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 Reseach Group Name research group are:
Research Students
Events
CAGE-AMES Workshop - Jiaqi Li (PGR)
Two 30mins presentations:
No.1 Human Capital, Self-Insurance, and Marriage Uncertainty: Racial Differences in Female Labor Supply
Abstract: Racial difference in female labour supply has been a puzzle in both economics and sociology as it is found not explained by economics, demographic or family variables. This paper first shows that racial gap is driven by married Black women with high wages in the South returning to the labor market almost immediately after childbirth. Failed to find any contemporaneous covariates to explain the gap, I build a life cycle model of female labor supply, consumption, and savings with uncertainty in divorce shock. Only using the racial difference in marriage and divorce rates, the model is able to generate the same racial gap in child penalties as empirical estimates. The structural model illustrates that Black women stay in the labor market to prevent human capital from depreciation as a means to self-insure against future divorce shocks.
Link to paper https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/jli/others/li_2022.pdf
No.2 Double Negative: Climate Change, Seasonality and Schooling
Abstract: Literature finds ambiguous or weak effects of annual average rainfall on schooling. This paper, however, demonstrates that rainfall has a significantly opposite effect on school enrollment, depending on the season in which it occurs. Increased precipitation in the dry season enhances schooling, while it reduces schooling in the wet season. Measuring rainfall annually cancels out the double negative impact, as climate change pushes precipitation in opposite directions between the two seasons. The paper calls for urgent policy measures for child protection in development against climate risks