JanuaryPaul Seabright

“Do Women have longer Conversations? Telephone Evidence of Gendered Communication Strategies”

“Do Women have longer Conversations? Telephone Evidence of Gendered Communication Strategies”, Journal of Economic Psychology, December 2010. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2010.12.008. (with Guido Friebel) [ Download PDF ]

Le Club des Incorrigibles Optimistes

Le Club des Incorrigibles Optimistes, by Jean-Michel Guenassia. Published August 2009 by Albin Michel.

Wonderful account of an adolescence in early 1960s Paris, by a boy who comes across a chess club frequented by Jean-Paul Sartre, Joseph Kessel and a cast of East European émigrés who all have shadows they would prefer to escape. The book is sad, evocative and sometimes side-splittingly funny. I particularly loved the description of a supercilious Air France employee refusing to help a Russian pilot who has been diverted to Orly because of fog (I could just see that single raised eyebrow the Air France staff have been trained to deploy so deftly). The hero, a 12-year old boy who walks around the streets of Paris reading, insists he is in no danger of running into a car or another pedestrian because he can rely on everyone else’s interest in avoiding him. Until the day when he crashes into a teenage girl who is also holding a book in front of her nose. It turns out to be a great way to meet girls who share his literary passions.

Tags: Fiction, Français

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A Pleur-Joie

A Pleur-Joie

By Elvire de Brissac. Published 1969 by Grasset.

The other other woman writes acutely and movingly about being mistress to a man with not only a wife but an established mistress as well. Funny, sad, sharp as a razor.

Tags: Fiction, FranÃ§ais

Buy here.

Declaration of Interests

In recent years there has been increased public discussion of the possibility that economists doing research on, and giving advice to policymakers about, important questions of public concern, may face conflicts of interest because they depend for information, research funds, data, consultancy income or other direct or indirect benefits on parties with an interest in influencing such research and policy advice. I believe these concerns are justified and that it is reasonable to require researchers to be transparent about their potential conflicts. These may arise with respect to both public and private sources of benefits and both financial and non-financial types of benefit. I endorse the statement of the American Economic Association relating to disclosure of potential conflicts, and I have written in the press here and here about some of the issues such conflicts raise.

In this spirit, here is a list of institutions other than my employer from which I have received, directly or indirectly, benefits (other than travel expenses) with a value of 1000 Euros or more at any time since 2006, including data, royalty income, honoraria for speaking engagements and consultancy fees. Where these benefits are relevant to published research or other publications I have declared and will continue to declare them in the publications concerned.

Agence Française du Développement, Boardex, Bombardier, Broadcomm, BRUEGEL, BSkyB, Charles River Associates, European Commission (DG-Competition), European Patent Office, European Round Table of Industrialists, HSBC, IESE Business School, Ifo Institute, Institut d’Economie Industrielle, Japan Cabinet Office, Keystone Associates, Microsoft, Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, Le Monde, NEC, News International, Nokia, Outokumpu, Panasonic, Pfizer, Princeton University Press, REEL, SFR, Shire HGT, St. Gobain, Sony-Ericsson, SwissRe, T3 Technologies, Texas Instruments, Thomson Reuters, Time Warner, Unibail.

In addition I have received datasets from two firms that gave them to me under conditions of anonymity and which were used in my paper with Guido Friebel: “Do Women have longer Conversations? Telephone Evidence of Gendered Communication Strategies”, Journal of Economic Psychology, December 2010. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2010.12.008.

The paper did not discuss any issues relating to the commercial or other interests of these firms, and I have not otherwise written or spoken on any such matter.

Published Journal Articles – full list

“Migration and the equilibrium prevalence of infectious diseases” (with Alice Mesnard), Journal of Demographic Economics XX (2016): 1-26, doi: 10.1017/dem.2016.03

“Market Size and Pharmaceutical Innovation” (with Pierre Dubois, Olivier de Mouzon and Fiona Scott Morton), The RAND Journal of Economics, vol. 46, n. 4, Winter 2015, pp. 844–871.

“The Schubert Effect: When Flourishing Businesses Crowd Out Human Capital” (with Guido Friebel and Jibirila Leinyuy), World Development, vol. 68, April 2015, pp. 124–135.

“A Model of Smiling as a Costly Signal of Cooperation Opportunities” (with Samuele Centorrino, Elodie Djemai, Astrid Hopfensitz and Manfred Milinski), Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology (2015), doi:10.1007/s40750-015-0026-4

“Honest signalling in trust interactions: smiles rated as genuine induce trust and signal higher earnings opportunities” (with Samuele Centorrino, Elodie Djemai, Astrid Hopfensitz and Manfred Milinski), Evolution and Human Behavior (2014), doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.08.001 Available here.

“How Does Ranking Affect User Choice in Online Search?” (with Mark Glick, Greg Richards and Margarita Sapozhnikov), Review of Industrial Organization (2014) doi: 10.1007/s11151-014-9435-y Available here.

“Cooperation Against Theft: A Test of Incentives for Water Management in Tunisia” (with Wided Mattoussi), American Journal of Agricultural Economics 2014 96: 124-153 Available here.

“Research into biomarkers: how does drug procurement affect the design of clinical trials?” (with Fiona Scott Morton) Health Management, Policy and Innovation 1(3): 1-15. Available here.

“Soviet Power Plus Electrification: what is the long-run legacy of communism?” (with Wendy Carlin and Mark Schaffer). Available here, published in Explorations in Economic History 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2012.07.003

“The Three Musketeers: What Do We Still Need to Know About our Passage through Prehistory?”, Biological Theory, 2012, doi: 10.1007/s13752-012-0017-7 Available at SpringerLink OR [Download PDF of proof copy] [Download PDF of related article by Sterelny]

“Do Women have longer Conversations? Telephone Evidence of Gendered Communication Strategies”, Journal of Economic Psychology, December 2010. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2010.12.008. (with Guido Friebel) [ Download PDF ]

“Commentary “Honest Smiles as a Costly Signal in Social Exchange”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 33, December 2010, pp. 439. doi:10.1017/S0140525X10001287. (with Samuele Centorrino, Elodie Djemai, Astrid Hopfensitz and Manfred Milinski) [ Download PDF ]

“Private Antitrust Enforcement in the Presence of Pre-Trial Bargaining”, Journal of Industrial Economics, vol. 57, no. 3, September 2009, pp. 372-409. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6451.2009.00383.x. (with Sylvain Bourjade and Patrick Rey) [ Download PDF ]

“Escaping Epidemics Through Migration? Quarantine Measures under Asymmetric Information about Infection Risk”, Journal of Public Economics, vol. 93, nos. 7-8, August 2009, pp. 931-938. doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.05.001. (with Alice Mesnard) [ Download PDF ]

“Continuous Preferences and Discontinuous Choices : How Altruists Respond to Incentives”, The B. E. Journal of Theoretical Economics (Contributions), vol. 9, no. 1, April 2009. [ Download PDF ]

“Market Entry, Privatisation and Bank Performance in Transition”, Economics of Transition, vol. 14, no. 4, October 2006, pp. 579-610. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0351.2006.00271.x. (with Steven Fries, Damien Neven and Anita Taci) [ Download PDF ]

“Wasteful Public Spending and State Aid Control”, Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 4, nos. 2-3, May 2006, pp. 513-522. (with Mathias Dewatripont) [ Download PDF, 130 Ko) ]

“Intermediation by Aid Agencies”, Journal of Development Economics, vol. 79, no. 2, April 2006, pp. 469-491. (with Colin Rowat) [ Download PDF ]

“The Evolution of Fairness Norms: An Essay on Ken Binmore’s Natural Justice”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, vol. 5, no. 1, February 2006, pp. 33-50. [ View abstract ] [ Download PDF ]

“European and National Champions: Burden or Blessing?”, CES-Ifo Bulletin, vol. 6, no. 2, Summer, pp. 52-55.

“A Minimum of Rivalry: Evidence from Transition Countries on the Importance of Competition for Innovation and Growth”, Contributions to Economic Analysis and Policy, vol. 3, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1-42. (with Wendy Carlin and Mark Schaffer) [ Download PDF ]

“Competition, Privatisation and Productive Efficiency: Evidence from the Airline Industry”, The Economic Journal, vol. 111, no. 473, July 2001. (with Charles Ng)

“Understanding ‘the essential fact about capitalism’: markets, competition and creative destruction”, National Institute Economic Review, January 2001. (with Wendy Carlin and Jonathan Haskel)

“Skill versus Judgment and the Architecture of Organisations”, European Economic Review, Elsevier, 2000.

“The Effects and Policy Implications of State Aids to Industry: an Economic Analysis”, Economic Policy, 1999. (with Timothy Besley) [ Download PDF ]

“Accountability and Decentralization in Government: an Incomplete Contracts Model”, European Economic Review, Elsevier, 1996. [ Download PDF ]

“European Industrial Policy: the Airbus Case”, Economic Policy, no. 21, 1995. (with Damien Neven) [ Download PDF ]

“Managing Local Commons: Theoretical Issues in Incentive Design”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1993. [ Download PDF 6.4MB]

“Quality of Livestock Assets Under Selective Credit Schemes: Evidence from South Indian Data”, Journal of Development Economics, 1991. [ Download PDF ]

“Deregulating European Airlines”, Economic Policy, 1989 (with Francis McGowan)
“Social Choice and Social Theories”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1989.

“The Pursuit of Unhappiness”, Ethics, 1988.
“Explaining Cultural Divergence: a Wittgensteinian Paradox”, Journal of Philosophy, 1987, no. 1.
“The Effects of Conflict on the Economy of Northern Sri Lanka”, Economic and Political Weekly, 1986, no.2.

RSA Lecture – The Company of Strangers

The Company of Strangers

Economist Paul Seabright shows how an awareness of the fragility of our social institutions and their roots in our evolutionary past can help us deal with the challenges of today’s globally networked world.

Darwin and Human Society

Paul Seabright, “Darwin and Human Society”, in Darwin: Darwin College Lectures, collection Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 78-103.

Charles Darwin can easily be considered one of the most influential scholars of his time. His thoughts, ideas, research and writings have had a far reaching impact and influence on modern thought in the arts, on society, and in science. With contributions from leading scholars, this collection of essays explores how Darwin’s work grew out of the ideas of his time, and how its influence spread to contemporary thinking about creationism, the limits of human evolution and the diversification of living species and their conservation. A full account of the legacy of Darwin in contemporary scholarship and thought. With contributions from Janet Browne, Jim Secord, Rebecca Stott, Paul Seabright, Steve Jones, Sean Carroll, Craig Moritz and John Dupré. This book derives from a highly successful series of public lectures, revised and illustrated for publication under the editorship of Professor William Brown and Professor Andrew Fabian of the University of Cambridge.

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The Institutional Economics of Foreign Aid

The Institutional Economics of Foreign Aid. Bertin Martens, Uwe Mummert, Peter Murrell, Paul Seabright, Elinor Ostrom, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

This book analyzes the institutions–incentives and constraints–that guide the behavior of persons involved in the implementation of aid programs. While traditional performance studies tend to focus almost exclusively on policies and institutions in recipient countries, the authors look at incentives in the entire chain of organizations involved in the delivery of foreign aid, from donor governments and agencies to consultants, experts and other intermediaries. They examine incentives inside donor agencies, the interaction of subcontractors with recipient organizations, incentives inside recipient country institutions, and biases in aid performance monitoring systems.

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The Economic Regulation of Broadcasting Markets

The Economic Regulation of Broadcasting Markets: Evolving Technology and Challenges for Policy, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

New technology is revolutionizing broadcasting markets. As the cost of bandwidth processing and delivery fall, information-intensive services that once bore little economic relationship to each other are now increasingly related as substitutes or complements. Television, newspapers, telecoms and the internet compete ever more fiercely for audience attention. At the same time, digital encoding makes it possible to charge prices for content that had previously been broadcast for free. This is creating new markets where none existed before. How should public policy respond? Will competition lead to better services, higher quality and more consumer choice – or to a proliferation of low-quality channels? Will it lead to dominance of the market by a few powerful media conglomerates? Using the insights of modern microeconomics, this book provides a state-of-the-art analysis of these and other issues by investigating the power of regulation to shape and control broadcasting markets.

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Integration and the Regions of Europe

Pontus Brunerhjelm, Riccardo Faini, Victor Norman, Frances Ruane and Paul Seabright, Integration and the Regions of Europe: How the Right Policies can Prevent Polarisation, Center for Economic Policy Research, London, 2000.

This report analyses how the geographic pattern of production and employment in Europe will be affected by market integration, increased direct investment, more mobile financial capital and a sharper, global division of labour. The authors then trace the implications of such changes for local policy (local tax, expenditure and industrial policy) and finally discuss how the subsidiary principle should be implemented to ensure that local policies contribute to overall economic efficiency and other common goals.

Buy at brookings.edu.