Note: This seminar is by invitation only.

Questions? Comments? Contact pegroup@cfia.harvard.edu concerning meeting time/place, directions, paper distribution, archived papers, etc.; jfrieden@harvard.edu concerning additions to the mailing list, paper topics, & substantive comments.

Please email: pegroup@cfia.harvard.edu with any problems.

Important Links 

• All PE Group Papers
• Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
• Institute for Quantitative Social Science

Current paper:

PLEASE NOTE: The page for current and future papers for the 2008-2009 academic year has changed. Please update your bookmarks.

Previous Papers:

Tuesday, September 9th:
"Climate Change and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century" by Melissa Dell, Benjamin F. Jones and Benjamin A. Olken (June 2008).

Tuesday, September 2nd:
"Why Did Ghettos 'Go Bad'? Evidence from the US Postal Service" by Leah Platt Boustan and Robert A. Margo (October 2007).

Tuesday, August 19th:
"From Crisis to IMF-Supported Program: Does Democracy Impede the Speed Required by Financial Markets?" by Ashoka Mody and Diego Saravia (July 2008).

Tuesday, August 5th:
"Regionalism or Multilateralism? A Political Economy Choice" by Giorgia Albertin (March 2008).

Tuesday, July 29th:
"Is There an 'Emboldenment' Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq" by Radha Iyengar and Jonathan Monten (February 2008).

Tuesday, July 22nd: 
"Economic Interests and Congressional Voting on Security Issues" by Benjamin O. Fordham (September 2007). 

Tuesday, July 8th: 
"The Rise of the Modern Welfare State, Ideology, Institutions and Income Security: Analysis and Evidence" by Roger D. Congleton and Feler Bose (April 2008). 

Tuesday, July 1st: 
"Landed Interests and Financial Underdevelopment in the United States" by Raghuram G. Rajan and Rodney Ramcharan (December 2007). 

Tuesday, June 24th: 
"Superpower Interventions and their Consequences for Democracy: an Empirical Inquiry" by William Easterly, Shanker Satyanath, and Daniel Berger (January 2008). 

Tuesday, June 3rd: 
"The Evolution of Citizenship: Economic and Institutional Determinants" by Graziella Bertocchi and Chiara Strozzi (November 2007). 

Tuesday, May 20th: 
"The Curious Dawn of American Public Schools" by Sun Go and Peter H. Lindert (August 2007). 

Tuesday, May 13th:
"The Partisan Political Economy" by Larry Bartels (ND).  

Tuesday, May 6th:
"When Voters Make Laws: How Direct Democracy is Shaping American Cities" by Elizabeth Garrett and Mathew D. McCubbins (December 2007). 

Tuesday, April 29th:
"Federalism's Values and the Value of Federalism" by Robert P. Inman (January 2008). 

Tuesday, April 22nd:
"Political Institutions, Labor Coercion, and the Emergence of Public Schooling: Evidence from the 19th Century Coffee Boom" by Gustavo J. Bobonis (March 2008).

Tuesday, April 15th:
"Founding Errors: Making Democracy Safe for America" by John Joseph Wallis (March 2008).

Tuesday, April 8th:
"Investor Protection and Interest Group Politics" by Lucian A. Bebchuk and Zvika Neeman (December 2007).

Tuesday, April 1st:
"Extremism and Social Learning" by Edward L. Glaeser and Cass R. Sunstein (December 2007).

Tuesday, March 18th:
"Investment and Expropriation Under Oligarchy and Democracy in a Heckscher-Ohlin World" by Facundo Albornoz, Sebastian Galiani and Daniel Heymann (January 2008).

Tuesday, March 11th:
"Division of Labor, Economic Specialization and the Evolution of Social Stratification" by Joseph Henrich and Robert Boyd (October 2007).

Tuesday, March 4th:
"Incumbents' Interests and Gender Quotas" by Guillaume R. Fréchette, François Maniquet and Massimo Morelli (2007).

Tuesday, February 26th:
"Do Interest Groups Affect Immigration" by Giovanni Facchini, Anna Maria Mayda and Prachi Mishra (November 2007).

Tuesday, February 12th:
"The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification" by Stephen J. Redding and Daniel M. Sturm (October 2007); [Technical Appendix].

Tuesday, February 5th:
"How Much Control is Enough? Monitoring and Enforcement Under Stalin" by Andrei Markevich (December 2007).

Tuesday, January 29th:
"Monotheism (From a Sociopolitical and Economic Perspective)" by Murat Iyigun (October 2007).

Tuesday, January 15th:
"Who Wants to Revise Privatization and Why? Evidence from 28 Post-Communist Countries" by Irina Denisova, Markus Eller, Timothy Frye, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (November 2007).

Tuesday, January 8th:
"The Price of Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela's Maisanta" by Chang-Tai Hsieh, Daniel Ortega, Edward Miguel and Francisco Rodriguez (September 2007).

Tuesday, December 18th:
"Culture as Learning: the Evolution of Female Labor Force Participation over a Century" by Raquel Fernandez (August 2007).

Tuesday, December 11:
"Do Countries Default in 'Bad Times'?" by Michael Tomz and Mark Wright (May 2007).

Tuesday, December 4th:
"Shareholding, Coalition Formation and Political Development: Evidence from 17th Century England" by Saumitra Jha (October 2007).

Tuesday, November 27th:
"Institutions and U.S. Regional Development: A Study of Massachusetts and Virginia" by Sukkoo Kim (September 2007).

Tuesday, November 20th:
"Effect of Redrawing of Political Boundaries on Voting Patterns: Evidence from State Reorganization in India" by Rajashri Chakrabarti and Joydeep Roy (September 2007).

Tuesday, November 6th:
"Is it Economics or Politics? Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress in the Growth of Government, 1930-2002" by Stanley L. Winer, Michael W. Tofias, Bernard Grofman and John H. Aldrich (April 2007).

Tuesday, October 30th:
"The Enfranchisement of Women and the Welfare State" by Graziella Bertocchi (July 2007).

Tuesday, October 16th:
"The Great Divide Revisited: Ottoman and Habsburg Legacies on Transition" by Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl.

Tuesday, October 9th:
"Inefficient Policies and Incumbency Advantage" by Roland Hodler, Simon Loertscher and Dominc Rohner (June 2007).

Tuesday, October 2nd:
"Getting a Job: Is there a Motherhood Penalty?" by Shelley J. Correll, Stephen Benard and In Paik (March 2007).

Tuesday, September 25th:
"Entry and Asymmetric Lobbying: Why Governments Pick Losers" by Richard E. Baldwin and Frederic Robert-Nicoud (May 2007).

Tuesday, September 18th:
"How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru" by John McMillan and Pablo Zoido.

Tuesday, September 11th:
"What Governments Maximize and Why: the View from Trade" by Kishore Gawande, Pravin Krishna, and Marcelo Olarreaga (2007).

Tuesday, September 4th:
"Protection for Sale Made Easy" by Richard E. Baldwin and Frederic Robert-Nicoud (June 2007).

Tuesday, August 28th:
"The Persistence of Underdevelopment: the Role of Constituencies and Competitive Rent Preservation" by Raghuram G. Rajan (June 2007).

Tuesday, July 31st:
"Strategies of the Politica Opposition" by Amihai Glazer (May2007).

Tuesday, July 17th:
"Which Countries Become Tax Havens?" by Dhammika Dharmapala and James R. Hines, Jr. (December 2006).

Tuesday, July 10th:
"Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War" by Benjamin F. Jones and Benjamin A. Olken (May 2007) and "Overprotected Politicians" by Bruno S. Frey (2007).

Tuesday, July 3rd:
"The Indian Caste System as a Means of Contract Enforcement" by Kripa Freitas (November 2006).