Feature

Conference Kicks Off New Research Program

Faculty and graduate students from across the University of Chicago gathered on Wednesday, October 24, at an inaugural conference for the Harris School's new Program on Political Institutions (PPI). The half-day event covered a wide array of issues within the realm of political institutions-examining both domestic and international organizations-and research that ranged from the purely theoretical to the quantitative.

"This [conference] exposes the range of research on political institutions that the Program intends to support and foster," said William Howell, an associate professor at the Harris School and the director of PPI. Speakers included faculty from different departments of the University as well as from Princeton University and Ohio State University.

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita of the Harris School and Scott Ashworth of Princeton University used game theory to examine how candidates running for office first formulate their policy positions and then determine how much money they want to devote to the campaign for non-policy items (like reputation building or advertising)-although both are closely linked.

Howell, Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin, and Chris Berry of the Harris School, presented a paper which found that federal government outlays tend to be directed to congressional districts whose members share a similar ideology and partisanship to the president.

Jong Hee Park of the University's Political Science Department discussed how government subsidies are distributed within European nations. The data suggested that more centralized labor groups can organize a high level of government interest and get funds for a more general industry. If decentralized industries lobby the government one at a time, they receive more specific funds.

Duncan Snidal of the Harris School and Alex Thompson of Ohio State University looked at the function the World Trade Organization serves to its member states and why these countries abide by WTO decision with which they do not agree.

PPI's next conference will be an author's roundtable on Berry's book manuscript, Imperfect Unions: Representation and Taxation in Multi-level Governments. Learn more.