All times are shown in Paris time (CEST, UTC+2) · Underlined = presenting author
AI Bootcamp - Room 1022
(optional pre-conference activity)
Registration opens
Welcome
Keynote #1 - Forum
Christopher Blattman (University of Chicago): How Organized Crime Is Organized: Lessons from the Gangs of Medellin
Reception
Adjourn
Parallel A
Coffee Break
Parallel B
Lunch
Parallel C
Coffee Break
Parallel D
Keynote #2 - Forum
Wioletta Dziuda (University of Chicago): The (De)Polarizing Effect of Checks and Balances
Reception
Adjourn
Parallel E
Coffee Break
Parallel Focus Sessions #6
Law and Development — Room 0001
Lisa Bernstein (organizer), Francine Lafontaine (moderator), Pablo Balan, Ameet Mojaria, and Jared Rubin
This session focuses on a key challenge facing market participants and economic reformers around the world, namely, how to understand and better manage the ways in which informal social institutions affect the performance of formal institutions/institutional reforms, and similarly the ways that social institutions may deflect the intended goal of policy interventions. Our presenters will speak to this issue by drawing on case studies from developing countries that demonstrate the importance of this interaction while situating their findings in the broader theoretical literature. The session should also be of interest to scholars of contracts who are increasingly coming to recognize the importance of understanding how the formal institutions of contract interacts with the pattern of social relations within, between and around each of the contracting parties.
Creating the Field of IOE: The Role of Teaching — Room 1002
Tore Ellingsen (organizer and moderator), Tom Clark, Maria Guadalupe
Institutional and organizational economics (IOE) is successful as a research enterprise, but less successful as a teaching enterprise. Most economics departments have courses, and thus teaching slots, in labor, public, and development economics. Far fewer have similar slots for IOE. Similarly, political science departments tend to assign more courses in American politics, comparative politics, and international relations than, for example, institutional change. Business schools are the exception, with many offering versions of organizational economics (albeit sometimes branded as strategy). The panelists have all found ways to teach their favorite IOE-material. They are hopeful that the discussion will be lively, whether it provides new reasons to be satisfied with the current situation or triggers new ideas for establishing IOE as a field – not only for research, but also for teaching and recruitment.
AI and Autocracy — Room 1022
Jens Prufer (organizer and moderator), Ruben Enikolopov, Maryam Saeedi, Angela Zhang, Yoshua Bengio (joining us online)
In nearly all concurrent discussions about the threats of artificial intelligence (AI), the implicit assumption is that high-risk AI will be developed in Western countries, most likely in the United States. Here, they would be subject to regulation and democratic checks, which may avoid the worst risks. What, however, might occur if critical breakthroughs in AI technologies are achieved in an autocratic country? In autocracies, institutional checks and balances are much weaker and incentives to take risky shortcuts in AI-development are different. In this focus session, we will take the possibility of an AI-breakthrough in autocracies serious and discuss both the current and (speculating a bit) the potential future situation.
Socioeconomic Consequences of Gender Identity — Sky Suite
Pauline Grosjean (organizer, though Pauline will not be in attendance), Marianne Bertrand (moderator), Alexia Delfino, Gaia Dossi, Ieda Matavelli, Guido Friebel, Josh Dean
This session will explore frontier topics in the economics of identity, with a specific focus on gender. While norms towards gender roles have become more equal, gender equality has stalled in several advanced economies in the last 20 years; while barriers to girls’ and women’s inclusion remain high in developing countries. This session will explore recent advances in our understanding of remaining obstacles to gender equality: from the impact of gender identity on occupational choice and firm organization, the inclusion of women and minorities in science, to the roles of masculinity norms.
Lunch
Parallel G
Coffee Break
Keynote #3: Presidential address - Forum
Guido Friebel (Goethe University Frankfurt): “RCTs with and within Firms: What We Have Learnt and What We Might Want to Learn”