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Econ 771.001
ECON 771: Political Economy of Race and Gender Spring 2018 Dr. Elissa Braunstein Department of Economics, Colorado State University [email protected] Office: C327 Clark Office hours: T 1:00 – 2:00 (or by appointment) Overview I define political economy as “the study of the impact of group identity and collective conflict on the organization of economic activity and its consequences.” Political economy traditions tend to focus on class as a source of identity and group conflict. In this course, we will expand that focus to incorporate other sources of group membership, giving you a broad background in economic approaches to inequality and identity based on race/ethnicity and gender. We will focus primarily on the neoclassical, Marxian political economy and feminist literatures. In addition to learning more about the relationship between group membership and economic structures, we will use the prisms of race and gender to better understand and critique various approaches to economic analysis. And while much of the literature focuses on the U.S. context, I will try to broaden the discussion as often as possible, and encourage students to do the same. I welcome students from other social science disciplines. Although we will cover some advanced material that may be difficult for those who have not completed graduate economics courses, the emphasis will be on the main points, rather than the technical detail. The syllabus includes both required readings (*starred) and supplemental readings/sections as I wanted to give you a more complete sense of the literature if you are interested in looking further into a particular topic. -
Historical Evidence from US Newspapers Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse M
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES COMPETITION AND IDEOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FROM US NEWSPAPERS Matthew Gentzkow Jesse M. Shapiro Michael Sinkinson Working Paper 18234 http://www.nber.org/papers/w18234 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 July 2012 We are grateful to Alan Bester, Ambarish Chandra, Tim Conley, Christian Hansen, Igal Hendel, Caroline Hoxby, Jon Levin, Kevin Murphy, Andrei Shleifer, E. Glen Weyl, and numerous seminar participants for advice and suggestions, and to our dedicated research assistants for important contributions to this project. This research was funded in part by the Initiative on Global Markets, the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Centel Foundation/Robert P. Reuss Faculty Research Fund, the Neubauer Family Foundation and the Kathryn C. Gould Research Fund, all at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the National Science Foundation. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer- reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2012 by Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Michael Sinkinson. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse M. -
Benjamin A. Olken
B ENJAMIN A. O LKEN MIT Department of Economics, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02142 (617) 253-6833 email: [email protected] web: econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/bolken Date of Birth: April 1975 Education 2004 Ph.D., Economics, Harvard University 1997 B.A. summa cum laude, Ethics, Politics, and Economics; Mathematics, Yale University Employment 2008 – present Associate Professor of Economics (with tenure), Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2010 – 2011 Visiting Associate Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Booth School 2005 – 2008 Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows 2004 – 2005 Health and Aging Post-Doctoral Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research 2001 – 2008 Consultant, The World Bank, Jakarta Office 1998 – 1999 Business Analyst, McKinsey and Company, New York 1997 – 1998 Luce Scholar in Economic Policy, The Castle Group, Jakarta Other Affiliations 2010 – present Co-Chair of Governance Initiative and Member of Board of Directors Executive Committe, Jameel Poverty Actio1n Lab (J-PAL) 2010 – present Fellow, Bureau for Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) 2009 – present Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) 2006 – present Research Affiliate, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) 2005 – 2010 Member, Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) 2006 – 2010 Affiliate, Bureau for Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) 2005 – 2009 Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) 2005 – 2008 Visiting Scholar, MIT Department of Economics and Poverty Action Lab -
When Does Behavioural Economics Really Matter?
When does behavioural economics really matter? Ian McAuley, University of Canberra and Centre for Policy Development (www.cpd.org.au) Paper to accompany presentation to Behavioural Economics stream at Australian Economic Forum, August 2010. Summary Behavioural economics integrates the formal study of psychology, including social psychology, into economics. Its empirical base helps policy makers in understanding how economic actors behave in response to incentives in market transactions and in response to policy interventions. This paper commences with a short description of how behavioural economics fits into the general discipline of economics. The next section outlines the development of behavioural economics, including its development from considerations of individual psychology into the fields of neurology, social psychology and anthropology. It covers developments in general terms; there are excellent and by now well-known detailed descriptions of the specific findings of behavioural economics. The final section examines seven contemporary public policy issues with suggestions on how behavioural economics may help develop sound policy. In some cases Australian policy advisers are already using the findings of behavioural economics to advantage. It matters most of the time In public policy there is nothing novel about behavioural economics, but for a long time it has tended to be ignored in formal texts. Like Molière’s Monsieur Jourdain who was surprised to find he had been speaking prose all his life, economists have long been guided by implicit knowledge of behavioural economics, particularly in macroeconomics. Keynes, for example, understood perfectly the “money illusion” – people’s tendency to think of money in nominal rather than real terms – in his solution to unemployment. -
Melissa Dell
MELISSA DELL Contact Information Department of Economics Phone: 617-588-0393 (office) Massachusetts Institute of Technology 580-747-3773 (cell) 50 Memorial Drive, E52 [email protected] Cambridge, MA 02142 Graduate Studies PhD Candidate Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007 – present MPhil Economics, Oxford University, with Distinction, 2007 Undergraduate Studies AB Economics, Harvard University, summa cum laude, 2005. Honors and Scholarships 2007 National Science Foundation, Graduate Research Fellowship 2007 First Place, The Econometric Game (European-wide competition, member of the Oxford team) 2006 Thomas Hoopes Prize for Senior Honors Thesis (university wide) 2005 - 2007 Rhodes Scholarship 2005 John Williams Prize – Best Undergraduate Harvard Student in Economics 2005 Seymour Harris Prize – Best Undergraduate Harvard Thesis in Economics (for “Widening the Border: The Impact of NAFTA on the Female Labor Force in Mexico”) 2005 USA Today Academic All American 1st Team 2004 Harry S. Truman Scholarship 2004 Named by Glamour Magazine as one of America’s top ten college female role models 2004 Sports Illustrated A List (for varsity track and cross-country) Teaching Experience Spring 2007 Instructor, Undergraduate Monetary Theory (Oxford University) Professional Activities Referee for Econometrica, American Economic Review, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics Conference Presentations: World Bank/IZA Conference on Labor and Development (Berlin, 2006) Publications “Temperature and Income: Reconciling New Cross-Sectional and Panel Estimates” (with Ben Jones and Ben Olken). Forthcoming American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings. Beyond the Neoclassical Growth Model: Technology, Human Capital, Institutions, and Within Country Differences (with Daron Acemoglu). Forthcoming American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics The College Matters Guide. (with Joanna Chan and Jacquelyn Kung) McGraw-Hill Inc., New York, 2004. -
Understanding Development and Poverty Alleviation
14 OCTOBER 2019 Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION The Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, founded in 1739, is an independent organisation whose overall objective is to promote the sciences and strengthen their influence in society. The Academy takes special responsibility for the natural sciences and mathematics, but endeavours to promote the exchange of ideas between various disciplines. BOX 50005 (LILLA FRESCATIVÄGEN 4 A), SE-104 05 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN TEL +46 8 673 95 00, [email protected] WWW.KVA.SE Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 Understanding Development and Poverty Alleviation The Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel October 14, 2019 Despite massive progress in the past few decades, global poverty — in all its different dimensions — remains a broad and entrenched problem. For example, today, more than 700 million people subsist on extremely low incomes. Every year, five million children under five die of diseases that often could have been prevented or treated by a handful of proven interventions. Today, a large majority of children in low- and middle-income countries attend primary school, but many of them leave school lacking proficiency in reading, writing and mathematics. How to effectively reduce global poverty remains one of humankind’s most pressing questions. It is also one of the biggest questions facing the discipline of economics since its very inception. -
Restoring Rational Choice: the Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES RESTORING RATIONAL CHOICE: THE CHALLENGE OF CONSUMER FINANCIAL REGULATION John Y. Campbell Working Paper 22025 http://www.nber.org/papers/w22025 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 February 2016 This paper is the Ely Lecture delivered at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association on January 3, 2016. I thank the Sloan Foundation for financial support, and my coauthors Steffen Andersen, Cristian Badarinza, Laurent Calvet, Howell Jackson, Brigitte Madrian, Kasper Meisner Nielsen, Tarun Ramadorai, Benjamin Ranish, Paolo Sodini, and Peter Tufano for joint work that I draw upon here. I also thank Cristian Badarinza for his work with international survey data on household balance sheets, Laurent Bach, Laurent Calvet, and Paolo Sodini for sharing their results on Swedish wealth inequality, Ben Ranish for his analysis of Indian equity data, Annamaria Lusardi for her assistance with financial literacy survey data, Steven Bass, Sean Collins, Emily Gallagher, and Sarah Holden of ICI and Jack VanDerhei of EBRI for their assistance with data on US retirement savings, Eduardo Davila and Paul Rothstein for correspondence and discussions about behavioral welfare economics, and Daniel Fang for able research assistance. I have learned a great deal from my service on the Academic Research Council of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and from conversations with CFPB staff. Finally I gratefully acknowledge insightful comments from participants in the Sixth Miami Behavioral -
ECON 1820: Behavioral Economics Spring 2015 Brown University Course Description Within Economics, the Standard Model of Be
ECON 1820: Behavioral Economics Spring 2015 Brown University Course Description Within economics, the standard model of behavior is that of a perfectly rational, self interested utility maximizer with unlimited cognitive resources. In many cases, this provides a good approximation to the types of behavior that economists are interested in. However, over the past 30 years, experimental and behavioral economists have documented ways in which the standard model is not just wrong, but is wrong in ways that are important for economic outcomes. Understanding these behaviors, and their implications, is one of the most exciting areas of current economic inquiry. The aim of this course is to provide a grounding in the main areas of study within behavioral economics, including temptation and self control, fairness and reciprocity, reference dependence, bounded rationality and choice under risk and uncertainty. For each area we will study three things: 1. The evidence that indicates that the standard economic model is missing some important behavior 2. The models that have been developed to capture these behaviors 3. Applications of these models to (for example) finance, labor and development economics As well as the standard lectures, homework assignments, exams and so on, you will be asked to participate in economic experiments, the data from which will be used to illustrate some of the principals in the course. There will also be a certain small degree of classroom ‘flipping’, with a portion of many lectures given over to group problem solving. Finally, an integral part of the course will be a research proposal that you must complete by the end of the course, outlining a novel piece of research that you would be interested in doing. -
Development Economics Fall 2015 Economics 2390 Monday and Wednesday 1:00-2:30Pm Class Location: Sever Hall 102 Version: September 2, 2015
Development Economics Fall 2015 Economics 2390 Monday and Wednesday 1:00-2:30pm Class Location: Sever Hall 102 Version: September 2, 2015 Michael Kremer M-20, Littauer Center Department of Economics [email protected] Office Hours: Mondays 4:00-5:00 Email Jeanne Winner [email protected] for appointment Shawn Cole 271 Baker Library, HBS [email protected] Office Hours: By appointment (please email Brian O’Connor: [email protected]) Teaching Assistant: Jack Willis [email protected] Skype: Jack.J.Willis Office Hours: TBA Prerequisites: This will be a technical class and non-Ph.D. students are not permitted to enroll. Ph.D. students are required to have taken or be concurrently taking PhD level microeconomics and econometrics. If you are not a Ph.D. student in economics or public policy then please contact us before enrolling. This class contributes to the fulfillment of requirements for the Development field for Economics Ph.D. students Broad Overview: This class is intended to teach the foundations for doing research in Development Economics. As such it will teach in detail empirical methods and theoretical models which are applied widely across the discipline. Part 1 (taught by Michael Kremer) will set the scene for the class. It will begin with a look at global differences in living standards and then present classical empirical work in macro development which attempts to quantify the roles of differences in capital, human capital and productivity. Next the class will focus in on capital and introduce a research agenda which aims to bridge the gap between growth theory and modern micro development research. -
Kranton Duke University
The Devil is in the Details – Implications of Samuel Bowles’ The Moral Economy for economics and policy research October 13 2017 Rachel Kranton Duke University The Moral Economy by Samuel Bowles should be required reading by all graduate students in economics. Indeed, all economists should buy a copy and read it. The book is a stunning, critical discussion of the interplay between economic incentives and preferences. It challenges basic premises of economic theory and questions policy recommendations based on these theories. The book proposes the path forward: designing policy that combines incentives and moral appeals. And, therefore, like such as book should, The Moral Economy leaves us with much work to do. The Moral Economy concerns individual choices and economic policy, particularly microeconomic policies with goals to enhance the collective good. The book takes aim at laws, policies, and business practices that are based on the classic Homo economicus model of individual choice. The book first argues in great detail that policies that follow from the Homo economicus paradigm can backfire. While most economists would now recognize that people are not purely selfish and self-interested, The Moral Economy goes one step further. Incentives can amplify the selfishness of individuals. People might act in more self-interested ways in a system based on incentives and rewards than they would in the absence of such inducements. The Moral Economy warns economists to be especially wary of incentives because social norms, like norms of trust and honesty, are critical to economic activity. The danger is not only of incentives backfiring in a single instance; monetary incentives can generally erode ethical and moral codes and social motivations people can have towards each other. -
Viable Nash Equilibria: Formation and Defection (Feb 2020)
VIABLE NASH EQUILIBRIA: FORMATION AND DEFECTION (FEB 2020) EHUD KALAI In memory of John Nash Abstract. To be credible, economic analysis should restrict itself to the use of only those Nash equilibria that are viable. To assess the viability of an equilibrium , I study simple dual indices: a formation index, F (), that speci…es the number of loyalists needed to form ; and a defection index, D(), that speci…es the number of defectors that can sustain. Surprisingly, these simple indices (1) predict the performance of Nash equilibria in social systems and lab experiments, and (2) uncover new prop- erties of Nash equilibria and stability issues that have so far eluded game theory re…nements. JEL Classi…cation Codes: C0, C7, D5, D9. 1. Overview Current economic analysis often relies on the notion of a Nash equilibrium. Yet there are mixed opinions about the viability of this notion. On the one hand, many equilibria, referred to as viable in this paper, play critical roles in functioning social systems and perform well in lab and …eld experiments. Date: March 9, 2018, this version Feb 24, 2020. Key words and phrases. Normal form games, Nash equilibrium, Stability, Fault tolerance, Behavioral Economics. The author thanks the following people for helpful conversations: Nemanja Antic, Sunil Chopra, Vince Crawford, K…r Eliaz, Drew Fudenberg, Ronen Gradwohl, Yingni Guo, Adam Kalai, Fern Kalai, Martin Lariviere, Eric Maskin, Rosemarie Nagel, Andy Postlewaite, Larry Samuelson, David Schmeidler, James Schummer, Eran Shmaya, Joel Sobel, and Peyton Young; and seminar participants at the universities of the Basque Country, Oxford, Tel Aviv, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, Stony Brook, Bar Ilan, the Technion, and the Hebrew University. -
Harvard University Job Market Candidates
Harvard University Job Market Candidates _______________________________________________________ 1 MITRA AKHTARI http://scholar.harvard.edu/makhtari [email protected] HARVARD UNIVERSITY Placement Director: Claudia Goldin [email protected] 617-495-3934 Placement Director: Larry Katz [email protected] 617-495-5148 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927 Office Contact Information: Littauer Center 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge MA 02138 (915) 731-1187 Undergraduate Studies: B.A. in Applied Mathematics and Economics, University of California, Berkeley, High Honors, 2010 Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays on Education and Political Economy” Expected Completion Date: May 2017 References: Professor Lawrence Katz Professor Alberto Alesina Harvard University, Littauer Center 224 Harvard University, Littauer Center 210 [email protected], (617) 495-5148 [email protected], (617) 495-8388 Professor Nathan Nunn Professor Nathan Hendren Harvard University, Littauer Center 228 Harvard University, Littauer Center 230 [email protected], (617) 496-4958 [email protected], (617) 496-3588 Teaching and Research Fields: Primary Fields: Labor Economics, Political Economy Secondary Fields: Development Economics, Public Finance Teaching Experience: Spring, 2016 Undergraduate Political Economy, TF for Prof. Andrei Shleifer Fall, 2015 Graduate Political Economy, TF for Prof. Alberto Alesina Certificate of Teaching Excellence Spring,