Recent Publication by Maitreesh Ghatak: Thanks for Nothing? Not-for-Profits and Motivated Agents.

This paper (joint with Hannes Mueller) has been published in the Journal of Public Economics.

Abstract
We re-examine the labor donation theory of not-for-profits and show that these organizations may exist not necessarily because motivated workers prefer to work in them, or that they dominate for-profits in terms of welfare, but because the excess supply of motivated workers makes the non-profit form more attractive to managers. We show that if Firms had to compete for motivated workers then not-for-profit would be competed out by for-profit Firms. Therefore, in the choice between not-for-profit and for-profit provision, other than incentive problems, the distribution of rents between management and workers, and consequently, the relative scarcity of motivated workers may play an important role.

The paper can be found here

EOPP Special Event: Summer School on Empirical Methods for Economic Development (23-26 June 2010)

Oriana Bandiera is organizing the Second AMID Summer School on Empirical Methods for Economic Development on June 23-26 at the LSE.

The school is intended for PhD students, post-docs and junior faculty members. The aim is to provide young researchers with a detailed overview of the main methods used in empirical development research. Participants will also have the opportunity to discuss their own research projects with leading researchers in a relaxed and open atmosphere.

Lectures will be delivered by Esther Duflo (MIT), Greg Fischer (LSE), Radha Iyengar (LSE), and Eliana La Ferrara (Bocconi) on topics including difference in difference estimators, event studies, instrumental variables, randomised control trials and regression discontinuity approaches. Selected projects by participants will be presented and discussed during the day.

For more details, visit the website at http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/bandiera/amid_summerschool_programme.htm

EOPP Special Event: CEPR Public Policy Symposium 2010 (18-19 June 2010)

Oriana Bandiera and Henrik Kleven, along with Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics and CEPR) and Emmanuel Saez (University of California, Berkeley and CEPR) are organizing a symposium on public economics to bring together economists in the field from across Europe and key researchers from outside the region.

The symposium will feature a keynote lecture entitled "Public Finance and Development" to be given by Professor Timothy Besley.

The conference hopes to provide a unique opportunity for researchers from different universities and countries to discuss their work in a relaxed atmosphere and to develop long-term collaborative relationships. It also aspires to provide young researchers with the opportunity to meet and discuss their work with senior economists.

For more details on the conference program and other information, visit the website at http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/3/3540/

Conference on The Formation of Family and its Intergenerational Consequences (14-15 June 2010)

The Conference on the Formation of Family and its Intergenerational Consequences was organised by the Departments of Economics and Management and sponsored by STICERD. The key organizers were Leonardo Felli, Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, Maitreesh Ghatak, and Yona Rubinstein. Distinguished speakers included Gary Becker, Pierre-Andre Chiappori, Bernard Salanie, among others.

For further informaiton on the conference programme and to view the papers presented visit the conference page the conference page

Johannes Spinnewijn wins CESifo Affiliate Award

Johannes Spinnewijn has won the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award during this year's CESifo Annual Area Conferences.

Each year, the award is presented to a young economist for the " scientific originality, policy relevance and quality of exposition of their paper presented at the conference." in his or her specialist research area.

Johannes Spinnewijn's winning paper for the Employment and Social Protection Research Area was entitled Unemployed but Optimistic: Optimal Insurance Design with Biased Beliefs

Further information about the award can be found on the CESifo website.

EOPP: Recent Publications Gerard Padro-i-Miquel: Conflict and Deterrence under Strategic Risk

A paper by Gerard Padro-i-Miquel (joint with Sylvain Chassang) entitled 'Conflict and Deterrence under Strategic Risk' will be published in Quarterly Journal of Economics.

The authors examine the determinants of cooperation and the effectiveness of deterrence when fear is a motive for conflict. They contrast results obtained in a complete information setting to those obtained in a setting with strategic risk, where players have different information about their environment. These two strategic settings allow them to identify and distinguish the role of predatory and pre-emptive incentives as determinants of cooperation and conflict. In their model, weapons unambiguously facilitate peace under complete information. In contrast, under strategic risk, the authors show that increases in weapon stocks can have a non-monotonic effect on the sustainability of cooperation. They also show that under strategic risk, asymmetry in military strength can facilitate peace, and that anticipated peace-keeping interventions may improve incentives for peaceful behaviour.

EOPP: Recent Publications by Tim Besley, Daniel Sturm, Robin Burgess and Oriana Bandiera

The following papers, by EOPP members, will be published:

Robin Burgess, joint with Dave Donaldson (MIT): Can Openness Mitigate the Effects of Weather Shocks? Evidence from India's Famine Era, is forthcoming in the American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.

Oriana Bandiera, joint with Valentino Larcinese (LSE) and Imran Rasul (UCL): Heterogeneous Class Size Effects: New Evidence from a Panel of University Students, is forthcoming in the Economic Journal.

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Selim Gulesci and Munshi Sulaiman, joint with Markus Goldstein (World Bank) and Imran Rasul (UCL): Participation in Adolescent Training Programs, is forthcoming in the Journal of the European Economic Association, Papers and Proceedings.

Tim Besley, Daniel Sturm and Torsten Persson (IIES): Political Competition, Policy and Growth: Theory and Evidence from the United States, is forthcoming in the Review of Economic Studies.

For further information and to read abstracts see http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/eopp/_new/publications/recent_publications.asp