Political Economy and Public Economics
Political Economy and Public Economics
The Department of Economics at the University of Warwick has an active Political Economy and Public Economics (PEPE) Research Group. These two disciplines have natural complementarities. Political Economy focuses more on the political feasibility of certain policies by looking at which policies are more likely to enjoy public support and thus succeed in an electoral contest. Public economics looks more at determining which policies are optimal in every environment, but is less concerned about their political approval or feasibility.
Recent world events such as the public backlash against globalization and inequality have raised awareness for the need for more integration between these two approaches as political resistance to the adoption of potentially beneficial policies has become ever more salient. Hence by their very nature these two disciplines transcend traditional field divisions such as micro and macroeconomics: they use theoretical, empirical and experimental methods to obtain conclusions, thus generating synergies with various other groups in our department from development to experimental to history to macroeconomics to economic theory.
Our activities
PEPE Research Group Seminar
Thursday: 11.15am-12.30pm
A weekly seminar is organised that brings top economists and political scientist speakers every week for a double-feature seminar in coordination with the LSE.
For a detailed scheduled of speakers please follow the link below:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/seminars/seminars/political-economy
Organisers: Michela Redoano and Mateusz Stalinski
PEPE Research Group Annual Conference
In collaboration with colleagues from Princeton and Yale, and with the support of CEPR, the PEPE Research Group organises an annual conference which has become a central meeting of political economists in Europe. Having taken place in previous years in Venice and Rome, it attracts over 70 delegates attending from leading institutions in the US, EU and the UK. Every year, several of our PhD students get to participate in a fully funded conference with an opportunity to engage with leading scholars.
Find out more about this year's conference which will take place 26-27 April 2024 in Rome.
Organisers: Helios Herrera, Mateusz Stalinski
People
Academics
Academics associated with the PEPE Research Group are:
Research Students
Events
Applied Economics, Econometrics & Public Policy (CAGE) Seminar - Stelios Michalopoulos (Brown)
Title: Uprooted: Human Capital and the Asia Minor Catastrophe (joint with Elias Papaioannou, Seyuhn Sakalli, Elie Murard)
Abstract: More than a century has passed since the abrupt exodus of 1.2 million Greek Orthodox from Anatolia and their arrival in Greece, a transformative event for the country’s social and demographic landscape. Today, one in three Greeks reports a refugee background. While its historical significance is well-documented, its short-, medium-, and long-term impact on human capital accumulation remains unexplored. How did forced displacement shape the educational trajectories of the uprooted and their offspring? Did refugees invest in portable skills to respond to uncertainty, or did they struggle to catch up with the autochthonous? To address these questions, we trace the educational investments of refugees and their descendants over the last 100 years, leveraging granular census data and a comprehensive mapping of both their origins in Anatolia and settlements in Greece. The analysis provides compelling support for the uprootedness hypothesis. Though initially lagging, refugees settling in the Greek countryside eventually surpassed nearby natives' educational attainment. Their university choices also diverged with refugees’ lineages favoring degrees transferable beyond the Greek labor market, such as engineering and medicine, and natives specializing in law and other fields with a strong home bias. Exploring additional mechanisms reveals the critical role of linguistic barriers and economic conditions at the destination, as opposed to origin and background characteristics. The widespread educational gains of refugees and their descendants over three generations offer some hope that the ongoing surge of forced displacement, despite its tragedy, if properly addressed by the international community, can be a backbone of economic resilience for the affected communities.