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 4 Jun, '24- |
MIEW (Macro/International Economics Workshop) - to be advisedS0.09Title to be advised. |
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Tue 4 Jun, '24- |
CWIP (CAGE Work in Progress) Workshop - to be advisedS0.09Title to be advised. |
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Tue 4 Jun, '24- |
Applied Economics/Econometrics & Public Policy (CAGE) Seminar - Zoe CullenS0.10Title: Pushing the Envelope: A Field Experiment in Negotiations (with Ricardo Perez-Truglia and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson) What role does negotiation play in the job market for professionals? Does it affect the allocation of labor and split of surplus? In a field experiment with over 3,000 mid-career professionals actively seeking offers, we establish new facts about how people negotiate and the causal impact of negotiation on employment terms. We use experimental results and detailed offer data to propose a model of portfolio bargaining.
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Wed 5 Jun, '24- |
CAGE-AMES Workshop - Lily Shevchenko & Benjamin Koch (PGRs)S0.09There will be two presentations: 1: Lily Shevchenko - Title: Does cancel culture work? Evidence from Reddit Abstract: How well can platforms police user behaviour? We look at the popular social media site, Reddit, where a mass ban of toxic communities occurred in response to a change in the site's conduct policy. We aim to see how the users of these communities changed their behaviour after the ban, as well as at the impact on the platform as a whole. 2. Benjamin Koch - Title: Smart or Corrupt? Informed Trading in the U.S. Congress Abstract: U.S. Committee members enjoy an information privilege in regard to emerging regulations due to their role in shaping legislation. This privilege allows for a better prediction of a company’s future profit. If a politician indeed capitalizes on this privilege by trading affected stock, it would constitute an abuse of office in violation of ethical and legal standards. The identification of information-conflicted trades is not straightforward. Committee members often have prior expertise in the industry the committee is supposed to oversee, and working on the committee further enhances their expertise. To tackle these issues, I link stock transaction records of politicians with information on congressional committees, bills, and stock prices of affected firms. First, I compare Congress members’ portfolio returns before and after they join committees in a difference-in-differences framework, differentiating between committee-associated and -unassociated sub-portfolios. I then contrast the change in returns when Congress members join and leave committees for each sub-portfolio. Second, I use public relevations of milestones of bills and examine the frequency and timing of a politician’s transactions anticipating stock price reactions. My novel approaches contribute to the public and academic debates on how politicians can privately benefit from public office and on the prevalence of insider trading by politicians. |
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Wed 5 Jun, '24- |
CRETA Seminar - Giacomo Lanzani (Harvard)S2.79Title: Dynamic Concern for Misspecification Abstract: We consider an agent who posits a set of probabilistic models for the payoff-relevant outcomes. The agent has a prior over this set but fears the |
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Thu 6 Jun, '24- |
MIWP (Microeconomics Work in Progress) Workshop - Gautam Bose (UNSW) and Debraj Ray (Warwick)S2.79There will be two talks: 1. From 12:00 until 13:20:
(20 minutes break) 2. From 13:40 until 15:00
· Title: "Coalitional Nash Bargaining: An Axiomatic Approach" (with Rajiv Vohra) |
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Thu 6 Jun, '24- |
Applied Microeconomics Reading GroupS2.77 Cowling RoomEdoardo Badiiwill discuss "The effect of minimum wages on low-paid jobs" (for information, this is a good example of a stacked DiD approach) by Cengiz et al (2019), published in QJE (https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/134/3/1405/5484905) (supervisor: Nikhil Datta)
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Thu 6 Jun, '24- |
Econometrics Seminar - Saraswata Chaudhuri (McGill)S0.18Title: More powerful Difference-in-difference (co-authored with Yang Ning). |
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Mon 10 Jun, '24- |
Economic History Seminar - Marco Tabellini (HBS)S2.77 Cowling RoomTitle: Homeward Bound: How Migrants Seek Out Familiar Climates (with Marguerite Obolensky, Charles A Taylor).. |
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Tue 11 Jun, '24- |
MIEW (Macro/International Economics Workshop) - Ernil Sabaj (Warwick)S2.79Title: The effects of government spending under trend inflation: theory and empirics |
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Wed 12 Jun, '24- |
CAGE-AMES Workshop - Elaheh Fatemi Pour and Anisha Garg (PGRs)S0.08There will be two presentations: 1. Elaheh Fatemi Pour - Title to be advised 2. Anisha Garg - Title: Safe Travels: Transport Advancement and Women’s Safety in India
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Thu 13 Jun, '24- |
MIWP (Microeconomics Work in Progress) Workshop - Chris BurnittS2.77 Cowling RoomTitle: Let them vote (to stay): Independence movements and secession clauses |
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Tue 18 Jun, '24- |
MIEW (Macro/International Economics Workshop) - Angelica Martinez Levya (PGR)S2.77 Cowling RoomTitle to be advised. |
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Thu 20 Jun, '24- |
MIWP (Microeconomics Work in Progress) Workshop - Yatish Arya (Ashoka University)S2.79 |
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Tue 25 Jun, '24- |
MIEW (Macro/International Economics Workshop) - to be advisedTBA |
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Thu 27 Jun, '24- |
MIWP (Microeconomics Work in Progress) Workshop - Arman MohammadiS2.79Title to be advised. |