IMT Alti Studi Lucca - Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies

PhD in Institutions, Politics and Policies

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Ph.D. Program in Institutions, Politics and Policies / IPP

The Ph.D. Program in Institutions, Politics and Policies is a multidisciplinary course analyzing political institutions, politics and policies from the point of view of history and political science, and, to a lesser extent, economics and law. It adopts a comparative perspective, and pays particular attention to processes of change over time. It aims at forming analysts able to: understand and, if possible, channel processes of transformation of politics and political institutions; plan and manage collaborative and integrated processes at the international level; plan and manage public policies, assessing their impact; confront the specific problems of countries in transition towards democracy and a market economy.

The Ph.D. Program in Institutions, Politics and Policies formally replaces the Ph.D. Program in Political Systems and Institutional Change (PSIC); the name change reflects the development and evolution of the program and curriculum in cooperation with LUISS "Guido Carli", with the prospective goal of a joint degree program between the two institutions.

People who held Lectures and Seminars at IMT

Giovanni Orsina
Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali "Guido Carli" - Roma

PEOPLE who have held Lectures

William Peter Baehr, Lingnan University
Pierluigi Barrotta, Università di Pisa
Elisabetta Brighi, University of Oxford
R. Kenneth Carty, University of British Columbia
Stefan Collignon, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
Domenico Colucci, Università degli Studi di Firenze
Juan Eugenio Corradi, New York University
Micheal Cox, London School of Economics and Political Science
Sybe De Vries, Universiteit Utrecht
Giampiero M. Gallo, Università degli Studi di Firenze
Giovanni Giorgini, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Marco Giuliani, Università degli Studi di Milano
Leigh Hancher, Universiteit van Tilburg
Christopher Hill, University of Cambridge
Martino Maggetti, Universität Zürich
Giandomenico Majone, Visiting Distinguished Professor at EU Center and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs in the University of Pittsburgh
Luca Mezzetti, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Giuseppe Morbidelli, Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali "Guido Carli"
Stefania Panebianco, Università degli Studi di Catania
Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh
Viviene Schmidt, Boston University
Elliot Stern, Tavistock Institute, London
Peter Stoett, Concordia University
Anthonie Van Den Brink, Universiteit Utrecht
Alberto Vannucci, Università di Pisa
Antonio Varsori, Università degli Studi di Padova
Andrea Vindigni, IMT Alti studi, Lucca
Claudius Wagemann, Università degli Studi di Firenze
Vladislav Zubok, Temple University

PEOPLE who have held Seminars

Alberto Alesina, Harvard University, Cambridge
Chris Ansell, University of Berkeley
Silvia Ardagna, Harvard University, Cambridge
Rainer Arnold, University of Regensburg
Ciro Avitabile, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Klenio Barbosa, Toulouse School of Economics
Roland Jean-Marc Bénabou, Princeton University
Ernst Berndt, MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Alberto Bisin, New York University
Dan Bogart, University of California
Federico Boschi, Legc, Milano
Maristella Botticini, Collegio Carlo Alberto, Torino
Paolo Buccirossi, LEAR
Paolo Buonanno, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Ariel Burstein, UCLA, Anderson School of Management
Paula Bustos, CREI, Barcelona
Tiago Cavalcanti, University of Cambridge
Guido Cervini, Legc, Milano
Stefan Collignon, EUI - European University Institute, Firenze
Peter Cramton, University of Maryland
Rosella Creatini, Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato - AGCM
Pierre Dehez, Université Catholique de Louvain
Corrado Di Maria, University College Dublin
Francesco Drago, Università degli Studi di Napoli
Tomaso Duso, Humboldt University of Berlin
Massimo Egidi, Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali "Guido Carli"
Federico Etro, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Giovanni Federico, EUI - European University Institute, Firenze
Gabriel Felbermayr, University of Hohenheim
Manuel Fernandez Bagues, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Andrea Ferrero, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Daria Finocchiaro, Central Bank of Sweden
Vincenzo Galasso, Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milano
Gino Gancia, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
Nicola Gennaioli, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
Dino Gerardi, Collegio Carlo Alberto
Paola Giuliano, UCLA, Anderson School of Management
Michele Grillo, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano
Marco Guerrazzi, Università di Pisa
Alison Harcourt, University of Exeter
Emeric Henry, London Business School
Hugo Hopenayn, UCLA, Anderson School of Management
Eren Inci, Sabanci University
Daniela Iorio, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Bengt Jönsson, Stockholm School of Economics
Tim Kehoe, University of Minnesota
Eliana La Ferrara, Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
Massimiliano Landi, Singapore Management University
Miodrag Lekic, LUISS Guido Carli, Roma
Francois Leveque, Ecole des mines de Paris
Carl Levy, University of London
Stevan Lilic, Belgrade University School of Law
Thomas P. Lyon, University of Michigan
Francois Maniquet, CORE - Université catholique de Louvain
Paolo Masella, EUI - European University Institute, Firenze
Kris Mitchener, Santa Clara University and NBER
Boris Najman, R.O.S.E.S Research Center on Transition and Development Economics
Tommaso Nannicini, Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milano
Peter Neary, Oxford University
Richard Nelson, Columbia University
Giuseppe Nicoletti, OECD, Paris
Luca David Opromolla, Banco de Portugal
Luigi Orsenigo, Università degli Studi di Brescia
John Padgett, University of Chicago
Fabio Pammolli, Università degli Studi di Firenze
John Panzar, Northwestern University
Philippa Pattison, University of Melbourne
Marcello Pera, Senate of the Italian Republic
Marco Percoco, Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milano
Rudolph J.R. Peritz, New York School of Law
Angelo Maria Petroni, Università La Sapienza, Roma
Claudio Radaelli, University of Exeter
Patrick Rey, IDEI Université des Sciences Sociales, Toulose
Massimo Riccaboni, Università degli Studi di Trento
Gerard Roland, University of California
Howard Rosenthal, New York University
Gille Saint-Paul, Université des Sciences Sociales - Toulouse 1
Marcello Sartarelli, University of London
Fabiano Schivardi, Università degli Studi di Cagliari
Didier Sornette, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
Giancarlo Spagnolo, Stockholm School of Economics
Yossef Spiegel, Tel Aviv University
Luca Spinesi, Università degli Studi di Macerata
Enrico Spolaore, Tufts University
Francesco Squintani, University of Essex
Scott Stern, Northwestern University
Sarah Stolting, EUI - European University Institute, Firenze
William Summerhill, UCLA, Anderson School of Management
John Sutton, London School of Economics
Stefan Szymanski, Tanaka Business School
Manuel Trajtenberg, Eitan Berglas School, Tel Aviv
Francesco Trebbi, University of Chicago
Jim Tybout, Penn State University
Andrea Vindigni, Princeton University
Gisela Waisman, Stockholms Universitet
Pierre Yared, Columbia University
Daniel Yi Xu, New York University
Fabrizio Zilibotti, IEW, Zurich

Stefan Collignon
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna - Pisa

Bruno Dente
Politecnico di Milano - Milano

Sergio Fabbrini
Università degli Studi di Trento - Trento

Pier Giuseppe Monateri
Università degli Studi di Torino - Torino

Leonardo Morlino
Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali "Guido Carli" - Roma

Cambridge University Press publishes book by Mark Dincecco, IMT assistant professor

Mark Dincecco is an assistant professor in the research area of Economics and Institutional Change at IMT. His book, Political Transformations and Public Finances: Europe, 1650-1913, will be published by Cambridge University Press in August 2011. The book may be found at the CUP website. Here is a short description. How did today’s rich states first establish modern fiscal systems? To answer this question, this book examines the evolution of political regimes and public finances in Europe over the long term. The book argues that the emergence of efficient fiscal institutions was the result of two fundamental political transformations that resolved long- standing problems of fiscal fragmentation and absolutism. States gained tax force through fiscal centralization and restricted the power of rulers through parliamentary limits, which enabled them to gather large tax revenues and channel funds toward public services with positive economic benefits. Using a novel combination of descriptive, case-study, and statistical methods, the book pursues this argument through a systematic investigation of a new panel database that spans eleven countries and four centuries. The book’s findings are significant for our understanding of economic history and have important consequences for current policy debates.

From May 21, 2012, 14:00 To 15:30, Ex Boccherini − Conference Room

Welfare Effects of Short-Time Compensation

In addition to unemployment insurance (UI), many advanced economies operate short-time compensation (STC) schemes which partially compensate workers for a loss of income due to a reduction in hours. This paper studies the welfare effects of STC in a model in which firms experience idiosyncratic shocks to profitability and can respond by adjusting both employment and hours per worker. Firms have only limited access to external private insurance, hence government-provided insurance can be welfare-improving. When introduced into an economy with an existing UI scheme, STC can improve welfare through two channels. First, it may directly enhance the provision of insurance. Second, it can mitigate distortions of the composition of labor input caused by UI. Depending on whether technology at the firm level favors adjustment through layoffs or work sharing, the welfare effect through insurance can be negative. Even in this case the availability of STC can allow for improved insurance by counteracting UI distortions, thereby raising the optimal level of UI. Since higher optimal UI reduces employment, however, adopting the optimal combination of UI and STC does not necessarily increase employment.

Bjoern Bruegemann
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

From May 22, 2012, 14:00 To 15:30, Ex Boccherini − Conference Room

Political Order in Multicultural Societies

Flavia Monceri
Università degli Studi del Molise

From May 24, 2012, 14:00 To 15:30, Ex Boccherini − Conference Room

EARLY LEAD EXPOSURE AND ITS EFFECTS ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND EARNINGS: EVIDENCE FROM AN ENVIRONMENTAL NEGLIGENCE

Between 1984 and 1989 more than 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals, containing high concentrations of lead, were brought to the city of Arica (north of Chile). Initially, the chemical waste was located several kilometers from the city. The rapid expansion of Arica in the early 1990s, which included the construction of social housing projects meters away from the waste deposit, put at risk a large number of families. For more than a decade, individuals living in the vicinity of the contaminated areas were exposed to critical levels of lead. The medical literature suggests that even minimum lead exposure might have long-term consequences on individual's behavior and cognitive ability. However, there is little evidence on the direct effects on academic achievement and (fortunately) the literature rarely examines cases in which large number of individuals have been affected by lead exposure. In this paper we examine the effects of lead exposure on academic achievement studying the case of Arica. We analyze longitudinal data from a large population of individuals living and attending primary and secondary schools in Arica between 2004 and 2008. Our data include longitudinal information on proximity to the polluted areas (from individual's place of residence), levels of lead exposure, comprehensive sets of controls, and multiple nationally-representative academic test scores. Our findings indicate significant and negative effects of household's proximity to contaminated areas on student's academic performance. We also estimate the effect of blood lead levels on student academic performance finding significantly negative effects. Finally, combining these estimates with those obtained from regressions of annual earnings on student's academic performance we provide an estimate of the effect of lead exposure on life-time earnings.

Sergio S. Urzua
University of Maryland

From May 28, 2012, 14:00 To 15:30, Ex Boccherini − Conference Room

Peer Effects in Education, Sport, and Screen Activities: Local Aggregate or Local Average?

We develop two different social network models with different economic foundations. In the local-aggregate model, it is the sum of friends' efforts in some activity that affects the utility of each individual while, in the local-average model, it is costly to deviate from the average effort of friends. Even though the two models are fundamentally different in terms of behavioral foundation, their implications in terms of Nash equilibrium are relatively close since only the adjacency (social interaction) matrix differs in equilibrium, one being the row-normalized version of the other. We test these alternative mechanisms of social interactions to study peer effects in education, sport and screen activities for adolescents in the United States using the AddHealth data. We extend Kelejian’s (2008) J test for spatial econometric models helping differentiate between these two behavioral models. We find that peer effects are not significant for screen activities (like e.g. video games). On the contrary, for sport activities, we find that students are mostly influenced by the aggregate activity of their friends (local- aggregate model) while, for education, we show that both the aggregate performance at school of friends and conformism matter, even though the magnitude of the effect is higher for the latter.

Eleonora Patacchini
Università degli Studi di Roma - La Sapienza

From May 31, 2012, 14:00 To 15:30, Ex Boccherini − Conference Room

Is Democracy necessarily based on Relativism?

Giovanni Giorgini
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna

From June 4, 2012, 14:00 To 15:30, Ex Boccherini − Conference Room

Looking Beyond the Incumbent: The Effects of Exposing Corruption on Electoral Outcomes

Does information about rampant political corruption increase electoral participation and the support for challenger parties? Democratic theory assumes that offering more information to voters will enhance electoral accountability. However, if there is consistent evidence suggesting that voters punish corrupt incumbents, it is unclear whether this translates into increased support for challengers and higher political participation. We provide experimental evidence that information about copious corruption not only decreases incumbent support in local elections in Mexico, but also decreases voter turnout, challengers' votes, and erodes voters' identification with the party of the corrupt incumbent. Our results suggest that while flows of information are necessary, they may be insufficient to improve political accountability, since voters may respond to information by withdrawing from the political process. We conclude with a discussion of the institutional contexts that could allow increased access to information to promote government accountability.