Political economy.

• Position: Conferences

The NBER sponsored a conference on Political Economy in Cambridge on November 15-16. Faculty Research Fellow Alberto Alesina and Morris Fiorina, both of Harvard University, and Roger Noll, Stanford University, organized the program:

Alberto Alesina; Sule Ozler, NBER and University of

California, Los Angeles; Nouriel Roubini, NBER

and Yale University; and Phillip Swagel, Harvard

University, "Political Instability and Economic

Growth"

Discussant: John Londregan, Princeton University

Roberto Perotti, Columbia University, "Income

Distribution and Growth: Theory and Evidence"

Discussant: Nathaniel Beck, University of California,

San Diego

Thierry Verdier and Gilles Saint-Paul, DELTA

Institute, "Education, Democracy, and Growth"

Discussant: Raquel Fernandez, NBER and Boston

University

Alex Cukierman, Tel Aviv University, and Bilin

Neyapti and Steven Webb, World Bank, "The

Measurement of Central Bank Independence and Its Effect

on Policy Outcomes"

Discussant: James E. Alt, Harvard University

Kathleen Bawn, University of California, Los Angeles,

"The Social Choice of Electoral Institutions:

German Wahlgesetz, 1949-53"

Discussant: Kenneth A. Shepsle, Harvard University

Susan R. Smart, Indiana University, "The Policy

Consequences of Appointment Methods and Party

Control"

Discussant: William R. Keech, University of North

Carolina

Susanne Lohmann and Sharyn O'Halloran, Stanford

University, "Delegation and Accommodation in

U.S. Trade Policy"

Discussant: Linda Cohen, University of California,

Irvine

Geoffrey Garrett and Barry R. Weingast, Stanford

University, "Ideas, Interests, and Institutions:

Constructing the EC's Internal Market"

Discussant: Nouriel Roubini

Gregory Hess and Athanasios Orphanides, Federal

Reserve Board, "War Politics: An Economic,

Rational Voter Framework"

Discussant: Howard Rosenthal, Carnegie-Mellon

University

Alesina, Ozler, Roubini, and Swagel study the relationship between political instability and growth of per capita GDP in 108 countries from 1950-82. They define "political instability" as the propensity of a government to collapse. Their main result is that in countries and time periods with a high propensity of government collapse, growth is significantly lower than elsewhere. This effect remains strong when the definition of "government change" is restricted to cases of substantial change in the political orientation of the government. The authors also find that low economic growth tends to increase the likelihood of...