Workshops

CNISS Sponsored Workshops
CNISS sponsors a workshop series offered to students and faculty throughout the year. Established and well-respected speakers are brought to Washington University to share their innovative ideas on various topics related to interdisciplinary research in the social sciences.

Topics discussed in this series include examining cross-cultural experimental data from 16 small-scale societies around the world, to checking the ability or incentive for opportunism in multiple ownership firms. Below are samples of papers which have previously been discussed in this series. 

March 9, 2006
"Recognized and Violated by International Law: The Human Rights of the Global Poor"
by Dr. Thomas Pogge
Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), Australian University
Columbia University

February 22-23, 2006
"Redundancy in Federal Safeguards: Overcoming and Embracing Institutional Imperfection "
by Jenna Bednar
University of Michigan

February 8-9, 2006
"Political Accountability and Public Service Provision in Africa: Evidence from Tanzania and Zambia"
by Barak D. Hoffman and Clark C. Gibson
University of California, San Diego

April 15, 2005
"The Bourgeois Virtues and the Rise of the West"
Full Manuscript of above
by Deidre McCloskey, UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago
Tinbergen Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Economics, and Art and Cultural Studies, Erasmus University of Rotterdam

March 5, 2005
"Businessman Candidates: Special-Interest Politics in Weakly Institutionalized Environments"
by Konstantin Sonin, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ
New Economic School/CEFIR, Moscow

December 8, 2004
"Impact of Social Institutions on the Situation of Women and Children in Northern Sudan"
by Buthaina Elanaiem, Phillips University

April 29, 2004 
"Raiders of the Last Auk: What the 19th Century Extinction of a North American Seabird Tells Us About Some Economic Factors Affecting Endangered Species"
by Catrina Adams, CNISS Fellow 

April 15 & 16, 2004 
The Land of the Fearful and the Free 
The Revolt of the Masses 
Unilaterlism in the Peace Process Between the Palestine Authority and the State of Israel 
by Yael Tamir, Tel Aviv University and a Member of the Israeli Labor Party 
There are no materials available on these lectures

April 2, 2004 
"Clientelism, Credibility, and Democracy"
"Democratization and clientelism: Why are young democracies badly governed?"
by Philip Keefer, World Bank 

"Social Learning with Private and Common Vaules"
"Self-correcting Information Cascasdes"
by Thomas Palfrey, CalTech 

February 16, 2004 
"Optimal Dynamic Nonlinear Income Taxes with No Commitment"
by John Ledyard, California Institute of Technology 

December 4, 2003 
"The New Institutional Economics: Its Start, Its Meaning, Its Prospects"
Graph 1 in paper
Graph 2 in paper
by Dr. Rudolf Richter, Professor Emeritus at the University of Saarland & Director of the Center for the Study of New Institional Economics; Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University 

October 23, 2003 
"The Two Faces of Beliefs"
by Elias L. Khalil, Director, American Institute for Economic Research 

March 24, 2003 
"Educational Policy and the Economics of Family"
"History, Institutions,and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India"
by Abhijit Banerjee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

March 21, 2003 
"A Computational Political Economy Model of Transition, with Empirical Evidence"
by John E. Jackson, University of Michigan 
Chapter 6 of Draft Version of "Political Economy of Transitions" Manuscript

March 14, 2003 
"Water for Life: The Impact of the Privatization of Water Services on Child Mortality"
by Sebastian Galiani, University of San Andres, Argentina 
Galiani CV

"Biotechnology and the Burden of Age-Related Diseases"
by Robert W. Fogel, University of Chicago 
Although this workshop was cancelled, we include information on his topic for your perusal.
Figure 1 of Fogel paper
Figure 2 of Fogel paper
Figure 3 of Fogel paper
Figure 4 of Fogel paper
Figure 5 of Fogel paper
Figure 6 of Fogel paper
Figure 7 of Fogel paper
Table 1 of Fogel paper
Table 2 of Fogel paper
Table 3 of Fogel paper
Table 4 of Fogel paper

October 10, 2002 
"Why the Welfare State Looks Liks a Free Lunch"
by Peter Lindert, University of California at Davis 
Table 1 of Lindert paper
Table 2 of Lindert paper
Table 3 of Lindert paper
Table 4 of Lindert paper

September 12, 2002 
"Portfolio Allocation and Ministerial Policy Positions"
by Daniela Giannetti, University of Italy-Bologne 

February 18, 2002 
"Assessing Preference Change on the U.S. Supreme Court"
by Andrew Martin, Washington University in St. Louis, MO and Kevin Quinn, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 

November 30, 2001 
"State Constitution Reforms in the 1840s and 1850s and the Relationship of American Government and the Economy"
by John Wallis, University of Maryland and NBER 

October 19, 2001 
"Market Integration and Fairness: Evidence from Ultimatum, Dicator, and Public Goods Experiments in East Africa"
by Jean Ensminger, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
 
 

Writers' Workshop
CNISS sponsors a spring workshop each April that will bring an established scholar to campus to discuss in detail a prominent forthcoming volume of work before it is published. 

April 16 & 17, 2002 
AVNER GREIF
The first guest will be Professor Avner Greif from Stanford. Professor Grief will talk about his book, forthcoming in 2003 with Cambridge University Press, on institutional evolution in the 9th through the 12th centuries in the Magreb merchant society and Italian city state era.

For more information on his manuscript, click on chapters below: 
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

April 23 & 24, 2003 
AZAR GAT
The guest scholar for the 2003 year is Professor Azar Gat from Tel Aviv University. Professor Gat will discuss his project studying the history of human social life from the first pre-historic signs of social life to modernity. His book is forthcoming with Oxford University Press in 2004. 

Readings from Presentation I: 
"The Human Motivational Complex:1"
"The Human Moviational Complex:2"
"The Causes and Origins of 'Primitive Warfare'"
References for above papers

Readings from Presentation II: 
"Why City-States Existed?"
"All the King's Horsemen"

April 22, 2004 
DOUGLASS C. NORTH
For 2004, the guest scholar is Douglass C. North, Nobel Laureate for 1993 and the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Professor North will discuss his forthcoming book, Understanding the Process of Economic Change to be published in the Fall of 2004. 
Selected articles are available in hard copy by emailing you name and address to cniss@cniss.wustl.edu

Business Lecture Series
This series brings together faculty, students, and people active in the business world in the United States to explore research topics with "real world" business implications. 

November 22, 2002 
How Do We Help Developing Countries?
Presented by Gina Marie Yannitell Reinhardt, CNISS Certificate Fellow, and James Schwartz, Executive Vice-President for Marketing, Mast Industries, Inc. They spoke on "The Bureaucratic Structure of Foreign Aid Agencies: How Recipients Compete for Funding Across Bureaucracies" and "The African Growth and Opportunity Act" respectively. 

October 25, 2002 
The Issue of Trust
Presented by Barry Z. Cynamon, an Undergraduate Student in the CNISS Minor Program and Gary Hirsch, of Elk Capital. They spoke on trust and its implications in the business environment.