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:
Michela Redoano
Co-ordinator
Helios Herrera
Deputy Co-ordinator
Research Students
Events
Tue 29 Nov, '22- |
MIEW (Macro/International Economics Workshop) - Gabriele Guaitoli (PGR)S2.79Title: Local Monopsony Power and Sorting |
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Tue 29 Nov, '22- |
CWIP (CAGE Work in progress) - Andreas StegmannS2.79 via MS Teams |
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Tue 29 Nov, '22- |
Applied Economics, Econometrics & Public Policy (CAGE) Seminar - Anne BrockmeyerS2.79 |
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Wed 30 Nov, '22- |
CRETA Seminar - Gregorio Curello (Bonn)S2.79Title : Incentives for collective innovation Abstract: Identical agents exert hidden effort to produce randomly-sized improvements in a technology they share. Their payoff flow grows as the technology develops, but so does the opportunity cost of effort, due to a resource trade-off between using and improving the technology. The game admits a unique strongly symmetric equilibrium, and it is Markov; that is, no form of punishment is sustainable. Moreover, in this equilibrium, small innovations may hurt all agents as they severely reduce effort. Allowing each agent to discard the innovations she produces (after observing their size) increases equilibrium effort and welfare. If agents can instead conceal innovations for a period of time, there exists an equilibrium in which improvements are refined in secret until they are sufficiently large, and progress stops after disclosure. Although concealment is inefficient due to forgone benefits and the risk of redundancy, under natural conditions, this equilibrium induces higher welfare than all equilibria with forced disclosure. Weblink: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.01885 |
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Thu 1 Dec, '22- |
PEPE (Political Economy & Public Economics) Seminar - Peter Buisseret (Harvard)S2.79Title: Politics Transformed? Electoral Competition under Ranked Choice Voting Abstract: We compare multi-candidate elections under plurality rule versus ranked choice voting (RCV). In our framework candidates choose whether to pursue a narrow campaign that targets their base, or instead pursue a broad campaign that can appeal to the entire electorate. We find that RCV generally intensifies candidates’ incentives to target their base at the expense of a broader appeal. We also unearth circumstances in which RCV increases the probability that a candidate who would lose any pairwise contest nonetheless wins a multi-candidate contest. |
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Thu 1 Dec, '22- |
MIWP (Microeconomics Work in Progress) - Doruk CetemenS2.79Title: Dynamic Predation and Entry Deterrence. |
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Thu 1 Dec, '22- |
Brainstorming session on the future of the Coding ClubS2.77 Cowling RoomBrainstorming session on the future of the Coding Club at the Department If you are interested in updating your coding skills, come to discuss the format of the future Coding Club. Please have a look at the proposal by Yaolang Zhong and the links therein. If you have ideas to share before the meeting, please contact Yaolang Zhong: yaolang.zhong@warwick.ac.uk. |
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Thu 1 Dec, '22- |
Macro/International Seminar - GIordano Mion (ESSEC Business School)S2.79Title: Dream Jobs in a Globalized Economy: Wage Dynamics and International Experience. |
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Thu 1 Dec, '22- |
Behavioural and Experimental Reading GroupS2.79 |
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Tue 6 Dec, '22- |
MIEW (Macro/International Economics Workshop) - Zoe Zhang (PGR)S2.79 |
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Tue 6 Dec, '22- |
CWIP (CAGE Work in progress) - Victor LavyS2.79 via MS TeamsTitle: Child Endowment and the Demand for Children@ Revisiting the Quantity-Quality Model of Fertility (joint with Yeshaya Nussbaum – Hebrew University) Abstract: China’s one-child policy or Past research has tested the quantity-quality model of fertility by studying a shock to quantity, typically by exploiting the birth of twins or China’s one-child policy. We take an alternative approach and study the effect of a quality shock on the QQ trade-off, which we conceptualize as the birth of a child with an extreme level of intellectual endowment. Theory predicts that a rise in child endowment increases parental demand for children through an increase in family income and a decline in the shadow price of children. The opposite is true for a fall in child endowment. Using two quasi-experiments, we test these predictions and estimate the reduced-form effect of a positive or negative change in endowment on family size. The first experiment estimates the effect of a first-born high-endowment child on further fertility in a sample including families with either a first- or second-born high-endowment child and at least two children. Similarly, we estimate the effect of a second-born high-endowment child on further fertility in a sample including families with either a second or third-born high-endowment child and at least three children. We use Israeli data on families and their children and measure high endowment by giftedness or exceptional scores on early cognitive tests. We find that the birth of a high-endowment child increases the probability of an additional child in both quasi-experiments. In addition, as the information on child endowment becomes noisier, parents' ability to recognize the endowment is a condition for its effect. On the other hand, the birth of a low-endowment child, measured as enrolment in a special-education class, negatively affects family size in both quasi-experiments. However, this effect is smaller and less significant in the first experiment, estimating the effect of a first-born low-endowment child. This last result is consistent with families' preference for a child with a regular endowment, which offsets the negative income and price effects activated by a low-endowment child. Overall, our results point to child endowment as an important factor affecting fertility choice. This workshop is hybrid, here is a Teams link . https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OWE3ZDAyNWYtYTgzMS00NTUxLWI2ZDktMWYxZjFkYjQyZTUy%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22d235acba-bb89-4eff-a07c-515e0b711c79%22%7d |
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Tue 6 Dec, '22- |
Applied Economics, Econometrics & Public Policy (CAGE) Seminar - Clare Balboni (MIT)S2.79Title: Firm Adaptation in Production Networks: Evidence from Extreme Weather Events in Pakistan (Joint with Johannes Boehm and Mazhar Waseem) Abstract - This paper considers how far private adaptation may reduce future vulnerability to climate change. Firms’ climate risk exposure depends not only on the location of production, but also on network effects via the flood risk profile of suppliers and transportation links connecting trading partners. We use data on monthly firm-to-firm transactions for the near-universe of formal sector manufacturing firms in Pakistan and more than six billion observations from commercial trucks traveling on the road network from 2011 to 2018 to study adaptation of firms in production networks. We find that firms affected by major floods relocate to less flood-prone areas, diversify their supplier base, and shift the composition of their suppliers towards those located in less flood-prone regions and reached via less flood-prone roads. Identification strategies that exploit both firm- and route-level flooding suggest that these responses reflect forward-looking actions to reduce future vulnerability to flood risk rather than direct effects of flooding, and are consistent with experience-based Bayesian updating. The results suggest that the impacts of climate change will be mediated as firms learn from the experience of increasingly frequent climate disasters. |
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Wed 7 Dec, '22- |
Teaching & Learning Seminar - Isabel Fischer (WBS)S0.18Title: AI-based formative feedback Organised by Subhasish Dey |
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Wed 7 Dec, '22- |
CRETA Seminar - Tommaso Denti (Cornell)S2.79Title: Blackwell correlated equilibrium (joint with Doron Ravid). Abstract: We develop a method for making robust predictions in games with flexible information acquisition (i.e., rational inattention, Sims 2003). In games with exogenous information, one can describe the set of attainable outcomes using the Bayes correlated equilibrium (BCE) concept (Bergemann and Morris 2016). We introduce a refinement of BCE, Blackwell correlated equilibrium (BKE), and prove that it spans all outcomes attainable under some flexible learning technology whose costs increase in Blackwell's (1951,1953) information order. We show the BKE set is either dense or nowhere dense in the BCE set, with the former being true for generic games. We also characterize the set of outcomes attainable under almost-free learning. We conclude by exploring the implications of BKE on a Bertrand competition game, where we show the best BCE for consumers may not be approximable by BKEs. |
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Thu 8 Dec, '22- |
PEPE (Political Economy & Public Economics) Seminar - Wioletta Dzuda (Chicago Harris)S2.79 |
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Thu 8 Dec, '22- |
Macro/International Economics Seminar - Banu Demir Pakel (Oxford)S2.79Title: Breaking invisible barriers: Does fast internet improve access to input markets? (joint with Beata Javorcik and Piyush Panigrahi) Abstract: We combine rich data with theory to study how access to fast internet affects firm’s supplier network by facilitating doing business. By augmenting data on the quasi universe of firm-to-firm transactions with the information on the length of fibre optic internet cable in each of 81 province during 2012-2019, a period of large investments in internet infrastructure, we show that buyers increase their purchases from sellers with better internet connectivity. The effects of high-speed internet on buyers’ input purchases are stronger for initially concentrated input markets. Next, we present a tractable model of firm-to-firm connections to recover the key parameter of interest: the elasticity of firm-to-firm trade with respect to internet connectivity. The estimated elasticity is sizable across all sectors. In manufacturing and trade, the elasticity with respect to internet connectivity is of comparable magnitude with the elasticity with respect to travel time.
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Thu 8 Dec, '22- |
Behavioural and Experimental Reading GroupS2.79 |
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Wed 18 Jan, '23- |
Teaching & Learning Seminar - Christian Spielmann (Bristol)S2.79Organised by Subhasish Dey Title to be advised |
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Wed 1 Feb, '23- |
Teaching & Learning Seminar - Shrabani Saha (Lincoln)S2.79Title to be advised. Organised by Subhasish Dey |
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Tue 7 Feb, '23- |
Macro and International Economics Workshop - Dennis ZanderS1.50Title - Unconventional Monetary Policy in the Face of External Stress
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Thu 9 Feb, '23- |
Spatial-Urban Reading GroupS2.77 Cowling RoomMarta Santamaria will continue the discussion of Redding and Rossi-Hansberg (2017). |
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Mon 13 Feb, '23- |
Economic History Seminar - Joachim Voth (Zurich)S2.79Title: Slavery and the British Industrial Revolution |
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Tue 14 Feb, '23- |
SeminarS2.79 |
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Tue 14 Feb, '23- |
CWIP Workshop - Ludovica GazzeS2.79 |
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Wed 15 Feb, '23- |
Teaching & Learning Seminar - Robin Naylor, Gianna Boero (Warwick)S0.09Title: Ethnicity, prior schooling and graduate outcomes in the UK. Organised by Subhasish Dey |
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Wed 15 Feb, '23- |
CAGE-AMES WorkshopS2.79 |
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Wed 15 Feb, '23- |
CRETA Seminar - Simone Cerreia Vioglio (Bocconi)S2.79Title to be advised. |
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Thu 16 Feb, '23- |
Econometrics/Labour Reading GroupS2.77 Cowling RoomNegar Ziaeian Ghasemzadeh will talk about these two papers: |
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Thu 16 Feb, '23- |
MIWP (Microeconomics Work in Progress) - tbaS2.79 |
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Thu 16 Feb, '23- |
Macro and International Economics Workshop - Anshumaan TutejaS2.79Title to be advised. |