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 - Daniele Paserman (BU)
Title: Female Labor Force Participation and Intergenerational Mobility (with Jorgen Modalsli, Claudia Olivetti and Laura Salisbury)
Abstract: Women's labor force participation increased dramatically over the post-WWII, especially among mothers of young children. How did the entry of mothers in to the labor force impact the transmission of economic status across generations? Using Norwegian registry data we document trends in mothers' labor force participation and intergenerational mobility across cohorts born between 1965 and 1995. The labor supply of mothers almost quadrupled across cohorts. At the same time, the father-child income elasticity declined substantially. At the individual level, the relationship between son's income and father's income is weaker in families in which the mother worked when the son was a young child.
Using a simple covariance decomposition, we show that 25-33\% of the decline in the intergenerational elasticity (IGE) can be explained by the fact the IGE is lower among families in which the mother works, and such families consitute a larger share of the population over time. Structural factors (e.g. changes in economic opportunity or the education system) can explain the rest of the decline. We then develop a statistical framework that illustrates mechanisms through which mothers' work affects the IGE. Mothers' entry into the paid workforce represents a shift from time-intensive to money-intensive investments in children's human capital. The effect on the IGE depends on sorting in the marriage market, the relative importance of time and money inputs in the production of children's human capital, and income and substitution effects on mother's labor supply. The observed trends can be reconciled with our model if women's productivity in childcare is more valued on the marriage market than their labor market productivity, and if money investments have a larger effect on children's human capital than time investments.