October 30, 2017 

Business Associations, Judicial Institutions, and Firms' Willingness to Contract 
Daniel J. Blake

Professor Blake is a member of the Department of Strategic Management at IE Business School in Madrid. He is a specialist the areas of strategy, nonmarket strategy, international business, and political risk. His research focuses on how varying institutional conditions around the world affect firms’ activities and risk management strategies. 

Co-Sponsored by the Department of Political Science

November 16, 2017

How Are Workers Compensated Following Trade Liberalization?
Sung Eun Kim

Read a copy of the presentation.

Abstract: How do workers cope with the adjustment costs from trade liberalization? Governments’ ability to deal with the distributional consequences of lifting trade barriers has become one of the key challenges facing developed democracies. Recent studies have shown how among workers harmed by liberalization, some turn to dedicated government training programs, while others fall back on disability payments and early retirement. These choices largely determine the odds of an individual returning to work, so what explains the variation? We argue that US legislators have influence over how workers in their districts choose to adjust to job losses resulting from trade liberalization. Using roll call votes and legislators’ press releases on trade adjustment assistance (TAA), we find that workers are significantly more likely to petition for trade assistance and retraining when legislators publicly endorse these programs. Workers in these districts appear better informed about these programs, and more likely to apply to them. We proxy for the demand for trade adjustment by using economic shocks from Chinese import competition. By examining legislative voting histories, we are further able to distinguish the independent effect of legislators’ public statements on their constituents’ behavior. Our findings hold considerable implications for the salient question of how government compensation programs affect the behavior of groups negatively affected by liberalization.

Co-Sponsored by the Department of Political Science

"Who Protest? Using Social Media Data to Estimate How Social Context Affects Political Behavior" 
Christopher Fariss (University of Michigan)

December 8, 2017 

About the speaker: Christopher Fariss is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. His research interest is in the politics of human rights, discrimination, violence, and repression. Using computational methods Prof. Fariss analyses why governments around the world choose to torture, maim, and kill individuals within their jurisdiction. His projects cover a broad array of themes but share a focus on computationally intensive methods and research design. These methodological tools, essential for analyzing "big data", open up new insights into the micro-foundations of state repression.

 Co-Sponsored by the Department of Political Science