Recent Workshops:

 Febrary 26: Samuel Myers on Ethnic Inequality in China- Professor Myers is the special editor of an upcoming edition of the Review of Black Political Economy on the political economy of race and ethnicity in China. He will introduce seminar participants to some of the key demographic issues driving the new push by the Xi government and the new National Income Redistribution Plan that aims to reduce disparities between Han and ethnic minority group members.  Some technical issues related to measuring ethnic economic disparities will be briefly discussed.

February 12 -- Paul M. Vaaler on Defining Regions in International Research: International business and related research in economics, political science, and geography has long acknowledged the importance of supra-national regional factors in explaining important phenomena such as where multinational corporations choose to locate. Yet, ex ante criteria for defining regional goruping schemes vary substantially and undermine development of consensus regarding how and why supra-national regional factors matter. As an laternative, Professor Vaaler grounds an ex post approach in a theory of group structural coherence assuming that: 1)schemes can be classified based on the source of group member congruence (similarity); and 2) schemes within a congruence class can be assessed for their comparative group contiguity and compactness. Models incorporating these preferred schemes should exhibit better fit with less change in fit when schemes are refined. Professor Vaaler will present support for this hypothesis in empirical analyses of regional factors explaining the likelihood of subsidiary location by 100 US-based MNCs operating in 105 different countries in 2000.

Vaaler's paper can be downloaded here: Vaaler.pdf

Jan 29 -- J. Brian Atwood on The Challenge of Creating a Meaningful Global Partnership for Development: In 2010, Official Development Assistance rose to its highest level ever, to almost $130 billion. Members of the Development Assistance Committee accounted for close to 90% of this amount. However, new providers of assistance had come on stream such the emerging economies of the "BRICS" and large philanthropic organizations such as the Gates Foundation. All this activity created "fragmentation" "ownership" and "dependency" issues for recipient nations. Much needed to be done to rationalize the international system and bridge the gap between traditional donors and South-South providers. How could a comprehensive "effectiveness" forum in Busan, Korea under the auspices of the OECD be used to create a new space for cooperation? How could the dynamic be shifted to end dependency, produce a system of mutual accountability, move from "aid" to development, end the donor-recipient frame, broaden participation for results at the country level, and create a Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation engaging all partners, providers, civil society and the private sector? This was a tall order for a conference sponsored by an organization not affiliated with the United Nations, but Professor Atwood will explain how broad agreement was reached.

Nov 20, 2012: Lalith Samarakoon on the Eurozone Crisis: The Eurozone crisis has become one of the most important issues facing the global economy. It continues to dominate headlines and economic policy debates. This seminar will focus on various policy responses and solutions that have been implemented or proposed to address the crisis and discuss their effectiveness in resolving the crisis. The seminar will consider the crisis and policy experience in the key countries such as the Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and deal with both fiscal and monetary policy responses by respective national governments as well as by key institutions such as the the European Central Bank, European Commission, and the IMF.

November 6, 2012: Professor Orn Bodvarsson on Immigration and Labor Market Outcomes: A popular expectation about immigration’s impact is that inflows of new immigrants will reduce native-born wages and rates of employment, which is also what the basic demand/supply model in economics would predict. Most studies show that immigration actually has a relatively benign effect on native-born labor market outcomes. In this talk, Professor Bodvarsson will provide some reasons for the discrepancy between what the theory would predict and what is revealed by the data. The discrepancy is due to both theory and empirical specifications not capturing all labor market adjustments, both short and long term, to immigration.

October 23, 2012: Professor Chandy John, Pediatrics and Medicine, University of Minnesota on Global Health and Public Policy: The University of Minnesota is home to internationally recognized
researchers and experts in public policy. However, the two groups rarely engage each other. In this talk, Dr. John will discuss some ideas about how research done at the university in global health might be better linked to public policy. Specifically, he'll discuss some of the findings from his
research in malaria, and the gap he perceives between findings in research
and their incorporation into public health and social policies. The talk
and examples are designed to be a springboard for very active discussion
and potentially future work in this area.

October 9, 2012: Mario Solis on "Tax Policy News and Business Cycle Fluctuations." News about changes in future tax plans -- like the Bush tax cuts during 2010 -- can influence the behavior of economic agents even though these plans may never materialize. In turn, the changes in behavior created by news may have important economic consequences in the short run. Would news about an increase in capital tax rates create a recession? Would news about a reduction in the top income tax rate increase hours worked? This research project shows that news can trigger economic fluctuations even before the policy change takes place. Data to test the theory presented are drawn from a large set of high income and developing countries.