Wei Huang uses the experience of China's One Child Policy to examine how fertility restrictions affect economic and social outcomes over the lifetime. The One Child Policy imposed a birth quota and heavy penalties for “out-of-plan” births. Using variation in the fertility penalties across provinces over time, He examines how fertility restrictions imposed early in the lives of individuals affected their educational attainment, marriage and fertility decisions, and later life economic outcomes. Exposure to stricter fertility restrictions when young leads to higher education, more white-collar jobs, delayed marriage, and lower fertility. Further consequences include higher household income, consumption, and saving. Finally, exposure to stricter fertility restrictions in early life increases female empowerment as measured by an increase in the fraction of households headed by women, female-oriented consumption and gender-equal opinions. Overall, fertility restrictions imposed when agents are young have powerful effects throughout the life cycle.

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Do startups learn from their own past experiences? What about observing other entrepreneurs' experiences? Using the results of her recent study on tech ventures on Kickstarter, Jaclyn Selby will share the circumstances under which startups do - and do NOT - learn from previous success and failure. She will also explore whether startups learn best from prior experience in related or in unrelated industries.

Speaker Bio

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Prior to PhD life, Jaclyn was a Senior Researcher heading federally-funded tech strategy projects at Project Argus, a leader in disease and disaster intelligence. Her group worked with partners at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Open Source Center, the University of Iowa Avian Flu prediction market, and the Al Fornace molecular biology lab. Prior to Argus, she was Research & Marketing Director of the Style and Image Network, a boutique consultancy, and a geopolitical analyst (Intellibridge, Castle Asia, Courage Services). A U.S. citizen, Jaclyn was raised overseas in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Agenda

4:15pm: Doors open
4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion
5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking

RSVP Required

Abstract: New defense technologies raise complex questions about states’ abilities to project force, consequences for civilian casualties, and reactions by foreign leaders and publics. Yet many technologies become normalized and legitimated, whereas others are banned. This paper seeks to account for the failure of strong anti-submarine norms to emerge after World War I, in the process legitimizing submarines as a weapon in World War II and beyond. In the First World War, Germany’s submarine commerce warfare was a major point of contention between the great powers, which sought to strategically deploy and manipulate rules and norms of warfare in response to this new technology. However, despite widespread condemnation of Germany’s “barbaric” practices and calls by Great Britain to abolish the weapon entirely, postwar conferences failed to prohibit or effectively regulate submarine warfare. Rather, the submarine has become an accepted defense technology. I argue that Germany demonstrated the utility of submarines as an offensive weapon and the limits of applying existing rules to their use during the war, with consequences for norm creation and cooperation after the war. The paper suggests lessons for current policy debates, as well as insights into the political processes behind the development of norms of war.

About the Speaker: Dr. Jennifer L. Erickson is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. She is also an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Boston College (on sabbatical in 2016-2017). Her current research project deals with new defense technologies and the creation of laws and norms of war, examining cases on World War I, nuclear weapons after World War II, and new weapons in the contemporary era. Her book, Dangerous Trade: Conventional Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation (Columbia UP 2015), explains states’ commitment to and compliance with new humanitarian arms trade norms, articulated in the UN Arms Trade Treaty and related multilateral initiatives. She has additional ongoing research projects dealing with sanctions and arms embargoes.

Speaker Bio:

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She was a predoctoral and postdoctoral fellow at CDDRL (2012-2015).

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Leading the world's only global Navy, Secretary Mabus has traveled over 1.3 million miles, visited over 150 countries and territories to maintain and develop international relationships. He has focused efforts to rebalancing the U.S. Fleet to have 60% of all Navy and Marine Corps assets based in the Indo-Asia-Pacific by the end of the decade as a reflection of our commitment to this critical region. Additionally, he has established a Marine Rotational Force in Darwin on a rotational basis to conduct exercises and train with the Australian Defense Force and maintain a stronger presence in the Pacific region.

Secretary Mabus is also leading efforts to use alternative energy sources to improve our warfighting capabilities and reduce our reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels, denying potential adversaries the opportunity to use energy as a weapon against us, and our partners. During the 2016 Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the largest naval exercise in the world, completed in August, the ships of nine partner nations took delivery of, and operated on, biofuel blends delivered from U.S. ships.

Ray Mabus is the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy, the longest to serve as leader of the Navy and Marine Corps since World War I. Responsible for an annual budget in excess of $170 billion and leadership of almost 900,000 people, Secretary Mabus has worked to improve the quality of life of Sailors, Marines and their families; decrease the Department's dependence on fossil fuels; strengthen partnerships with industry and internationally; and increase the size of the Navy fleet.

Abstract: DNA synthesis providers form the primary biosecurity safety net for the synthetic biology industry. Twist’s silicon-based DNA synthesis platform allows for synthesis of 2-3 orders of magnitude more DNA in the same footprint as traditional methods. This poses a challenge to existing labor-intensive biosecurity screening practices as recommended by US government guidance. Can the technical and regulatory environments adapt to lower the cost and increase throughput of screening while maintaining or even improving detection accuracy? This talk will provide an overview of current best practices, review technical gaps in existing regulatory guidance and suggest possible improvements to help continue to power the rapid scientific and economic development of synthetic biology.

About the Speaker: James Diggans leads the Bioinformatics and Biosecurity group at Twist Bioscience, a DNA synthesis company based in San Francisco, CA. The group develops algorithms and predictive models and builds large-scale distributed computing systems supporting Twist’s next generation synthesis technology, including biosecurity and export control screening systems. He currently represents Twist’s membership to the International Gene Synthesis Consortium and to the US Department of Commerce/BIS Materials Technical Advisory Committee.

Dr. Diggans received his PhD from George Mason University and previously led the computational biology group at MITRE, designing software-defined biosensors and battlefield chem/bio sensor fusion systems. He has also worked in molecular diagnostics spending five years building and validating machine learning algorithms for cancer detection from tissue biopsy.