required for online attendance. Attendance is generally restricted to members of the EUI community.

Speakers during 2023

Date: April 27
Speaker: Giovanna Invernizzi 
Title: "Why do Parties Merge? Electoral Volatility and Long-Term Coalitions."
Abstract: What brings competing parties to coalesce into new entities? I present a model of electoral competition in which parties can form pre-electoral alliances and decide how binding these should be. Parties face a dynamic trade-off between insuring themselves against significant shifts in public opinion and allowing flexibility to respond to future electoral changes. The model shows that more binding alliances such as mergers emerge in equilibrium when electoral volatility is high; instead, when voters are predictable (e.g., highly partisan), parties either run alone or form more flexible pre-electoral coalitions. When the electorate is sufficiently volatile, a risk-averse party might prefer an extreme merger partner to a moderate one.

Date: May 11
Speaker: Daniel Golstein
Title: "The Weight of Precedent: the Two-Term Tradition and Norm Violations in the United States Presidency. Co-authored with Collin Schumock (Yale University)."
Abstract: In the United States, a political norm initiated by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson limited presidents for generations to two terms in office. Despite challenges, the norm lasted 144 years and was only violated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, a popular incumbent during a crisis. We ask when an informal constraint on an executive carries weight and when it falters. Leveraging a dynamic formal model, we uncover how an incumbent executive's electoral prospects among citizens and the role of parties interact to make a ''norm of constraint'' credible. Additionally, we consider an executive's choice to establish a term-limit norm, the endogenous reinforcement of the norm, and when it is `formalized' into codified law.

Date: May 25 
Speaker: Pavithra Suryanarayan
Title: "When Losing The State Drives Opposition to Redistribution: An Experiment in India."

Date: June 1
Speaker: Aila M. Matanock
Title: "Forming Political Attitudes toward Peace Processes in Low-Information Contexts. Co-authored with Leonardo R. Arriola (Berkeley) and Oren Samet-Marram (Berkeley)."
Abstract: Civil conflict is a significant threat to peace and stability around the world, affecting many states and producing millions of casualties. While most modern civil conflicts end with peace processes rather than victories, serious challenges to peace persist. Citizen attitudes are increasingly seen as crucial for peace and stability, but little is known about how public opinion forms in these contexts. We investigate how citizens form attitudes about peace processes, specifically in the context of Myanmar, which sought to end a long-running civil conflict but in a unique situation where the country was just beginning to build out of a low level of development and open from authoritarianism. Using a survey experiment, we show that elite cues have some limited effects, with the position taken by well-known political leaders influencing policy preferences, but peer have no effects. We also show, however, that most respondents have very limited engagement around the peace process. We compare this case to other countries with recent conflict and peace processes to better understand how citizens form attitudes, especially in places with limited information, which complements existing work on these questions.

Date: June 8 2023
Speaker: Maria Carreri
Title: "The Political and Economic Effects of Progressive Era Reforms in U.S. Cities: Evidence from Newly Digitized Data."
Abstract: How did Progressive era reforms affect the lives of urban residents across U.S. cities? The historical record is unclear. Some scholars argue that many of the progressive reforms were motivated by nativist and racist animus and explicitly designed to benefit white business elites at the expense of disadvantaged groups. Others point out that reformers often sought to improve urban living and working conditions and expand access to education, which generated new opportunities for social mobility. We inform this debate leveraging new data on 455 U.S. cities from 1900-1940 combining i) dates of adoption of reform-style government, ii) deanonymized census data, iii) data on political participation, and iv) detailed municipal budget data. Using a difference-in-differences design, we document the impact of Progressive reforms on political participation, public goods spending, and the relative socioeconomic well-being of black, immigrant, and working class residents vis-a-vis whites, natives, and business elites. Despite finding that voter turnout decreased in reformed cities, we uncover only a modest increase in earnings inequality across more and less advantaged groups and no significant differences in expenditure patterns as a consequence of reform. This approach provides a comprehensive portrait of the legacy of Progressive municipal institutions and suggests that, on average, the reforms of this era may have exacerbated political inequality more than economic inequality, at least in the first decades following their adoption.

Past Speakers