SEVENTH FORUM ON INTERNATIONALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND PUBLIC POLICIES
2012-2013 International & Interdisciplinary Seminars Series
Friday, 30th November 2012, h: 14.30
"What's in a vote? Voting in the U.N. General Assembly"
Prof. Simon Hug (Département de science politique et relations internationales, Université de Genève)
Abstract
Numerous studies have analyzed the voting behavior of member states in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and often used this information in secondary analyses.
Few if any of these studies consider, however, that the largest share of decisions in the UNGA is reached either without a vote or a vote that is not recorded.
The paper offers a systematic comparison of the recorded votes with all other decisions and shows that failing to consider the differences between these decisions is likely to give us biased inferences on voting behavior in the UNGA.
Room A, via Pace 10
Background Reading is now available upon request by writing at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Friday, 25th January 2013, h: 14.30
"When month of birth matters. Educational performance, birth date and the compensatory effect of class of origin"
Fabrizio Bernardi, European University Institute, Firenze
Room A, via Pace 10
Abstract
The talk is on compensatory class effects in educational careers. The main underlying idea is that larger inequality is observed among the worst performing students. In this case, upper-class students with poor school results will still move to higher educational levels, while lower-class students with poor school results will drop out. In this case, the family of a student might mobilise to compensate for a previous failure or poor performance in school. Thus, upper-class students with poor school results would still move to higher educational levels or to more prestigious educational tracks, while lower-class students with poor school results would drop out or opt for less demanding educational tracks. Next, I highlight a major methodological problem affecting the research on compensatory class effect. Namely, that educational performance is endogenous to subsequent educational choices. Finally, I present some results of an analysis that focuses on the negative effect of month of birth of the respondents on the risk of retaking (repetition) in Spain and France. This analysis is based on a regression discontinuity design and overcomes the endogeneity problem that undermines the standard research on primary and secondary effect.
Background Reading is:
Bernardi, F. 2012. "Unequal transitions: Selection bias and the compensatory effect of social background in educational careers." Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30:159-174.
Available at the following:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562411000394
Friday, 8th February 2013, h: 14.30
"Sociology of the state: what is governed ?"
Patrick Le Galès, Sciences Po, Directeur de Recherche CNRS au Centre d'études européennes de Sciences Po
Abstract
At least three very different research strategies are at play in the analysis of the restructuring of the state. One is to concentrate on the classic question of elites and institutions, on the phenomenon of the state, in order to show the long term resistance and robustness or essential stability of this institution. A second approach by contrast stresses ever changing configurations. A third approach is to assume and investigate the proposition that the long term entropy of the state has had long term consequences on the character of the state. One example of this third perspective is the policy state. Analysing the "government" dimension of the state, or the 'policy state' to take the phrase coined by Stephen Skowronek may be central to understanding the modern institutional dimension of the state, sometimes its survival. Policy successes and policy failures are not without consequence on the legitimacy of the state. In a number of cases, from the US to Greece, Spain or Belgium, the sustainability of the state in its current form is at stake (Jacobs and King, 2009). The paper then puts forwards a framework to compare the restructuring of the state in Europe which is being worked out in cooperation with Desmond King (oxford).
Room A, via Pace 10
Friday, 1st March 2013, h: 14.30
"What Do we know about the impacts of Public Management Reform? A cautionary tale for our era of Austerity"
Prof. Cristopher Pollitt, Emeritus Professor at Public Management Institute, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Abstract
This presentation will examine our state of scientific knowledge about the impacts of public management reforms across the European Union over the past quarter of a century. Drawing on the author's own research and a range of other recent investigations, it shows that we know remarkably little about the final outcomes or impacts of these reforms. Even finding systematic evidence on changes in efficiency is difficult.
Possible reasons for this fragile and partial state of knowledge are examined. It is concluded that a combination of technical/methodological and political reasons offer a credible explanation. The prospects for improving the situation are considered.
Finally, some implications of this research for the current wave of austerity reforms are identified.
Room A, via Pace 10
Friday, 22nd March 2013, h: 14.30
"Cooperation without altruism: behavioural experiments in Northern and Southern Italy"
Prof. Diego Gambetta, Nuffield College, Oxford University
Abstract:
We investigate the extent to which different levels of cooperation depend on individual characteristics, such as altruism and risk aversion. To this end, we exploit the classic puzzle of the Italian North-South divide, which—despite formal institutions being shared since Unification, in 1861—persists along many social and economic dimensions closely related to the ability to cooperate.
We run a controlled field experiment with a representative sample of the population (N=618) in four cities—two in the North and two in the South— large enough to study cooperation beyond the family circle, but small enough to have a stable community with common and mutually known dispositions. In each city, we run both games capturing dispositions toward cooperation in joint activities and individual tasks capturing altruism and risk aversion.
We find that cooperation varies by city according as expected to a North-South ordering, but independently of both altruism and risk aversion. We interpret these results as indicating that a lower ability to cooperate in large-scale societies is not due to "moral" flaws, as Edward Banfield famously claimed, but that the social norms of action and expectations thereof are arguably better at explaining cross-societal differences in cooperation.
We complement the experimental findings with millennium-long datasets trying to establish which of the conjectures present in the literature is the most plausible explanation of how different social norms emerged in the past: the quality of institutions (Putnam, Tabellini, Guiso), the harshness of climate (Durante), or the frequency of conflicts with outside enemies (Bowles).
READING LIST
Banfield, E. C. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, The Free Press, 1958.
Putnam, R., Leonardi, R. and Nanetti, R. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton University Press, 1993.
Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L. "Long Term Persistence", CEPR Discussion Papers, CEPR Discussion Papers, 2008.
Tabellini, G. "Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe," Journal of the European Economic Association (8:4), 2010, pp. 677--716.
Bowles, S. "Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?," Science (324:5932), 2009, pp. 1293-1298.
Room A, via Pace 10
Friday, 12th April 2013, h: 14.30
"Job Security and Severance Pay Exemption in Recession"
Gerard Pfann, Maastricht School of Business and Economics - Department of Organization and Strategy -
The talk is on the consequences of an exceptional labor market policy to secure jobs in times of recession in the Netherlands. The program is a combination of preventive checks of permanent worker contract terminations and the possibility for a firm in demise to obtain severance pay exemption for the workers concerned. A theoretical equilibrium model predicts when the wage elasticity of labor demand exceeds the inverse of the sum of the replacement ratio and the severance rate a system of severance pay exemption is less costly than the alternative of additional unemployment insurance benefits. A novel data set identifies key differences in procedural durations and firing costs distributions with and without the exemption policy for permanent contract terminations of individual workers during the period 2006-2009.
The empirical analysis indicates that the policy contributes positively to slowing down the increasing rate of unemployment in recessions.
Room A, via Pace 10
