Political economy.

• Position: Program and Working Group Meetings - Conference notes - Brief article

The NBER's Program on Political Economy, directed by Alberto Alesina of Harvard University, met in Cambridge on April 27, 2012. These papers were discussed:

* Sumit Agarwal, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; David Lucca, Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Amit Seru, University of Chicago and NBER; and Francesco Trebbi, University of British Columbia and NBER, "Inconsistent Regulators: Evidence From Banking" (NBER Working Paper No. 17736)

* Erik Snowberg, California Institute of Technology and NBER, and Pietro Ortoleva, California Institute of Technology, "Confidence and Overconfidence in Political Economy"

* Mathieu Couttenier, Paris School of Economics, and Marc Sangnier, Sciences Po, "Living in the Garden of Eden: Mineral Resources Foster Individualism"

* Francesco Caselli, London School of Economics and NBER; Massimo Morelli, Columbia...