Political Economy.

PositionProgram and Working Group Meetings

NBER's Program on Political Economy met in Cambridge on October 31. NBER Research Associate Romain Wacziarg of University of California, Los Angeles organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Pedro Dal Bo, Brown University and NBER, and Andrew Foster and Louis Putterman, Brown University, "Institutions and Behavior: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Democracy"

Discussant: Alan Gerber, Yale University and NBER

Veronica Amarante and Andrea Vigorito, Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo; Marco Manacorda, London School of Economics; and Edward Miguel, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "Government Transfers and Political Support"

Discussant: Rohini Pande, Harvard University

Pol Antras, Harvard University and NBER, and Gerard Padro i Miquel, London School of Economics and NBER, "Foreign Influence and Welfare" (NBER Working Paper No. 14129)

Discussant: Arnaud Costinot, MIT and NBER

Alberto Alesina, Harvard University and NBER, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, New Economic School, "Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross-Section of Countries" (NBER Working Paper No. 14316)

Discussant: Benjamin Olken, MIT and NBER

Nathan Nunn, Harvard University and NBER, and Leonard Wantchekon, New York University: "The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust within Africa"

Discussant: William Easterly, New York University and NBER

Adam Meirowitz, Princeton University, and Kenneth Shotts, Stanford University, "Pivots Versus Signals in Elections"

Discussant: Steven Callander, Northwestern University

Bo, Foster, and Putterman describe a novel experiment on the effect of a policy designed to encourage cooperation in a prisoner's dilemma game. The effect of this policy on the level of cooperation is greater when it is chosen democratically by the subjects rather than being imposed exogenously. In contrast to earlier studies, their experimental design allows them to control for selection effects (for example, those who choose the policy may be affected differently by it). Their results imply that democratic institutions may affect behavior, in addition to having an effect through the choice of policies. More generally, their findings have implications for empirical studies of treatment effects in other contexts: the effect of a treatment can differ depending on whether it is endogenous or exogenous.

Amarante, Vigorito, Manacorda, and Miguel estimate the impact of a large anti-poverty program--the Uruguayan PANES--on...

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