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Program on Political Institutions

The Program on Political Institutions

Past Conferences

Authors Roundtable
April 18, 2008

PPI will host its second author's roundtable. Among others, Jack Snyder (Columbia), Robert Powell (Berkeley), and Chaim Kaufmann (Lehigh) will discuss Charles Glaser's book manuscript, Theory of Rational International Politics. Details forthcoming.

Political Economy Conference
May 23, 2008

PPI (in conjunction with Chicago GSB's Initiative on Global Markets and the Ford Motor Company for Global Citizenship at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University) will host a political economy conference at the Gleacher Center, located at 450 North City Front Plaza Drive in downtown Chicago. The conference will bring together researchers from the greater Chicago area to present papers, share ideas, and foster a tighter research community. The conference is intended for rigorous theoretical, empirical, and experimental work in the field of political economy. Individuals interested in presenting a paper should send an abstract to Janice Luce at (janice.luce@chicagogsb.edu) by April 15.

Authors Roundtable
December 6, 2007
Imperfect Union: Representation and Taxation in Multi-level Governments
By Christopher Berry

Imperfect Union examines problems of shared authority among territorially overlapping local governments (cities, counties, school and special districts). Combining formal and empirical analyses, Berry argues that taxation by multiple authorities undermines political participation and turns the tax base into a fiscal common-pool resource. The resulting “overfishing” problems undercut the mechanisms of Tiebout competition. Strong political parties can mitigate the common-pool problem by informally coordinating the policies of overlapping local governments. The roundtable will involve chapter-by-chapter discussions of the manuscript led by invited participants, including Jeffrey Lewis (UCLA), Terry Moe (Stanford), Eric Oliver (Chicago), and Kenneth Shepsle (Harvard). Download the book prospectus (pdf).

Conference agenda:

8:30-9:00	Continental breakfast
9:00-9:10	Introduction (William Howell)
9:10-9:30	Overview of the argument (Christopher Berry)
9:30-11:00	Chapter 2, Theory (Kenneth Shepsle)
11:00-11:15	Coffee break
11:15-12:45	Chapter 3, Piling On: The Problem of Concurrent Taxation (Jeffrey Lewis)
12:45-1:45	Lunch
1:45-3:15	Chapter 5, Governing the Fiscal Commons (Terry Moe)
3:15-3:30	Coffee Break
3:30-5:00	Discussion of the contribution, conclusions, framing (Eric Oliver)

Half-Day Conference
Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 1:30 - 5:00 p.m.

Conference agenda:

1:30-1:45	opening remarks
1:45-2:30	Scott Ashworth (Princeton University) & Ethan Bueno de Mesquita (University of Chicago) -- "Valence Competition and Platform Divergence"
2:30-3:15	Chris Berry (University of Chicago), Barry Burden (University of Wisconsin), and Will Howell (University of Chicago) -- "Go the Spoils: The Distribution of Federal Outlays, 1984-2004"
3:15-3:30	break
3:30-4:15	Jong Hee Park (University of Chicago) -- "Electoral Competition and Specific Subsidies: Political Determinants of Sectoral State Aids in 15 European Union Member States"
4:15-5:00	Alex Thompson (Ohio State University) & Duncan Snidal (University of Chicago) -- "Guarding the Equilibrium: The Autonomous Role of the WTO as an Institution"


	Contact Information William Howell, Director Phone: 773-834-8319 E-mail: whowell@uchicago.edu