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The St. Louis Initiative, November 10-11, 2006
The St. Louis Initiative is a project to advance our understanding of the dynamics of institutions in developing economies by assisting policy makers to carry out needed institutional changes and to implement policy reforms. In this workshop, participants will tackle the problem of promoting policy improvements in countries where good institutions are lacking and political and bureaucratic impediments to growth are numerous.
Conference Program Friday dinner by invite only
Conference Participants

SPECIAL EVENT
The Future of the Social Sciences (October 7-9, 2004)
Leading legal scholars and social scientists from around the country will convene at Washington University in St. Louis in October 2004 for a conference discussing the future of the social sciences. These experts will strive to set an agenda for an interdisciplinary research program for the social sciences and the role of interdisciplinary campus centers in promoting this agenda and research in the field. Panelists include Nobel Laureates Douglass C. North and Vernon Smith.
Sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and the Center for New Institutional Social Sciences.
Click here for participant listing
Click here for program brochure

Third Annual CNISS Reception for Undergraduate Educational Programs
The Third Annual CNISS Reception in honor of Undergraduate Education and its Honors Programs and to honor Gary Hirsch will be held on April 1, 2004 on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The event will spotlight Undergraduate Honors Students and their research, honor the first tier of graduating CNISS Minor students and Certificate Program students, and recognize Gary Hirsh for his generous support and contribution to the Center.

A reception will be held following to the program which features a poster session of 10 undergraduate honors students in both Economics and Political Science displaying and discussing their thesis work.
Event Program

Second Annual CNISS Reception for Undergraduate Educational Programs
The Second Annual CNISS Reception in honor of Undergraduate Education and its Honors Programs was held on April 15, 2002 on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The event spotlights Undergraduate Honors Students and their research, as well as introducing new students admitted to the Certificate Program In New Institutional Social Sciences.

Dean Edward Macias gave opening remarks to the audience, followed by a keynote lecture by Douglass North on the program and its accomplishments in the past year. A reception was held prior to the program which featured a poster session of 10 undergraduate honors students in both Economics and Political Science displaying and discussing their thesis work.

The five new Certificate Program Students admitted into the program also spoke briefly on their research projects.
Event Program

2001 William H. Riker Conference
The 2001 William H. Riker Conference on "Constitutions, Voting and Democracy" took place December 7-8, 2001 at Washington University in St. Louis. Riker became famous not just for his work on the functioning of democracy, but also for his singular vision in creating the school of rational choice (or positive political theory) in political science, and literally revolutionizing the social sciences as we know them today.
Riker Conference Program

Links to papers from the Conference are below:

"Coalition Brokers or Breakers? Brazilian Governors and Legislative Voting"
by John M. Carey and Gina Yannitell Reinhardt


"Street-Level Epistemology and Democratic Participation"
by Russell Hardin


"The Republic of Virtue and the Empire of Liberty"
by Norman Schofield


"In Search of the Uncovered Set: A New Technique for Estimating the Uncovered Set in Real-world Legislatures, With Application to Characterizing the Impact of Party Organizations in the Contemporary U.S. Congress"
by William T. Bianco, Ivan Jeliazkov, and Itai Sened


"William Riker On Federalism: Sometimes Wrong But More Right Than Anyone Else"
by David McKay


"Precedent - Use It or Lose It?: An Informational Model of Judicial Decision-Making"
by Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Matthew Stephenson


"Common Law vs. The Civil Code: The Silver Lining to Cloudy Legal Standards"
by John Londregan



"Self-Enforcing Federalism"
by Olga Shvetsova

First CNISS Reception for Undergraduate Honors and Certificate Program Students
The First CNISS Reception for Undergraduate Honors Students and CNISS Graduate Ph.D. Students was held in April 2001 on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. Douglass North, CNISS Founder, gave a key note lecture to start off the event, describing the goals of CNISS and what the group planned to accomplish. Presentations by a number of undergraduate students followed ranging from research on the effects of mergers in the pharmaceutical industry to airport regulation and trafficking issues.

Two students split a $500 prize for best honors thesis in new institutional social sciences. Don Cohn explored the dynamic evolution of democratic institutions in the Roman Empire. Andrea Liapis measured the effect of mergers in the pharmaceutical industry and the efficiency of future drug research and development. Click here to read abstracts of their papers.