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 November 16, 2012. These papers were discussed:

* Yann Algan, Camille Hemet, and David Laitin, Sciences Po, "Diversity and Local Public Good: A Natural Experiment with Exogeneous Residential Allocation"

* Gerard Padro i Miquel, London School of Economics and NBER; Nancy Qian, Yale University and NBER; and Yang Yao, Peking University, China, "Homogeneity as a Pre-Condition for Democracy: The Influence of Religious Fragmentation on the Effect of Electoral Reforms on Public Goods in China"

* Maxim Mironov, IE Business School, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, Paris School of Economics, "Corruption in Procurement and Shadow Campaign Financing: Evidence from Russia"

* Leonard Wantchekon, Princeton University...