The 2022 Kuznets Mini-Conference: Political Distortions and Economic Development

Friday, April 1, 2022 

Held in conjunction with the 31st Kuznets Lecture, the Kuznets Mini-Conference on Political Distortions and Economic Development highlighted current work on themes relevant to the Kuznets lecture. The mini-conference was co-organized by Leonard Wantchekon (Princeton University) and Nathan Canen (University of Houston), who is a co-author of Wantchekon's on papers related to political distortions and economic development.

Program Schedule

8:00 – 8:10am: Opening Remarks: Leonard Wantchekon (Princeton University), 31st Annual Kuznets Memorial speaker

8:10 – 9:40am: Session 1 - Political Distortions: Theory

• Marina Azzimonti (Stony Brook University): “Political Constraints and Sovereign Default” (with Nirvana Mitra)
• Dana Foarta (Stanford University): “Market Competition and Political Influence: An Integrated Approach”  (with Steven Callander and Takuo Sugaya)
• Gleason Judd (Princeton University): “Access to Proposers and Influence in Collective Policymaking”  

9:40 - 10:00am: Coffee Break

10:00am – 11:30pm: Session 2 - Political Distortions: Empirics

• Salomé Baslandze (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta): “Connecting to Power: Political Connections, Innovation, and Firm Dynamics” (with Ufuk Akcigit and Francesca Lotti)
• Sabrin Beg (University of Delaware): “Tenancy and Clientelism”
• Nathan Canen (Houston University): “Political Uncertainty and the Forms of State Capture” (with Rafael Ch and Leonard Wantchekon)

11:30 - 12:15pm: Lunch 

12:15 – 1:00pm: Panel on Research and Research Directions in Political Distortions and Economic Development
Panelists: Rohini Pande (Yale University), Gerard Padro I Miquel (Yale University), and Leonard Wantchekon (Princeton University)

1:00pm – 2: Session 3 - Institutional Experimentation

• Cesi Cruz (University of California Los Angeles): “Making Policies Matter: Voter Responses to Campaign Promises” (with Philip Keefer, Julien Labonne and Francesco Trebbi)     
• Yusuf Neggers (University of Michigan, visiting Yale): “Updating the State: Information Acquisition Costs and Public Benefit Delivery” (with Eric Dodge, Rohini Pande, and Charity Troyer Moore)
• Pierre Nguimkeu (Georgia State University): “Evaluating the Intrinsic Effect of Institutions: Theory and Evidence from Policy Deliberation Experiments” (with Yves Atchadé and Leonard Wantchekon)
• David Yang (Harvard University): “Policy Experimentation in China: The Political Economy of Policy Learning”  (with Shaoda Wang)

2:30pm: Concluding Remarks

Learn more about this research

• Leonard Wantchekon
• The Kuznets Memorial Lectures
• Watch The 30th Kuznets Lecture
• Q&A with Leonard Wantchekon