FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.
They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.
FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.
FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.
The Haves and the Have-Nots: Exploring the Global History of Wealth and Income Inequality"
Few topics have captured mass, political, and scholarly attention as consistently as income inequality and the distribution of wealth. Seeking to better understand these phenomena by adding a more historical perspective to contemporary debates, Stanford University's Walter Scheidel and colleagues at the University of Vienna organized a conference of scholars working on inequality. Over the course of three days, attendees presented cutting-edge research on historical analyses of inequality within and across countries over three millennia.
This conference, The Haves and the Have Nots: Exploring the Global History of Wealth and Income Inequality, was sponsored by The Europe Center and the University of Vienna. Additional information about the participants and their projects can be found in the conference program.
Juridicum (top floor / Dachgeschoss)
University of Vienna
Conferences
Self-Centered Inequity Aversion and the Mass Politics of Taxation
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The politics of economic crises brings distributive economic conflict to the fore of national political debates. How policy should be used to transfer resources between citizens becomes a central political question, and the answers chosen often influence the trajectory of policy for a generation. This context provides an ideal setting for evaluating the importance of self-interest and other-regarding preferences in shaping public opinion about economic policy. This article investigates whether self-centered inequity aversion along with self-interest influences individual tax policy opinions. We conduct original survey experiments in France and the United States, and provide evidence that individuals care about both how policy alternatives affect their own interests and how they influence the welfare of others relative to themselves.
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Journal Articles
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Comparative Political Studies
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49(14)
LAD Workshop: Economic Policy Research Center 2017
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The LAD Program in Georgia was first held in January 2016. The new course will take place in the first week of March 2017 and will be implemented jointly by CDDRL, the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) – a local think tank based in Tbilisi, Georgia. LAD in Georgia is supported by the Ilia State University.
“The Role of Public Policy in Private Sector Development” workshop is an intensive, five-day, executive-level training program that will teach selected participants how to be effective reform leaders, promoting sound public policies in complex and contentious settings. The LAD Program in Georgia will be led by CDDRL Mosbacher Director, Francis Fukuyama of Stanford University.
Tbilisi, Georgia
Workshops
How the Mexican Drug War Affects Kids and Schools? Evidence on Effects and Mechanisms
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In this paper published by the International Journal of Educational Development, we investigate the impact of drug-related violence in Mexico on academic achievement. We use panel of elementary and lower secondary schools and locality-level firearm homicides from 2006 to 2011. We rely on school fixed-effects models to estimate the impact on math test scores of turf war exposure and turf war persistence (e.g. months of exposure) during the academic year. According to the results, both exposure and persistence of criminal violence reduces math test scores. The analysis of heterogeneous effects shows that schools located in poor urban settings experience the largest negative effects. Further, we find stronger negative effects of drug-related violence exposure in lower secondary schools with street gang presence nearby. Finally, we further examine potential mechanisms driving the effects of criminal violence on test scores. Our findings indicate that turf war exposure and persistence are associated with a loss of instructional time due to higher teacher absenteeism and turnover, as well as student absenteeism, tardiness, and propensity to leave school days early.
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International Journal of Educational Development
LAD Workshop: Strathmore Business School 2016
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This five-day intensive program for a select group of mid-high-level East African government officials and business leaders is designed to address how government can encourage and enable the private sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth and development. A driving principle of this LAD-SBS program is that policy reform is not like engineering or other technical fields that have discrete skills and clear, optimal solutions. Instead, successful reformers must be politically aware and weigh a broad range of factors that influence policy outcomes. For example, they must have a solid grasp of country-specific economic, financial, political and cultural realities. Most importantly, they must have a sense of how to set priorities, sequence actions and build coalitions. This program is designed to provide participants with an analytical framework to build these leadership abilities and operate effectively under adverse conditions.
Nairobi, Kenya
Workshops
The state of US-Russia relations
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News
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At a recent European Security Initiative (ESI) lecture held at the GSB's Oberndorf Event Center, Sergey Kislyak, Russian Ambassador to the US, described US-Russia relations as being at its worse point since the end of the Cold War.
Ambassador Kislyak then went on to list the series of US actions that he believes led up to this.
Moderated by Michael McFaul, the Director of FSI, Professor of Political Science, and former US Ambassador to Russia, the lecture drew a large audience of over 200 students, faculty, staff and members of the public.
To listen to the lecture in its entirety, please visit our YouTube Channel.
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Scientists call for an end to devastating worm diseases in the developing world
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Consider the lowly worm. For some, it’s just a garden pest. But for more than a billion people in the developing world, parasitic worms can be a pernicious threat, causing disease, disability and sometimes death.
In a newly published perspective in the medical journal The Lancet, Stanford researchers, including Stanford Health Policy's Eran Bendavid and a host of distinguished colleagues, urge the World Health Organization to develop sweeping new guidelines to help end parasitic worm diseases, one of the world’s most prevalent health problems. They call for greatly expanded treatment of these diseases, which could save years of human suffering and an estimated $3 billion in lost productivity — similar to the impact of the Ebola and Zika epidemics of recent years, they say.
“Now everyone is coming together to say, ‘Now is the time, after more than a decade of new experience and data, to update the way we do things,’ said Nathan Lo, a Stanford MD/PhD candidate who is the first author of the commentary. “There is so much opportunity, whether it’s expanding treatment from children to the entire community or bringing in other strategies, such as sanitation, to strengthen the way we approach these diseases.”
The perspective is published today in Lancet Infectious Diseases and coincides with a WHO meeting in Geneva where officials, including many of the authors, are gathering to consider new treatment guidelines.
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Shorenstein APARC releases annual Center Overview for 2015-16
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News
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As 2017 approaches, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center documents highlights from the 2015-16 academic year. The latest edition of the Center Overview, entitled "Challenges to Globalization," includes research, people, events and outreach features, and is now available for download online.
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A container is loaded onto a ship docked at the terminal port in Singapore, June 2016.
ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images
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