The Tuesday Talks Series is scheduled throughout each semester with speakers invited to discuss cutting-edge topics. Occasionally talks are given on subjects relevant to students such as career management and research. CGU and Claremont Colleges Consortium faculty, students, staff, and alum are encouraged to attend.

Unless otherwise announced, all seminars are scheduled from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm. The format for the talks this semester is hybrid, with the option to attend in person at Burkle 12 or online via Zoom. Please use the Zoom links below to register for that talk. For those attending in person, a light lunch will be provided!

Spring Semester 2024

01/30/2024
Akhilesh Srivastava, La Sierra University
“Vision India@2047”

India is swiftly advancing towards its bold goal of evolving into a developed nation with a USD 30 trillion economy by its centennial year of independence, encapsulated in the Vision India@2047 plan. Spearheaded by Mr. Akhilesh Srivastava, the two-year initiative focuses on making India a global innovation and technology leader, with an emphasis on human development, social welfare, and environmental sustainability. The vision includes achieving a robust economy with a high per-capita income, supported by strong public finances and a financial sector, alongside developing top-notch infrastructure. It aims to reduce government interference, enhance digital governance, and foster global champions in various sectors, including becoming self-reliant in defense and space. Environmental goals include boosting renewable energy and reducing emissions, while also empowering youth through education and increasing employment opportunities. The plan also seeks to forge international R&D partnerships to establish leading labs and elevate Indian institutions to global acclaim.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Government

Zoom link

02/06/2024
Cesi Cruz, UCLA
“Campaigning Against Populism: Emotions and Information in Real Election Campaigns”

Across the world, populist politicians have been winning elections using new forms of campaigning to reach citizens directly, often using emotional rather than policy-based appeals. The challenge for mainstream parties has been how to articulate policy platforms and campaign promises in this new context. In particular, do forms of campaigning used by populist politicians — direct outreach and emotional messaging — work for programmatic politicians as well? We partner with a mainstream opposition political party in the Philippines to implement a field experiment during the 2019 Senate election to explore the effectiveness of: (i) direct appeals in the form of door-to-door visits providing information about their platform; (ii) the addition of positive emotional appeals in mediating this information. We show that direct engagement with voters to deliver policy messaging works in both forms, even when facing a popular populist incumbent. We also show that while the additional emotional messaging fosters increased engagement with the campaign in the short term, the policy information-only treatment was more relevant in driving vote choice. Last, we present evidence that the treatments operated through a persuasion channel, as treated voters were more likely to know the party, more certain about their knowledge, and gave higher ratings to the party’s quality and proposed policies.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Government

Zoom link

02/13/2024
Brian Yates, American University
“Evaluating Resources Used and Monetary as well as Nonmonetary Outcomes of Biopsychosocial Interventions: Toward Delivering the Best to the Most for the Least”

Insights that cost-inclusive evaluation (CIE) generates for evaluators and researchers are illustrated with 50 years of work in health and human services, including child, parent, and adolescent interventions, computer-based drug abuse treatment, consumer-operated mental health services, randomized clinical trials for suicide prevention, and emergency assistance programs for human rights defenders. CIE attempts to understand relationships between program costs and monetary as well as nonmonetary outcomes. CIE works best if conducted using multiple interest group perspectives to collect and analyze data from individual participants for competing interventions and counterfactuals. Common forms of economic evaluation, including cost-effectiveness and cost benefit analyses, can be most helpful if they go beyond quantifying cost-outcome relationships to understanding resource → activity, activity → process, and process → outcome relationships. Accessible graphic methods of portraying these relationships may encourage engagement of participants, providers, and community members in evaluation and research

Host: Division of Behavioral & Organizational Sciences/Politics & Government

Zoom link

02/20/2024
Birol Yesilada, Portland State University
“What Can Societal Values say about the Consolidation of Democracy?”

The relationship between economic development, cultural change, and political liberalization is often explored through classic modernization theory. Recent scholarship attempts to extend the classic approach to be more closely aligned with empirical reality. From the human development perspective, economic prosperity acts as a catalyst for cultural development, leading to social values that favor liberalization and thus promote effective democracy. However, recent works point out that fundamental differences exist in how materials and post-materials societies and their respective values along the traditional and secular dimensions affect the consolidation of democracy. In other words, how people practice religion remains a constant that plays a vital role in HD dynamics and democratic development and could explain, in part, why some societies fare better than others in the consolidation of their democracies.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

02/27/2024 
Claire Adida, UCSD
“When hearts meet minds; Complementary effects of perspective-getting and information on refugee inclusion.”

Perspective-getting and correcting misconceptions are common interventions to promote inclusion toward outgroups. However, each strategy has limitations. Information corrections yield ambiguous effects, and empathy-based interventions may reproduce the biases they are meant to alleviate. We develop a theoretical framework that clarifies the strengths and weaknesses of each strategy, and offer a design to identify the conditions under which they are most effective. Using three studies on refugee inclusion with nearly 15,000 Americans over three years, we find that information and perspective-getting affect different outcomes. Perspective-getting affects warmth, policy preferences, and behavior, while information leads to factual updating only. We show that combining both interventions produces an additive effect on all outcomes, that neither strategy enhances the other, but that bundling the strategies may prevent backfire effects of information. Our results underscore the promise and limits of information and perspective-getting for promoting inclusion, highlighting the benefits of integrating the two strategies.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

03/05/2024 
Pablo Argote, University of Southern California

” Education Under Authoritarian Rule: Evidence from the Chilean 1973 Coup ”

Educational systems and curricula can serve as powerful tools for authoritarian governments to mold the political attitudes of young people. Does the legacy of education under authoritarian rule persist after the regime itself has ended? We exploit a discrete change in the school curriculum, generated by the Chilean 1973 coup that overthrew President Allende, and installed General Pinochet in power. After the coup, the junta radically changed the contents of the curriculum, forbidding any “leftist” content, among other measures. We use a regression discontinuity design that compares people who were barely exposed to this new curriculum to those whose education had ended before the reform. Our preliminary results indicate that being educated under the junta-controlled education system had a lasting impact; we find a negative effect on left self-identification and a null effect on both right-wing and centrist self-identification. In this sense, we corroborate that anti-Marxist indoctrination was somewhat successful, as we observe the effects spanning decades and transcending the dictatorship itself.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

03/19/2024 
Cary Frydman, USC Marshall
“On the Source and Instability of Probability Weighting”

They propose and experimentally test a new theory of probability distortions in risky choice. The theory is based on a core principle from neuroscience called efficient coding, which states that information is encoded more accurately for those stimuli that the agent expects to encounter more frequently. As the agent’s prior beliefs vary, the model predicts that probability distortions change systematically. They provide novel experimental evidence consistent with the prediction: lottery valuations are more sensitive to probabilities that occur more frequently under the subject’s prior beliefs. Their theory generates additional novel predictions regarding heterogeneity and time variation in probability distortions.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Zoom link

03/26/2024 
Chad Kendall, USC Marshall
“Causal Narratives”

We study causal narratives – narratives which describe a (potentially incorrect) causal relationship between variables. In a series of experiments across a range of data-generating processes, we show that exogenously generated causal narratives manipulate decisions in ways inconsistent with rational theory. Instead, decisions are generally consistent with a behavioral theory, but with important exceptions, including when subjects face multiple narratives with contradictory recommendations. To study the generation and transmission of causal narratives, we show that they arise endogenously when subjects observe a dataset and provide advice to future subjects. These homegrown causal narratives mislead both the sender and receiver.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Zoom link

04/02/2024 
Byengseon Bae, Claremont Graduate University
“Lincoln Land Fellowship Presentation”
“Linguistic Threat and Support for the Populist Right: The Case of Donald Trump”

Existing research suggests that local demographic change in the United States is a powerful antecedent of White attitudes and behavior. Yet recent studies of demographic shifts and White voting in contemporary elections yield inconclusive and conflicting results. What explains these conflicting findings? We hypothesize that the dominant measure of racial threat–growth of the local Hispanic population–is an increasingly insufficient proxy of racial threat as White Americans acclimate to demographic change of their neighborhoods and demographic change is increasingly driven by reproduction rather than immigration. The growth of the non-English speaking population instead, we argue, is now the primary driver of racial threat and support for the populist right. Using individual-level survey data from several large national surveys, we find a strong association between local growth of the non-English speaking population and White support for Donald Trump. These results hold when subjected to a variety of robustness checks and falsification tests. Our results suggest that the traditional conceptualizations of the link between demographic change, racial threat, and voting may no longer hold in contemporary politics.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

04/09/2024 
Tye Rush, UCSD
“The Effect of Rapid Vote-By-Mail Transition on Communities of Color”

Does negative messaging reduce vote-by-mail (VBM) uptake? Throughout the 2020 election cycle, states expanded vote-by-mail (VBM) to adapt voting practices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This wave of vote-by-mail expansion was met in the mainstream with negative messaging that discredited mail ballots, going so far as to claim that these ballots lead to widespread fraud. Messages that emphasize negative or positive information can change people’s behavior to make them more risk averse, a phenomenon that scholars have dubbed as a “framing effect.” Researchers have demonstrated that framing effects can change public opinion, but few studies have studied how framing affects impact political participation. Even fewer studies assess how recent struggles with racially discriminatory elections practices can impact how effective frames can be. We examine the impact that salient VBM messages may have had on voters in the 2020 November election in a framing experiment that we conducted before the election. We tested the impact of two pro-VBM frames and one anti-VBM frame on people’s willingness to use VBM in the future. We leverage our oversample of Black and Latino voters in our analysis and find that a frame’s effectiveness varied based on racial/ethnic background. Only White people were less likely to use VBM after exposure to the negative VBM frame that questions the integrity of VBM, even after controlling for partisanship. Black, Latino, and White respondents were all more willing to use VBM after exposure to a frame ensuring the integrity of VBM and only Latino respondents were more willing to use VBM after exposure to a co-ethnic mobilizing frame. Our results suggest that how VBM is framed changes whether voters are comfortable casting their ballot by mail.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

04/16/2024 
Kenzie De Keyser and Gesihan Zhang, Claremont Graduate University
“Lincoln Land Fellowship Presentation”
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Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

04/23/2024 
Heonuk Ha, Univerity of Southern California
“Nationalization of Local Politics: The President’s Electoral Particularism in Mayoral Elections”

Amid the growing trend of political polarization and nationalization of US politics, the link between federal and local governments has become increasingly significant in the American public policy process. Consequently, the president, as party leader, has increasingly supported co-partisan candidates, not only in federal elections but also in subnational ones. Incorporating almost 2,000 local elections for 486 cities with populations exceeding 50,000 between 2005 and 2020, we investigate how the president strategically employs key federal grant funds to assist co-partisan mayoral candidates. Using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression with two-way fixed effects, we find that the president distributes more key grant funds to swing cities during mayoral election years, and the corresponding (considerable) benefit is concentrated specifically on cities with co-partisan mayors during periods of unified federal government.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

04/30/2024 
Gaspare Genna, University of Texas at El Paso
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Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

 

Fall Semester 2023

09/12/2023
Varun Karekurve Ramachandra, Stanford University
Can Gender Quotas Improve Public Service Provision? Evidence from Indian Local Government

What effect do gender quotas have on political responsiveness? We examine the effect of randomly imposed electoral quotas for women in Mumbai’s city council, using a wide variety of objective and subjective measures of constituency-level public service quality. Quotas are associated with differences in the distribution of legislator effort, with quota members focusing on public goods distribution, while non-quota members focus on individual goods, member perks, and identity issues. These differences in effort seem to influence institutional performance: perceived quality of local public goods is higher in constituencies with quota members, and citizen complaints are processed faster in areas with more quota members. We suggest that men’s more extensive engagement with extralegal and rhetorical forms of political action has led to men and women cultivating different styles of political representation.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

Zoom link

09/19/2023
Raquel Centano, University of Southern California
When Party and Race Align: Perceived Racial Discrimination’s Relationship with Affective Polarization

What is the relationship between perceived racial discrimination and affective polarization? I argue that findings from extant research regarding race, partisanship, and racial discrimination suggest that perceived discrimination should also play a role in partisan affect. To evaluate the role of perceived racial discrimination in affective polarization, I use survey data from both an original nationally representative sample and 2012 – 2020 ANES data to determine how perceived racial discrimination correlates with partisan affect. I find mixed evidence that perceived discrimination on its own is associated with affective distance at the aggregate level. However, disaggregating the sample into Black, Latino, and white groups reveals the role of party messaging on race in conditioning perceived racial discrimination’s effects on partisan sentiment. These findings indicate that affective polarization is at its strongest when a voter perceives a conflict that intersects with both their partisan and racial group identities. These results suggest that researchers should consider the potential influences of race and racial politics in their study of affective polarization. Additionally worth considering is how party ideologies and messaging on race might interact with non-partisan group identities to produce more extreme partisan responses.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

Zoom link

09/26/2023
Joshua Tasoff & Monica Capra & Jin Xu, Claremont Graduate University
The Hedonic Opportunity Cost of Attention: Information-Consumption Substitutes and Complements

Attention is a limited resource that can be used to enhance the experience of physical consumption, and it is a necessary input for processing information. This implies that consuming in the present creates an opportunity cost to processing information about the future, and vice versa. We test this in three experiments. We find that increasing consumption in the present decreases demand for information about the future and increases demand for future risk-mitigation. The results show that there are preference interactions between information and physical consumption, with evidence consistent with attention as the mediator.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Zoom link

10/03/2023
Jennifer Gaudette, University of California, San Diego
Ideological Polarization in Police Union Politics

There are over 800,000 police officers in the U.S., and approximately 80% are union members. Police unions are the institution through which police engage in political activity. In this paper, I employ multiple methods allowing me to estimate the effects of their most frequent political activity: endorsements. I combine a novel data set of police union endorsements in mayoral elections with a conjoint survey experiment testing the effects of police union endorsements against other local interest group endorsements. I find that responses to police union endorsements split along ideological lines: police union endorsements have significant negative effects on incumbent vote share in liberal cities and positive effects in conservative cities. Conjoint survey findings support these results while solving endogeneity concerns. Further, observational data suggests that the ideological responses to police union endorsements are a recent phenomenon, suggesting that national ideological polarization has significant effects at the local level.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

Zoom link

10/17/2023
Steven Rogers, Saint Louis University
Accountability in State Legislatures

In theory, elections create incentives for state legislators to produce good policy, but is this the case? Accountability in State Legislatures answers this question and offers the most comprehensive analysis of state legislative elections, starting from candidates’ decisions to run for office to voters’ decisions at the ballot box. Over a third of state legislative incumbents do not face either a primary or general election challenger, and voters do not appreciably reward or punish state legislators in the general election for their representation, state-level policy outcomes, management of the economy, or general performance, even under favorable conditions for accountability. Accountability in State Legislatures raises serious questions regarding whether fundamental assumptions of democratic theory meaningfully apply to the “laboratories of democracy.”

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

10/10/2023
Tyler Reny, Claremont Graduate University
The Immigration-to-Reproduction Shift: Latino Population Growth and White Support for Legal Abortion

The literature on White Americans’ reaction to demographic change largely focuses on immigration policy at the expense of reproductive politics. We extend past research on White backlash against ethnic diversification to the domain of reproductive policy—testing the idea that prejudiced Whites will support abortion in response to growing minority populations as a means of slowing demographic change via non-White reproduction. Using a large sample of the American public, we find that Whites residing in locales with large growth in the non-White population are more supportive of legal abortion. Consistent with demographic trends, this relationship is driven by Latino population growth. Critically, this relationship is not observed among non-Whites, is confined to racially prejudiced Whites, and is most pronounced when Latino population growth coincides with growth in the local Latino youth population—suggesting that a burgeoning population of Latino children facilitates Whites’ connection of Latino growth to reproductive policy.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

Zoom link

10/24/2023
Kyunkook Kang, Loma Linda University
Averting Nuclear War

This timely book offers a comprehensive examination of the current state of nuclear stability postures worldwide, effectively highlighting their inherent limitations. Through their analysis, the authors illustrate how the seemingly contradictory perspectives of deterrence optimists, disarmament idealists, and warfighting pessimists can be reconfigured into a unified approach towards achieving regional and global peace. They suggest that these strategies can be reconciled as complementary, rather than substitute approaches, to achieve the common goal of nuclear stability. To achieve this objective, the book employs a game-theoretical framework to analytically define the conditions for nuclear war. Drawing from extensive observations of significant crises, the model incorporates identifiable systemic regularities that influence the strategic decision-making process during severe crises and establish the prerequisites for different levels of nuclear confrontation.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Policy

Zoom link

10/31/2023
Kal Munis, Utah Valley University
“Which Details Matter for How Americans Evaluate Political Violence?”

What factors do Americans find most important when evaluating acts of political violence? We employ two pre-registered conjoint experiments to answer this question. Normatively, details regarding the violent act (e.g., the target and violence severity) should determine the punishment for political violence. However, Social Identity Theory suggests evaluations of political violence may depend on the perpetrator’s characteristics and the relationship between the social identities of perpetrators and evaluators. Through varying both perpetrator characteristics and features of the violent act, we discern the relative weight of act-centric and perpetrator-centric considerations. We find that even though the perpetrator’s characteristics (e.g., partisanship, race) do influence people’s excusal of violence, the features of the act matter much more for citizen evaluations of political violence, on average. Though these findings can be interpreted as normatively negative given that perpetrator’s identities do influence punishment, the disproportionate effect of the violent act’s target and severity are normatively encouraging.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

Zoom link

11/07/2023
Yushim Kim, Arizona State University
“ChatGPT and Analytics”

ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence based on large language models, has been of great interest since the end of 2022. Excitements and fears coexist about the use and implications of ChatGPT in various settings, including education. This talk consists of two parts. I would like to discuss where the level of ChatGPT is currently by sharing my experience with ChatGPT in a graduate classroom. I will then explain the underlying technical advancements of ChatGPT (e.g., natural language models, machine learning, deep learning, and generative artificial intelligence) and discuss decision-making aided by or copiloted with machine. The talk will be open to discuss the limitations and issues of the use of ChatGPT, especially in education settings.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

Zoom link

11/14/2023
Adam Thal, Loyola Marymount University
“Race, Ideology, and the Politics of Higher Education”

Public universities have been referred to as “America’s best idea” and “a crowning achievement of our democracy.” Yet in recent years these institutions have come under attack, particularly in conservative states where policymakers have curtailed academic freedom and state funding at some of the nation’s best public universities. I explore some of the potential reasons why white conservative voters might support these attacks. I focus on the competing roles of ideology and race. An ideological explanation suggests that white conservatives support attacks on public universities because they are perceived as liberal institutions that benefit the Democratic party. By contrast, a racial explanation suggests this support is motivated not by a general concern about liberal ideology, but by a more specific concern about how these institutions are working to address racism. I test these competing explanations in two survey experiments, including one where participants make hypothetical decisions about what kinds of faculty to hire at their state’s elite public university. I find that white conservatives’ support for attacks on public universities is motivated more by concern over faculty teaching about race than it is by concern over faculty being “liberal” in general. Additional evidence suggests that white conservatives’ views are at odds with those of most Americans, who support faculty working to understand and address racism.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

Zoom link

11/28/2023
Scott Cunningham, Baylor University
“ChatGPT in the Economist’s Toolkit:An Early Exploration — “Prediction””

Large language models have the promise to disrupt life through their ability to mimic intelligent speech. This mimicry is driven through its predictive capacity. But what is not known is whether that prediction capacity extends to the future. A unique feature of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 3.5 and 4 is that they were trained on data through September 2022 which allows us the ability to explore their predictive ability for benign to somewhat more complex economic events. We overcome some of the LLM’s built-in refusal to make outright predictions by having it, instead, reenact a scene in which certain events have already happened. Thus instead of predicting the future, ChatGPT believes it is the future and is recounting the past. The results are interesting. We find that it does extraordinarily well at predicting the winner of several Academy Award categories, but fails to predict the Best Picture. When asked to perform as Fed Chair Jerome Powell and restate the time path of inflation and unemployment under a variety of shocks (like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), it performs somewhat less consistently. We suggest that this may be because LLMs are unable to incorporate endogenous policy responses by the Federal Reserve, and thus the LLM prediction may suffer from basic Lucas Critique problems.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Zoom link

12/05/2023
Allison Hartnett, University of Southern California

Host: Dept of. Politics & Policy

Zoom link

 

Spring Semester 2023

02/07/2023
Jacek Kugler, Claremont Graduate University
“Beyond Deterrence: Uncertain Stability in the Nuclear Era”

Profound contradictions within and across nuclear deterrence strategies evolved in response to the proliferation and modernization of nuclear weapons. The theoretical assumptions and implications for nuclear strategy derived from disarmament and warfighting inform this discussion. Grounded in conditional anarchy, we develop a decision-theoretic model of deterrence that explores nuclear stability. The Preconditions for conflict emerge when a dissatisfied nuclear nation is threatened with conventional loss, when conventional and nuclear parity is achieved, and if dissatisfied non-state actors acquire even minimal nuclear capabilities. To minimize the likelihood of nuclear war, we propose the creation of a nuclear security council composed of the global powers – the U.S. and China – that have every incentive to maintain global stability.

Host: Dept of. Politics & Government

Zoom link

02/14/2023
Saida Heshmati and Robert Klitgaard, Claremont Graduate University
On Romance and Intimacy

It has long been established that humans thrive on social connectedness across the lifespan and languish in its absence. Although felt love does not occur in the same context for everyone, people report a similar sensation corresponding to a surge of love: a rush of warmth accompanied by fascination and a desire to be close. This talk focuses on looking at the role of felt love in people’s daily lives and whether there is a shared belief on the everyday life experiences that make people feel loved.

How should we place romantic love and intimacy in a full human life? The jolt and surprise of romantic love, its physicality and yet its transporting otherworldliness, its radical unselfing, are signs and metaphors for meaning in life. Between extreme responses of the monk and the addict is what might be called a heroic take. Romantic love goes right when we gratefully allow it to manifest itself in our calling, our insight, and our sharing and service.

Host: Division of Behavioral & Organizational Sciences/Politics & Government

Zoom link

02/21/2023
Nicholas G. Napolio, University of Southern California
Ideological Conflict and Delegation to the Executive Branch

Scholars of the American separation of powers have long posited that ideological conflict between Congress and the Executive Branch decreases congressional grants of discretion to federal agencies. However, previous scholarship relies exclusively on a very blunt measure of ideological conflict: divided government. The presence of divided government can only vary every two years, and changes in divided government are correlated with myriad factors related to grants of discretion to the Executive Branch. We intervene in this literature by asking whether ideological divergence between individual members of Congress and the agencies responsible for implementing congressional bills influences how much discretion members of Congress afford to those agencies. Our design allows us to exploit variation in ideological conflict between the branches within years, holding constant many of the unobservable confounds troubling previous studies. Additionally, we ask whether the relationship between ideological divergence and discretion has changed over time with rising polarization.

Host: Dept. of International Studies

Zoom link

02/28/2023
Tine Paulsen, University of Southern California
“Mass Party Advantage under Party-Centered Local Governance”

Could the type of political institution used at the local level impact the balance of power in national politics? If so, how? This paper argues that mass parties are more successful in national-level elections when party-centered governance institutions, such as partisan elections, are used at the local level. Mass parties rely on members and branches as their main electoral strategy, which means that using local institutions that support this approach yields better electoral results, also in national elections. To test this hypothesis, I take advantage of a local governance reform in early 20th century Sweden that made the local institutions dependent on a population threshold. I find that municipalities that used elections and representatives for local governance had higher support for the Labor Party in national elections. This result demonstrates that local-level political institutions can significantly impact national-level politics with consequences for institutional reform outcomes and citizen welfare.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

03/07/2023 (Canceled)
Paul Zak, Claremont Graduate University
“Immersion: The Science of Extraordinary Experiences”

Why would anyone run a 20 year research program? What can one possibly learn from this? This interactive talk describes the the science of extraordinary experiences and what I have learned from measuring the activity of 50,000 brains in a wide variety of experiences as reported in my new book “Immersion”. Key take aways for how to create the extraordinary will be shared as well as why so much research is required to have confidence in findings. Lots of examples will be shown.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Zoom link

03/21/2023 
Ben Feingold and Mirela Rezende, Claremont Graduate University

Lincoln Land Fellowship Presentation
“Identifying the Impacts of Land Use Regulation on Housing Development: Evaluating the Los Angeles Transit Oriented Communities Program Using a Geospatial Regression Discontinuity Design”

In this project, I examine the causal effects of local land use regulation—in particular allowable density of residential development—on key outcomes including housing development, transaction volume, and land values. The key problem researchers in this field face is the endogeneity of zoning and other land use regulations; if greater density is allowed in areas close to transit or other amenities that are already more attractive for development, then we cannot disentangle the impacts of those regulations from the effects of other factors that influence land value and development patterns. In order to address that problem, I exploit quasi-random variation in land use controls resulting from Los Angeles Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Affordable Housing Incentive Program. Using a geospatial regression discontinuity (GRD) design, I the effects of these land use incentives on housing development and land values that serve as the basis for property tax assessments. I plan to use this analysis to conduct an evaluation of the TOC program, quantifying the potential fiscal and economic benefits to the city from land use reforms.

“The Urban Property Tax (IPTU: Imposto sobre a Propriedade Predial e Territorial Urbana) in Brazil: An Analysis of its Impact of Inequality and Redistribution in Brazil’s Municipalities”

The Brazilian social context is characterized by a state and social structure that causes inequalities. The purpose of this work is to analyze the fiscal and extra-fiscal aspects of the Brazilian property tax (IPTU). Considering previous studies have suggested that progressive taxes can promote redistribution, an idea which this study investigates in Brazil.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

03/28/2023 
Tyler Reny, Claremont Graduate University
“Prominent public mass shootings cause surges in Americans’ engagement with gun policy”

A common explanation for the absence of stringent gun control laws in the United States is that incidents of acute gun violence, while generating strong emotional reactions, do not propel the American public into political action. Leveraging the as-good-as random timing of prominent public mass shootings within the past decade and a novel and immense array of large-scale proprietary and publicly available data, we demonstrate that these events consistently cause surges in a range of political actions—including information-seeking on Google, streaming public-facing documentaries on gun policy, social discussion of gun policy on Twitter, signing of gun policy petitions on Change.org, and donating to PACs related to the gun policy debate, but only for mass shootings that garner significant media attention. However, we also find evidence that in some cases (i.e. discussion and information acquisition) these violence-induced upswings in public engagement with gun policy are polarizing—with spikes in activity both oriented towards gun control and towards gun rights.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

04/04/2023 
Roberto Ganau, University of Padova
“The luck of falling on the bright side. Enlightenment and the long-term persistence of the Habsburg administrative tradition”

The authors study the long-term, persistent effects of the Enlightenment-inspired administrative reform introduced by the Habsburg Monarchy in 1755 to analyze current administrative efficiency differentials in Northern Italy. They exploit exogeneity in the frontier established in 1748 by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle between the Habsburg-ruled Duchy of Milan and the nearby territories ruled by the Savoy House. The Habsburgs extended to all land taxpayers—through the Convocato institute—the right of nominating local civil servants and deciding on taxation and public spending, while maintaining the external control through a state representative. By contrast, the municipalities ruled by the Savoy House were subject to a highly centralized system in which local civil servants were nominated by—and were under the control of—the Intendente, who was appointed directly by the King. Using spatial regression discontinuity and employing an original dataset combining current and historical municipality-level data, we find a persistent positive effect of the Habsburg reform on current administrative efficiency. Their evidence shows that Habsburg-ruled municipalities provide more public goods and services while spending as much as Savoy House-ruled ones. We interpret our results through a model of persistence of an administrative tradition driven by a within-institution ‘bureaucracy enculturation’ mechanism. They model the transmission over time of administrative values, norms and practices within an institution assuming no differences in cultural values within the underlying population. Finally, they show that Enlightenment values and principles played a fundamental role in shaping the ‘spirit’ of the bureaucracy of the Duchy of Milan.

Host: Dept. of International Studies

Zoom link

04/11/2023 
Stephan Jagau, Univerity of California, Irvine
To Catch a Stag: Payoff- and risk-dominance in a one-shot coordination experiment

Five decades after Harsanyi and Selten’s seminal work on payoff- and risk-dominance in coordination problems, the influence of these drivers on real-life decisions is still poorly understood. One reason is that experiments often fail to separate risk and payoff-dominance from context-factors like learning, repetition, and complexity. Using a no-feedback, choice-list design and a recent decomposition of payoff matrices along orthogonal subspaces of “Nash” and “Pareto” incentives, this experiment is the first to cleanly identify what drives coordination decisions in one-shot settings. To uncover the mechanisms behind payoff- and risk-dominance, beliefs about others’ behavior are elicited next to decisions. The data shows that both payoff and risk-dominance independently and significantly impact decision-making, and that subjects’ subjective beliefs are a crucial mediator between incentives and decisions. Surprisingly, beliefs do not only drive the effect of risk dominance but also the effect of payoff dominance. This suggests that a notable share of subjects perceive coordination games as “team” problems.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Zoom link

04/18/2023 
Joshua Tasoff, Claremont Graduate University
Low-cost climate-change informational intervention reduces meat consumption among students for 3 years

The available evidence on the influence of information campaigns on meat consumption habits is limited. In this study, we analyzed a dataset of over 100,000 meal choices spanning 3 years to investigate the lasting effects of an informational intervention aimed at increasing awareness of the link between meat consumption and climate change. Students who were randomly assigned to the intervention group decreased their meat consumption by 5.6 percentage points, and this reduction persisted over the 3-year period without any signs of reversal. Our calculations suggest that the intervention was cost-effective, with a high return on investment, even when using conservative assumptions (estimated at approximately -US$14 per metric ton CO2eq). These findings indicate that informational interventions can effectively promote more sustainable food choices and have a lasting impact.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Zoom link

04/25/2023 
Carlos Algara, Claremont Graduate University
Citizens Strategically Punish the Legislature for Policy Failures: The Impact of Income Inequality on Approval of National Institutions in the United States

Do citizens hold institutions accountable for rising income inequality in society? In this paper, we test a theory arguing that citizens strategically distinguish between their national institutions when assessing which institution to blame for rising inequality by focusing their accountability on the institution primarily responsible for passing policy, the U.S. Congress. Leveraging over 50 years of new quarterly time-series data, we find that greater income inequality lowers approval of the U.S. Congress but not the presidency or the Supreme Court. We replicate this finding of strategic accountability at the subnational level using local inequality measures and MRP estimates of institutional approval at the congressional district and state levels. Lastly, using four unique modules fielded in the 2016-2019 Cooperative Election Study we find evidence for our proposed mechanism by showing that greater salience of an income inequality as a policy issue correlates with lower job approval for Congress but not the other two national institutions. Taken together, our results suggest citizens differentiate between their national institutions when assessing accountability for policy failures, with blame falling squarely with the Article One branch prominently responsible for policymaking.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Zoom link

05/02/2023 
Constança Esteves-Sorenson, Univerity of California, Los Angeles
Do Monetary Incentives Undermine Performance on Intrinsically Enjoyable Tasks? A Field Test

Economists have long been intrigued by an influential literature in psychology positing that monetary pay lowers performance on enjoyable tasks by crowding out agents’ intrinsic interest in them. But typical experiments in this literature do not report a full set of performance metrics, which might reveal conflicting evidence on crowding out. Further, they may suer from confounds. To evaluate these issues, we review over 100 prior tests and run a field experiment building on the canonical two-session test for crowding out wherein agents receive pay for an interesting activity in session one that is withdrawn unexpectedly in session two. We test whether pay harms performance using a comprehensive set of performance measures, and if so, whether unmet pay expectations might also contribute to this decline. Our results on output, productivity and quits are most consistent with a standard economics model than with a crowding out one. Additional, though more speculative, evidence suggests that unmet pay expectations may harm output quality.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Zoom link

Fall Semester 2022

9/13/2022 
Stephen Marks, Pomona College
“Effects of Police Force Size and California Criminal Justice Reforms on Crime Rates”

Based on generalized method of moments estimation for dynamic panels, he finds almost all positive, and in some cases statistically significant permanent and/or transitory effects of the reforms on various categories of property crimes.

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

9/20/2022  
Eric Schwitzgebel
Does Studying Ethics Make People More Ethical?
Host: Economic Sciences

9/27/2022      
Syeda ShahBano Ijaz, University of California at San Diego
“Demanding the Last Mile: Foreign Aid and Political Participation in Pakistan”

Foreign aid is an external resource that should fill political and economic gaps in developing democracies; this is the underlying logic of millions of dollars committed to build democracy in the developing world. Yet, there is reason to believe that foreign aid can provide a cover for recipient country elites to engage in poor policies and outright corruption. However, a singular focus on elite incentives misses the full picture. Ms. Syeda ShahBano Ijaz presents a study that looks at how voters in recipient states
change their political behavior when they become aid recipients, as well as the
subsequent response of political elites to voter demands.

Host: Dept. of International Studies

10/4/2022
Heather Campbell, Claremont Graduate University
“Going Beyond Census-Measured Racial and Ethnic Minorities: Minority Faith and Environmental Justice”

Since the 1980s, significant research evidence has shown that racial and ethnic minorities in the US suffer disproportionately from environmental pollutants and environmentally undesirable facilities. Yet, the history of the US and the world shows that racial and ethnic minorities are not the only minority groups who are discriminated against. Dr. Heather Campbell presents a study that examines the effect of religious minority status (which is not measured in the US Census), and finds that at least two religious minority groups, Jews and Muslims, also suffer from environmental injustice.

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

10/11/2022
Simon Tang, California State University
“Revisit Power Transition Theory and Relative War Cycle Theory, and their respective or combined application on the Sino-America relations”

Power Transition Theory emphasizes the danger of war between two major powers when power parity is achieved between them. In contrast, Relative War Cycle Theory emphasizes the concept of “critical points” in assessing the danger of a war between major powers. Dr. Simon Tang examines the possible combination of Power Transition Theory and Relative War Cycle Theory in analyzing and predicting the future of Sino-America relations.

Host: Dept. of International Studies

10/18/2022  
Ana Ortiz Salazar & Rena Salayeva, Claremont Graduate University
“Democracy, Economic Development, and Health Inequalities: Regime Type and Premature Mortality by Sex”

Premature mortality is important to politics because it reduces the number of years that individuals could have invested in political activities, determining who governments represent and to whom are they accountable. The standard deviation of the age-at-death distribution is a standardized measure of variation in premature mortality that captures differential access to healthcare and risk exposure in a society. Ana Ortiz Salazar and Dr. Rena Salayeva use life tables from the World Health Organization, 2000-2015, to generate the annual, sex-specific standard deviation of the age-at-death distribution across 162 countries. They apply dynamic panel data analysis to estimate the effect of regime type on sex-specific premature mortality, conditional on economic development.

Host: Dept. of International Studies

10/25/2022 
Kirby Nielsen, California Institute of Technology
“Revealed Incomplete Preferences”

Dr. Kirby Nielsen presents a study that elicits incomplete preferences over monetary gambles with subjective uncertainty. Subjects rank gambles, and these rankings are used to estimate preferences; payments are based on estimated preferences. About 40% of subjects express incompleteness, but they do so infrequently. Incompleteness is similar for individuals with precise and imprecise beliefs, and in an environment with objective uncertainty, suggesting that it results from imprecise tastes more than imprecise beliefs. When subjects are forced to choose, Dr. Nielsen observes more inconsistencies and preference reversals. Evidence suggests there is incompleteness that is indirectly revealed—in up to 97% of subjects—in addition to what is directly measured. (The video is not available due to the technology difficulties)

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

11/1/2022  
Hannah Alarian, University of Florida
“The “Right” Migrants: Explaining Immigrant  Support for Far-Right Nativist Parties”

Far-right nativist parties in Europe are staunchly anti-immigrant, yet despite still receive considerable support from voters with immigration backgrounds. Dr. Alarian’s talk address this puzzle, arguing that FRN parties disaggregating immigration by origin— as opposed to general opposition— can provide immigrants the ability to view themselves as the `right’ immigrant. Together with co-author, James Fahey (University of Florida), Dr. Alarian finds evidence of their theory combining European Social Survey data with a novel dataset of hand-coded party manifestos across nine countries over eighteen years. 

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

11/8/2022
Cynthia Osborne, Vanderbilt University
“Effective State-Level Policies to Strengthen The Prenatal-To-3 Period​”

The prenatal to age 3 period is the most sensitive and rapid period of development. Children who experience safe, nurturing, and loving environments are placed on trajectories toward optimal growth and learning, yet many families face substantial challenges during these years. Grounded in the science of the developing child and based on comprehensive reviews of the most rigorous evidence available, researchers from Vanderbilt University have identified 11 policy solutions proven to improve the health and well-being of children and families. Based on findings from their recently released 2022 Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap, Dr. Cynthia Osborne will present a deep understanding of what state investments work, for whom, under what conditions, and which states are leading the way.  

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

11/15/2022
Rainita Narender, Claremont Graduate University
“Evaluating Post-Incarceration Rehabilitation Services in California”

Reducing California’s staggering recidivism rates has persisted as the most prioritized yet challenging goal faced by the California Criminal Justice System (CCJS). As two-thirds of individuals released from prison re-offend within two years of release, finding feasible solutions to deter re-offense is of great importance. A recent program geared to mitigate rising recidivism rates in California is the Specialized Treatment for Optimal Programming, STOP, program offered by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, CDCR. This program offers housing, counseling and vocational resources to individuals considered the highest risk to re-offend based on their offense history, socioeconomic status, psychological and physiological safety. Rainita Narender presents a study that applies a transdisciplinary approach to investigate the populations that take-up STOP programming and if this access aids in re-entry within the community. 

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

11/29/2022
Veronica Zebadúa-Yáñez, University of Maryland
“‘I’m the one that’ll make you pay’: Towards a Theorization of Feminist Violence”

Feminist scholars and activists presuppose that violence and feminism stand in opposition. Arendtian perspectives, for example, take violence as an anti-political, instrumental practice that destroys the contingent character of plural action. Pacifists regard the use of violence as an expression of the hetero-patriarchal-racist-colonial imaginary. Vulnerability-centered perspectives, for their part, propose that violence is an expression of sovereign desire. Dr. Veronica Zebadúa-Yáñez presents a study that shifts the attention from the grim realities of sexist violence to thinking feminist uses of violence. Dr. Zebadúa-Yáñez engages historical and contemporary narrative fragments and episodes of feminist violence—violence perpetrated by self-identified feminist militants—and shows that the use of feminist violence is an overlooked element within the repertoires of feminist contentious politics. 

Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

12/6/2022
Joshua Tasoff, Claremont Graduate University
“Beliefs that Entertain”

A large fraction of people’s time is spent in leisure but fairly little economic research has been devoted to this study. Dr. Joshua Tasoff presents a study that analyzes the role of beliefs on player engagement in a popular video game called “League of Legends”. Using a data set of nearly 2.8 million matches representing 28 million players subsequent game engagements, Dr. Tasoff estimates the effect of lagging behind the opponent, suspense and surprise, and a proxy for flow. The approach of this study can be used to inform game design. 

Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

Spring Semester 2022

1/25/22   
Tony LoSasso, DePaul University
Incumbent Regulation and Adverse Selection: You Can Keep Your Health Plan, But at What Cost?”
Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

2/8/22
Svetlana Pevnitskaya, Florida State University
Information Aggregation in Social Networks”
Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

2/15/22    
Maxim Massenkoff, Naval Postgraduate School
“Beyond Crime Rates: How Did Public Safety in U.S. Cities Change in 2020?”
Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

2/22/22  
Ayobami Laniyonu, University of Toronto
Racial Misclassification in Police Records and Its Effects on Estimates of Racial Disparities”
Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

3/1/22
Allison Hartnett, University of Southern California
“Rural Intra-Elite Conflict, Colonization, and Demands for Power-Sharing: Evidence from Khedival Egypt”
Host: Dept. of International Studies

3/8/22 
Yesola Kweon, Utah State University
“Age and Trade Policy Preferences in an Aging Society: Evidence from Japan”
Host: Dept. of International Studies

3/22/22
Sara Sadhwani, Pomona College
“Asian American Political Representation: Candidates, Voters, and the Future of AAPI Representation”
Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

3/29/22
Sarah Dreier, University of New Mexico
“Veneer of Liberal Law: How Britain Justified Internment without Trial in Northern Ireland”
Host: Dept. of International Studies

4/8/22      
Mark Blitz, Claremont McKenna College
“Reason and Politics”
Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

4/19/22  
John Garcia, University of Michigan
“Yes, I Marked ‘Some Other Race’. So, What Does that Mean about Race and Latinos?”
Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

4/26/22
Magnus Lofstrom, Public Policy Institute of California
“Does Racial Disparity in Policy Stops Vary Throughout the Day?”
Host: Dept. of Economic Sciences

5/3/22  
Tyler Reny, Claremont Graduate University
“How Vulnerability Shapes Climate Policy Attitudes: The Case of Rising Sea Levels”
Host: Dept. of Politics & Government

Fall Semester 2021

9/7/21     
Tyler Reny, Claremont Graduate University
“Race, Prejudice, and Support for Racial Justice Countermovements: The Case of ‘Blue Lives Matter'”
Host: Politics & Government

10/5/2021
Joe Benitez, University of Kentucky
“The Effect of Medicaid Eligibility and Payment Generosity on Recession-Linked Declines in Access to Health Care”
Host: Economic Sciences

10/19/21 
Andrew McCall, University of Chicago
“Police Expertise, Political Control, and Racial Bias in Discretionary Arrests”
Host: Politics & Government

10/26/21
Carlos Algara, Claremont Graduate University
“Dynamics of Partisan Competition for Legislative Majorities in the U.S. House & Senate, 1959-2018”
Host: Politics & Government

11/2/21      
Kate Bundorf, Duke University
“How do Humans Interact with Algorithms? Experimental Evidence from Health Insurance”
Host: Economic Sciences

11/9/21    
Jean Schroedel, Claremont Graduate University
“Structural Racism, the USPS and Voting by Mial On-and Off-Reservation in Arizona”
Host: Politics & Government

11/16/21  – Cancelled (rescheduled for 2/22/22)
Ayobami Laniyonu, University of Toronto
“Racial Misclassification in Police Records and Its Effect on Estimates of Racial Disparities”
Host: Politics & Government

11/23/21
Soha Hammam, Claremont Graduate University
“A Multi-Method Analysis of Civil Resistance Dynamics and Outcomes”
Host: International Studies

11/30/21
Amanda Ross, University of Alabama
“A Second Stand at the Schoolhouse Doors: Are Public Schools Resegregating?”
Host: Economic Sciences

12/7/21 
Rudy Alamillo, Western Washington University
“The Not So Beautiful Game: FIFA Sanctions and Homophobic Backlash in Mexico”
Host: Politics & Government

 

Spring Semester 2021

1/26/21
Melissa Rogers and Yuzhu Zeng, Claremont Graduate University
Federalism and Inequality in a Pandemic: Evidence from Location Tracking in Mexico”
Host: International Studies

2/2/21
Cristina Garcia, CA Assemblymember, 58th Assembly District
“Pursuing Environmental Justice”
Host: Politics & Government

2/9/21
James Ziliak, University of Kentucky
“Recent Trends in the Material Well Being of the Working Class in America”
Host: Economic Sciences

2/23/21 – CANCELLED
Jevay Grooms, Howard University
“Racial and Ethnic Disparities: Essential Workers, Mental Health, and the Coronavirus Pandemic”
Host: Economic Sciences

3/2/21

Heather Campbell, Sekwen Kim, Shawnika Johnson, and Claudia Cáceres, Claremont Graduate University
“Illuminating Geographic Racism: The COVID-19 Shutdown and Environmental Justice”
Host: Politics & Government

3/9/21
Benjamin Newman, University of California, Riverside
“The Color of Disparity: Racialized Income Inequality and Support for Liberal Economic Policies”
Host: International Studies

3/23/21
Christopher (Kitt) Carpenter, Vanderbilt University
“Effects of Indoor Tanning Regulations”
Host: Economic Sciences

3/30/21
Jessica Saunders, Council of State Governments, Justice Center
“Implicit Bias in Discretionary Decisions”
Host: Economic Sciences

4/6/21
Trevon Logan, Ohio State University
“Competition and Discrimination in Public Accommodations: Evidence from the Green Books”
Host: Economic Sciences

4/20/21
Sara Heller, University of Michigan
“Predicting and Preventing Gun Violence”
(Please note this talk was not recorded at the request of the speaker)
Host: Economic Sciences

4/27/21 – CANCELLED (To be rescheduled)
Mark Abdollahian and Zining Yang, Claremont Graduate University
“The Convergence of Technology, Markets and Politics”
Host: International Studies

5/4/21
Steven Raphael, University of California, Berkeley
“Can Restorative Justice Conferencing Reduce Recidivism?
Host: Economic Sciences

 

Fall Semester 2020

9/22/20
Dong Wook Lee, Adelphi College
“The Modifiable Areal Unit Problem in Political Science”
Host: International Studies

9/29/20
Yi Feng, Claremont Graduate University
“Will Money Contribute to a Good Image?  An Empirical Study of China-European Economic Relations and China’s National Image in Europe”
Host: International Studies

10/6/20
Thomas Rice, University of California, Los Angeles
“Health Insurance in Other Wealthy Countries:  What Can the U.S. Learn?”
Host: Politics & Government

10/13/20
Jehan Sparks, University of California, Los Angeles
“Gian/Loss Asymmetries in Sequential Framing Effects”
Host: Economic Sciences

10/20/20
Jennifer Merolla, University of California, Riverside
“Emotions and Engagement in the Year of the Woman”
Host: Politics & Government

10/27/20
Michael Melvin, University of California, San Diego
“The Coming Crisis of Lower-than-expected Retirement Incomes”
Host: Economic Sciences

11/3/20 – POSTPONED (Moved to Spring 2021)
James Ziliak, University of Kentucky
“COVID-19 and The US Safety Net”
Host: Economic Sciences

11/10/20
Richie Li, Baylor University
“The Hidden Story in White Identity Politics: a More Comprehensive Understanding of How Does White Racial Consciousness Shape Anti-Muslim Opinion”
Host: Politics & Government

11/17/20
Marcia Godwin, University of La Verne
“Southern California’s Flipped Congressional Districts”
Host: Politics & Government

11/24/20
Tanu Kumar, College of William & Mary
“Home Price Subsidies Increase Local Participation in Urban India”
Host: International Studies

12/1/20

Laura Peck, Abt Associates
“Experimental Evaluation Design for Program Improvement”
Host: Politics & Government

 

Spring Semester 2020

1/28/20
Shawn Rohlin, Kent State University
“Weathering an Unexpected Financial Shock: The Role of Cash Grants on Household Finance and Business Survival following a Natural Disaster”
Host: Economic Sciences

2/4/20
Erin Duffy, University of Southern California
“Surprise Medical Bills: When The Hospital Is In Your Insurance Network, But — Surprise! — The Doctor Is Not”
Host: Politics & Government

2/11/20
Guillermo Ramos Douglass-Jaimes, Pomona College
“Blurring Boundaries of the “Slum Divide” Through Precision Mapping in Rio de Janeiro”
Host: Politics & Government

2/18/20
Char Miller, Pomona College
“Streetscape Environmentalism: Flood Control, Social Justice, and Political Power in San Antonio”
Host: Politics & Government

2/25/20
Christopher Krewson, Claremont Graduate University
“Supreme Court Legitimacy and the Gender Gap”
Host: Politics & Government

3/3/20
Cynthia Osborne, The University of Texas at Austin
“Effective State-level Policies to Strengthen the Prenatal-to-3 Period”
Host: Politics & Government

3/10/20
Mireille Jacobson, University of Southern California
“How Do Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Reduce Opioid Prescribing?”
Host: Economic Sciences

Following the decision of the university to move all classes online, the Division of Politics and Economics has also decided to suspend all in-person gatherings for research talks and events for the rest of the semester. Unfortunately, the remaining Spring 2020 DPE Tuesday Talks must be cancelled.

3/24/20 – CANCELLED
Jennifer Merolla, University of California, Riverside
Title: “Emotional Engagement in the Year of the Woman”
Host: Politics & Government

3/31/20 – CANCELLED
Marcia Godwin, University of La Verne
“Southern California’s Flipped Congressional Districts”
Host: Politics & Government

4/7/20 – CANCELLED
Thomas Rice, University of California, Los Angeles
“Health Insurance in Other Wealthy Countries:  What Can the U.S. Learn?”
Host: Politics & Government

4/14/20 – CANCELLED
Michael Melvin, University of California, San Diego
“Global Currency Markets: Facts and Fallacies”
Host: Economic Sciences

4/21/20 – CANCELLED
Paasha Mahdavi, University of California, Santa Barbara
“Direct Cash Transfers and Political Participation”
Host: International Studies

4/28/20 – CANCELLED
Laura Peck, Abt Associates
“Experimental Evaluation Design for Program Improvement”
Host: Politics & Government

5/5/20 – CANCELLED
Gregory Daneke, Arizona State University
“Automacene Rising: The Problematic Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence”
Host: Politics & Government

 

Fall Semester 2019

9/17/19
Heather Royer, University of California, Santa Barbara
“How are Preferences for Commitment Revealed?”
Host: Economic Sciences

9/24/19
Gregoire Phillips, University of California, San Diego
“Velvet Gloves on Iron Fists: Media, Influence, and Power in Modern Extremism”
Host: International Studies

10/1/19
Douglas Lemke, Pennsylvania State University
“The Survival of ‘States’”
Host: International Studies

10/8/19
Peiran Jiao, Maastricht University
“Investor Memory”
Host: Economic Sciences

10/15/19
Mehdi Nemati, University of California, Riverside
“Heterogeneous Effects of High-Frequency Consumption Analytics on Residential Water Consumption”
Host: Politics & Government

10/22/19
Joshua Tasoff, Claremont Graduate University
“Eating to Save The Planet: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial Using Individual-Level Food Purchase Data”
Host: Economic Sciences

10/29/19
Ines Levin, University of California, Irvine
“Machine Unlearning: Adjusting Automatically for Human Biases in Decision Making”
Host: International Studies

11/5/19
Erica Dobbs, Pomona College
“Cinderella States: Rethinking immigration typologies in Western Europe (and beyond)”
Host: Politics & Government

11/12/19
Robert Klitgaard, Claremont Graduate University
“Culture and Development”
Host: Politics & Government

11/19/19
Rachel VanSickle-Ward, Pitzer College
“The Politics of the Pill: Gender, Framing, and Policymaking in the Battle over Birth Control”
Host: Politics & Government

11/26/19
Rustam Romaniuc, Claremont Graduate University
“Whistleblowing Norms: Experimental Evidence from Moldova and France”
Host: Economic Sciences

12/3/19
Malte Dold, Pomona College
“F.A. Hayek on the Political Economy of Endogenous Preferences”
Host: Economic Sciences

12/10/19
Zoe Nemerever, University of California, San Diego
“The Rural Representation Gap”
Host: International Studies

Spring Semester 2019

01/29/19
Nico Ravanilla, University of California, San Diego
Limiting Adverse Political Selection: Experimental Evidence from the Philippines
Host: International Studies

02/05/19
Richard Kronick, University of California, San Diego
Is ‘Medicare for All’ the Democrats’ “Repeal and Replace’?
Host: Economic Sciences

02/12/19
Gregory De Angelo, Claremont Graduate University
Policing For Profit: The Political Economy of Law Enforcement
Host: Economic Sciences

02/19/19
Jeanine Kraybill, California State University, Bakersfield
The Women of SCOTUS: A Preliminary Analysis of the Different Voice Debate
Host: International Studies

02/26/19
Lise Vesterlund, University of Pittsburgh
Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Gender Differences in Task Allocations
Host: Economic Sciences

03/05/19
Bhavna Shamasunder, Occidental College
Crude Justice: Neighborhood Oil Development and Community Based Research in Los Angeles
Host: Politics & Government

03/12/19
Michael McLendon, California State University, Los Angeles
“The Psychology of Inequality: Rousseau’s ‘Amour-Propre'”
Host: Politics & Government

03/19/19
Spring Break

03/26/19
David Andrews, Scripps College
Brexit and the British Constitutional Crisis
Host: Economic Sciences

04/02/19
Philip Armour, RAND Corporation
Stuck without a Job: How Housing Policies, Labor Markets, and Declining Mobility Contribute to Long-Term Disability
Host: Economic Sciences

04/09/19
Arturo Vargas Bustamante, University of California, Los Angeles
US-Mexico Cross-Border Health Visitors: How Mexican border cities in the state of Baja California address unmet healthcare needs from US residents
Host: Economic Sciences

04/16/19
Evan Crawford, University of San Diego
The partisan competition over partisan competition: electoral contestation at the local level
Host: Politics & Government

04/23/19
Chris Whaley, RAND Corporation and University of California, Berkeley
The Effect of Financial Reward Programs on Prices and Utilization of Low-Priced Providers
Host: Economic Sciences

04/30/19
Ruoxi Li, U.S. California State University, San Marcos
Is there a trade-off between campaigning and legislating in Congress?
Host: Politics & Government

Fall Semester 2018

09/11/18
Michael Baranick, American University of Central Asia
Causes and Process of Radicalization
Host: International Studies

09/18/18
Aaron Berg and Javier Rodríguez, Claremont Graduate University
Trust and Turnout in Indian Country
Host: Politics & Government

09/25/18
Claire O’Hanlon, RAND Corporation
“U.S. Health Care Industry Consolidation: National Landscape and Results from A Case Study OF Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania”
Host: Economic Sciences

10/02/18
Melissa Rogers and Jean Schroedel, Claremont Graduate University
Assessing the Efficacy of Early, On-site Voting Access on Indian Reservations: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Nevada
Host: Politics & Government

10/09/18
Christopher Krewson, Claremont Graduate University
“Public Support for Judicial Philosophies”
Host: Politics & Government

10/16/18
Heather Campbell, Claremont Graduate University
Environmental Justice and Water Policy during a Drought: Community Stressors, Minority Residents, and Cutback Assignments
Host: Politics & Government

10/23/18
Arie Kapteyn, University of Southern California
U.S. Life Satisfaction Within and Across Countries: The Role of Societal Capital and Relative Income
Host: Economic Sciences

10/30/18
Stan Oklobdzija, University of California, San Diego
Citizens United, Dark Money Networks and the Evolution of Political Parties
Host: Politics & Government

11/06/18
Giorgi Areshidze, Claremont McKenna College
How the West Thinks about Radical Islam
Host: Politics & Government

11/13/18
Robert Bunker and Marisa Mendoza, University of Southern California
“MARA SALVATRUCHA (MS-13) A Law Enforcement Primer”
Host: Politics & Government

11/20/18
Yi Feng, Zhijun Gao and Wanjun Jiang, Claremont Graduate University
Logic of Foreign Direct Investment, Convergence or Divergence? A Comparative Study of US and China’s Outgoing FDI to Africa
Host: International Studies

11/27/18
David Neumark, University of California, Irvine
The Long-Run Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit on Women’s Earnings
Host: Economic Sciences

12/4/18
Jacek Kugler, Claremont Graduate University
Impact of Political Capacity on Demographic Change and Economic Recovery
Host: International Studies

12/11/18
Leif Rosenberger, U.S. Army War College
Try Shared Prosperity to Reduce the Demand for Violence
Host: International Studies

Spring Semester 2018

01/23/18
Jacek Kugler, Claremont Graduate University
Long term Power Transtion Perspective.
Host: International Studies

01/30/18
Tamorah Hunt, Claremont Graduate University Board Member
“Issues in Forensic Economics.”
Host: Development Office

02/06/18
Brian Hilton, Claremont Graduate University
Locational Big Data and Analytics: Case Studies and Demonstrations.
Host: Politics & Government

02/13/18
Steven Childs, California State University, San Bernardino
“Unmanned Drones, Small Nuclear Powers, and Nuclear Deterrence.”
Host: International Studies

02/20/18
Linda Perkins, Claremont Graduate University
The United Nations Substantiable Development Goals and their impact on Global Gender Equity.
Host: International Studies

02/27/18
Paul Peretz, Claremont Graduate University
A Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Political Parties.
Host: Economic Sciences

03/06/18
Georgia Kernell, University of California, Los Angeles
Inside Parties.
Host: International Studies

03/20/18
Birol A. Yeşilada, Portland State University
How Social Values Could Explain Regional Integration in Europe.
Host: International Studies

04/03/18
Mark Abdollahian, Claremont Graduate University
Big Data Trajectories.
Host: International Studies

04/10/18
Tony LoSasso, University of Illinois at Chicago
Reclassification Risk in the Small Group Health Insurance Market.
Host: Economic Sciences

04/17/18
Sallama Shaker, Claremont Graduate University
Chess Game in the Middle East.
Host: International Studies

04/26/18
James M. Murphy, Jr. & Robert E. Hindle
Multilateralism and Economic Development.
Host: Development Office & Economic Sciences

05/01/18
Kerstin Fisk, Loyola Merimount University
“Refugee Encampment and Communal Conflict in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Host: International Studies

Fall Semester 2017

09/05/17
Lucrecia Santibañez, Claremont Graduate University
“Effects of a Private Comprehensive Schooling Model on Low-income Children: Experimental Evidence from Mexico”
Host: Economic Sciences

09/12/17
George Thomas, Claremont McKenna College
“The Return of Constitutional Political Economy”
Host: Politics & Government

09/19/17
Tom Rice, University of California, Los Angeles
“Improving Consumer Decision-Making in Health Insurance: Background and Experimental Evidence”
Location: Burkle 16; 11:45am – 1:00pm
Host: Economic Sciences

09/26/17
Gulrez Azhar, Pardee RAND Graduate School
“Heat Wave Vulnerability Mapping for India”
Host: Politics & Government

10/03/17
Jacob Meyer, California State University, Long Beach
“Which Crisis and Why?”
Host: International Studies

10/10/17
William Ascher, Claremont McKenna College
“Rights Versus Benefit-Cost Analysis”
Host: Politics & Government

10/17/17
Kyungkook Kang, University of Central Florida
Conditional Deterrence
Host: International Studies

10/24/17
Javier Rodriguez, Claremont Graduate University
Party Composition of State Legislatures and Racial Disparities in Health
Host: Politics & Government

11/07/17
Justin Gallagher, Case Western Reserve University
“​Criminal Deterrence when there are Offsetting Risks: Traffic Cameras, Vehicular Accidents, and Public Safety​
Host: Economic Sciences

11/14/17
Carolyn James, Pepperdine University
Sovereignty and Policy: US-Canadian Relations in the Arctic
Host: International Studies

11/21/17
Jane Zhang, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
“Curriculum and Ideology”
Host: Economic Sciences

11/28/17
Pierre Englebert, Pomona College; Alma Bezares-Calderon, PhD candidates at CGU; Lisa Piergallini, PhD candidates at CGU
Decentralization Reforms and Ethnic Collective Action in Former Katanga, DR Congo
Host: International Studies

12/05/17
Emily Acevedo, California State University, Los Angeles
Mexico’s Growing Public Security Threats: Treating the Problem, Not the Symptoms
Host: International Studies

Spring Semester 2017

01/24/17
Gasspare Genna, The University of Texas at El Paso
“Development of European Integration”

01/31/17
Michael Bordo, Rutgers University
“Quantitative Easing in the Great Depression and Now”

02/07/17
Emily Pears, Claremont McKenna College
“Chords of Sympathy: The Development of National Political Attachments in the 19th Century”
Taking the Constitution Seriously: Lessons from the Founding Speaker Series

02/14/17
David Lee, MIT
“Your Trash in the Wild: GPS Tracking and the Future of Waste Management”

02/21/17
No talk scheduled

02/28/17
Jerry White, Global Impact Strategies Inc.
“Religion, Violence and Strategy: How to Stop Killing in the Name of God?”

03/07/17
Patrick James, University of Southern California
“Decision-Making in U.S. Foreign Policy Crises: Presidential Leadership and Outcomes”

03/14/17
Spring Break, no talk scheduled

03/21/17
Paul Carrese, Professor and Director USAFA Scholar program, U.S. Air Force Academy
“Why Our Politics Is So Broken: The Eclipse of Constitutional Moderation”
Taking the Constitution Seriously: Lessons from the Founding Speaker Series

03/28/17
Kip Viscusi, Vanderbilt University
“Pricing Lives for Government and Corporate Decisions”

04/04/17
Michael Uhlmann, Claremont Graduate University
“Some Madisonian Reflections on the 2016 Election”
Taking the Constitution Seriously: Lessons from the Founding Speaker Series

04/11/17
Roger Chin, Claremont Graduate University

04/18/17
Mary Evans, Mitchell Associate Professor of Environmental Economics, Claremont McKenna College
“The Clean Air Act Watch List: An Enforcement and Compliance Natural Experiment”

04/25/17
Imke Harbers, University of Amsterdam

Fall Semester 2016

11/22/16
Dr. Andrew Marx and Dr. Melissa Rogers. CISAT and Claremont Graduate University
Using Satellites to Assess Panamanian GDP Data

11/08/16
Dr. Hilton Root. George Mason University
Network Dynamics of Dynastic Succession

11/01/16
Dr. George Thomas. Claremont McKenna College
The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mind
Taking the Constitution Seriously: Lessons from the Founding Speaker Series

10/27/16
Dr. Melissa Rogers. Claremont Graduate University
What does Comparative Politics Tell Us about the Structure of the US and the Current Presidential Elections?
Taking the Constitution Seriously: Lessons from the Founding Speaker Series

10/25/16
Dr. Charles Kesler. Claremont McKenna College
What do the Federalist Papers Have to Teach 21st Century Americans?
Taking the Constitution Seriously: Lessons from the Founding Speaker Series

10/18/16
Dr. Anya Samek. University of Southern California
Towards an Understanding of What Works in Preschool Education

10/11/16
Dr. Jean Yarbrough. University of Southern California
“Did Alexander Hamilton Get it Wrong on Executive Power?”
Taking the Constitution Seriously: Lessons from the Founding Speaker Series

09/27/16
Dr. Jacek Kugler. Claremont Graduate University
Effect of Structural Changes on Future Global Stability

09/20/16
Dr. Richard Worthington. Pomona College
Global Citizen Policy Consultation

09/13/16
Dr. Mellisa Rogers. Claremont Graduate University
Intra-elite Competition and Long-run Fiscal Development

09/06/16
Dr. Paul Zak. Claremont Graduate University
“Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High Performance Companies”

Spring Semester 2016

04/26/16
Dr. John S. Ahlquist, University of California, San Diego
Elections, Exchange Rates & Household Exposure to Foreign Currency Debt: evidence from the 2015 Swiss Franc revaluation and Polish Elections

04/19/16
Dr. Patrick Neal, Claremont Graduate University
“Oscillations and Coupling in Congestion Games and Macroeconomic Data”

04/05/16
Dr. Gabriele Camera, Chapman University
“Money and the Scale of Cooperation”

03/29/16
Dr. Yushim Kim, Arizona State University
Two Effective Causal Paths that Explain the Adoption of U.S. State Environmental Justice Policy

03/22/16
Dr. Itai Sher, University of California, San Diego
Ethical Considerations on Quadratic Voting

03/08/16
Dr. Jeffrey Kendell Naecker, Wesleyan University
When Fair Isn’t Fair: Sophisticated Time Inconsistency in Social Preferences

03/01/16
Dr. Jennifer Pate, Loyola Marymount University
Exploring the Volunteer’s Dilemma in Experiment

02/23/16
Dr. Rami Zwick, University of California, Riverside
“Pay what you want” as threshold public good provision”

02/16/16
Dr. Tanja Srebotnjak, Harvey Mudd College
“When the oil patch looks more like a carpet: A spatial analysis of the demographic characteristics of U.S. communities living in close proximity to oil and gas development”

02/09/16
Dr. Hyung Rok Yim, Hanyang University, South Korea
“Global Economy Matrix – the Past, the Current, and the Future”

02/02/16
Dr. Dale Berger, Claremont Graduate University
“Crisis of Replicability – Critique of Social Science Research Methodology”

01/26/16
Dr. Tobias F. Roetheli, University of Erfurt, Germany
“Pattern-Based Inflation Expectations: A Modern Perspective on the Role of Extrapolation”

Fall Semester 2015

09/08/15
Zining Yang, Claremont Graduate University
“The Freedom of Constraint: An Agent-Based Game Theoretic Model of the Politics of Fertility and Economic Development Dynamics”

09/15/15
Soomi Lee, University of La Verne
Fiscal Effects of the Constitutional Supermajority Requirement for Raising Taxes: Evidence from the U.S. States

09/22/15
Tom Kniesner, Claremont Graduate University
“Some Core Aspects of Behavioral Labor Economics: Theory and Evidence”

09/29/15
Tahir Andrabl, Pomona College
Coming Up Short? Recovery deficits in children after the Pakistan earthquake of 2005

10/06/15
Garret Ridinger, University of California, Irvine
“Intentions versus outcomes: cooperation and fairness in a sequential prisoner’s dilemma with nature”

10/13/15
Russell Dalton, University of California, Irvine
“The Civic Culture Transformed: From Allegiant to Assertive Citizens”

10/20/15
Jennifer Merolla, Claremont Graduate University
Frames that Matter: Immigration Policy and Undocumented Immigrants in the United States

10/27/15
Brinda Sarathy, Pitzer College
Laid to Waste: Regulating Water Pollution in Southern California, 1947-1972

11/03/15
Joshua Tasoff, Claremont Graduate University
The Role of Time Preferences and Exponential Growth Bias in Retirement Savings

11/10/15
David Bjerk, Claremont McKenna College
Using Exoneration Data to Estimate Racial Differences in Wrongful Conviction Rates

11/17/15
Robert Klitgaard, Claremont Graduate University
Addressing Corruption Together

11/24/15
Patrick James, University of Southern California
The Religious Characteristics of States(RCS)Dataset:Classic Themes and New Evidence for International Relations and Comparative Politics

12/01/15
Vincenzo Quadrini, University of Southern California
The growth of emerging economies and global macroeconomic stability

12/08/15
Yan Li, Claremont Graduate University
Using Association Rules Mining to Facilitate Qualitative Data Analysis in Theory Building

Spring Semester 2015

01/27/15
Yi Feng, Claremont Graduate University
Official Corruption in China: An Empirical Study

02/03/15
Jeff Conklin, CogNexus Institute
Beyond Gridlock: Breaking Our Addiction to Problem Solving

02/10/15
Dana Goldman, University of Southern California
“Rethinking the Value of End-of-Life Care”

02/17/15
Eusebio Alvaro, Claremont Graduate University
“Messages Matter: Highlights from a Research Program Examining Persuasion in the Health Context”

02/24/15
Darren Filson, Claremont McKenna College
Say Goodbye to Hollywood: The Rise of Film Franchises and Performance in Domestic vs Foreign Markets

03/03/15
Sallama Shaker, Claremont Graduate University

03/10/15
Hernan Bejarano, Chapman University

03/24/15
Yariv Fadlon, Claremont Graduate University

03/31/15
Manisha Goel, Pomona College

04/07/15
Ben Gillen, CalTech
“Underbidding and Experience in USFS Timber Auctions

04/14/15
Alan Fiske, UCLA
Relational Models Theory – The Four Elementary Forms of Social Relations

04/21/15
Wendy Wong, U. Toronto
Who You Gonna Call? Leading Authorities Among INGOs

04/28/15
Jana Grittersova, UCR
Foreign Financiers and Sovereign Credit Ratings: Reputational Capital in Sovereign Debt Markets

05/05/15
Daniel Benjamin, Cornell
The Fourth Law of Behavior Genetics