CPEIS Academic Impact – Symposium “Crisis and Persistence: Dynamics of institutional changes at the interface between formal and informal institutions”

We are very pleased to announce that as a result of the workshop organised by the CPEIS jointly with the Centre for Comparative Studies of Emerging Economies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES UCL) and the Institute for International Management (IIM) at Loughborough University London), on “Crisis and Persistence: Dynamics of institutional changes at the interface between formal and informal institutions”, a symposium of equivalent title for the Journal of Institutional Economics, guest edited by Dr Elodie Douarin and Prof Gerhard Schnyder is planning to be published.

CPEIS Academic Impact – Special Issue “Institutions and Culture in Economic Contexts”

We are very pleased to announce that as a result of the workshop organised by the CPEIS jointly with the Centre for Comparative Studies of Emerging Economies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES UCL) and the Institute for International Management (IIM) at Loughborough University London), on “Institutions and Culture in Economic Contexts”, a special issue of equivalent title for the Journal of Institutional Economics, guest edited by Dr Luca Andriani and Dr Randolph Bruno have been published in February 2022   

Institutions and Culture in Economic Contexts

Volume 18 – Special Issue 1 – February 2022

Workshop Institutions, Inequality and (Un)Happiness – Programme Overview

Venue: School of Slavonic and East European Studies – University College London
Date: 19 June 2023

Paper Session 1: InequalityChair: Elodie Douarin

Does Inequality Enhance Life Satisfaction? A Longitudinal Investigation
David Bartram (University of Leicester) – Discussant: Adeola Oyenubi

Gini who? An Empirical Study of the Relation between Perception of
Inequality and Life Satisfaction
– Daniele Marchesi (University of Groningen)
Discussant: Tomasz Mickiewicz

Paper Session 2: Subjective Wellbeing
Chair: Luca Andriani

The Coronavirus Crisis and Subjective Wellbeing in Britain – Lateef Akanni
(University of Strathclyde)
Discussant: Chiara Amini

Spatial Inequality, sub-regional Governance and Subjective Well-being: the
case of South Africa
– David Fadiran (University of Cape Town)
Discussant: Serena Merino

Paper Session 3: Gender and Culture
Chair: Randolph Bruno

Where Are Working Women Happier? Welfare State Policies and Female
employment across Europe – Effects on Subjective Well-Being
– Judit Kalman
(Corvinus University)
Discussant: Gerhard Schnyder

Women’s work and inequality in the institutional perspective– Anna
Zachorowska-Mazurkiewicz (Jagiellonian University)
Discussant: Elodie Douarin

The Origins of Culture – Carmine Guerriero (University of Bologna)
Discussant: Tomas Cvrcek

Roundtable Discussion:
Institutions, Inequality, and (Un-) Happiness – Key research issues and way
forward

Chair: Gerhard Schnyder

Introduction: Luca Andriani, Elodie Douarin, Randolph Bruno and Gerhard
Schnyder
Open floor

Closure

Call for paper – One-day workshop on: Institutions, Inequality, and (Un)Happiness

To be held: 19 June, 2023 – SSEES, UCL London, UK

On behalf of the Friday Association for Institutional Studies (a collective including members of the Birkbeck Centre for Political Economy and Institutional Studies (CPEIS), the Centre for Comparative Studies of Emerging Economies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES UCL) and the Institute for International Management at Loughborough University London, we are pleased to announce the following call for contributions for its 5th London Workshop on Institutional Issues.

Theme:

Happiness, as an explicit measure of wellbeing, good institutional quality, as a pillar of development, and low level of inequality, as a driver of social harmony are all increasingly seen as important metrics of societal success. With this call, we aim to invite researchers from any social science discipline to submit their research engaging with at least 2 of these notions to contribute to a critical and constructive debate on their complex interrelations and their relevance to our understand of development in a broad sense.

During the first two decades of the 21st century, inequality has become a political buzzword and an increasingly prominent topic for academic research (e.g. Piketty, 2013, Pistor 2019, Milanovic 2019). The relationship between economic and political inequality and societal and individual outcomes, such as happiness and life satisfaction, has kept scholars across various disciplines busy. Institutions, it turns out, often play a key role in many of these studies, but a lot remains to be clarified about the complex relationships between all the above aspects.

Inequality, for instance, can be viewed from a social deprivation perspective as having a significant impact on individual and societal happiness. Income shapes individuals’ and households’ lives by creating opportunities of “choice” (Sen 1970), as opposed to being bound to poverty and the cage of lack of such liberty. Citizens living in richer and institutionally more advanced countries tend to be happier (Clark, 2018; Di Tella & MacCulloch, 2008; Easterlin et al., 2010), confirming the positive association between income and subjective wellbeing (Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2005; Flèche, S., & Layard 2017). However, an individual’s income is only one of the several determinants of happiness and life satisfaction (Flèche, S., & Layard 2017) as other factors such as the distribution of resources or institutional quality might impact individuals’ self-evaluation of their live conditions (Amini and Douarin 2020; Christoph 2010).

Specifically, explicit criticism has been made to the assumption that a rise in income can be a primary driver of happiness (Schimmel 2009). However, unlike income, inequality is a comparative measure, looking at the distribution of resources within a specific socio-economic context. Individuals tend to compare their economic and living conditions to fellow citizens within their surrounding environment. This may mean that in context where nearly everyone experiences a rise in income, those experiencing a relatively lower pace of improvement may feel deprived vis-à-vis their neighbours (Djankov et al. 2016; Nikolova 2016); while rising inequality can be interpreted as either negative, due to increase disparities, or positive, if it is interpreted as an opening of opportunities (Grosfeld and Senik, 2010; Hirschman and Rothschild, 1973).

Recent works have also focused on the relationship between life satisfaction and institutions, being formal or informal (Bjørnskov et al. 2010; Nikolova and Nikolaev 2017; Nikolova, Popova and Otrachshenko 2023). Evidence suggests that better political institutions which can guarantee compliance with the rule of law (Nikolova 2016) and reduce corruption (Amini and Douarin 2020) may increase happiness, while living in an institutional context that is markedly different from one’s own preferences reduces life satisfaction (Hadsell and Jones, 2020) . Life satisfaction is also a crucial cognitive aspect driving individuals to be more civically engaged (Guven 2011) and to be more averse to rent-seeking behaviours such as corruption (Andriani and Ashyrov 2022). Shedding lights on the mechanisms linking happiness and institutions might enhance our understanding of citizens’ revealed preferences in terms of institutional compliance as well as in terms of individuals’ contribution to the welfare of the society where they live.           

While institutions influence inequality, the converse is true as well. Thus, inequality impacts the quality and stability of political regimes. Political scientists have found that income inequality may be one driver for support for anti-system populist parties, although the precise mechanism for this association is not clear (Stoeztler et al., 2023). Indeed, the relationship between inequality and institutions is a complex one. For instance, the relationship between inequality and institutional quality may be a ‘double causality’ (Chong & Gradstein, 2004), with initial income and political inequality affecting institutional quality, reinforcing inequality. Some have also demonstrated that citizens’ tolerance for inequality is mediated through institutional quality, with good governance being associated with a greater perception of inequality as possibly fair (Brock, 2020). Moreover, there is evidence that inequality can lead to institutional change that establishes exploitative political systems, which redistribute in favour of the dominant class (Savoia et al., 2010).

Inequality is also associated not just with political institutions, but also with various economic institutions. For example, the financialisation of Western economies – i.e. the expansion of the financial sector and increasing dominance of a ‘financial logic’ even in non-financial corporations (Pistor 2019)– is commonly considered a key driver of increased income and wealth inequality, as the decline of the labour share and the increase of wages’ inequality (Autor et al. 2017 2020; Schwellnus et al. 2018). However, political economists have also found that institutions play an important moderating role. For instance, countries where labour power is more strongly institutionalised experience a less marked increase in inequality than countries with weak labour (Huber et al., 2022). Indeed, changes in institutional arrangements of collective bargaining have been shown to lead to changing power relations between trade unions and employers, which in turn affects the extent to which inequality increases in a country during industrial transformation (Benassi et al., 2016).

In short, inequality, institutional quality and life satisfaction are inter-connected, related, mediated, associated in many ways, and we propose to explore and embrace that diversity of relations during our 1-day workshop. Thus, questions of interest include – but are not limited to: 

1. How is the quality of life impacted by the quality of institutions?

2. How do institutions influence the impact of inequality on economic and non-economic wellbeing?

3. How does inequality and or subjective wellbeing impact institutional trust?

4. What is the relationship between inequality, quality of institutions and public good contributions?

5. How does inequality influence subjective wellbeing and sustainability?

6. Societal wellbeing between formal and informal institutions

7. How do formal institutions mediate the relationship between inequality and aspects of subjective wellbeing?

8. What are the organisation- and industry-level determinants of societal inequality?

9. What are the “institutional drivers” behind the decline of labour share and increase of wages’ inequality?

Submission:

Please send an abstract (max. 500 words) or a full paper (if available and preferred by the submitters) by 12 March 2023 to ssees-events@ucl.ac.uk

The submission should be sent with “2023 Friday Association Workshop” in the subject line.

Please note that the format of the submission (abstract or full paper) will not affect the chances of being accepted. Researchers submitting structured abstracts will not be treated less favourably than authors submitting full papers, as long as their key contribution and approach are made clear.

Authors of accepted submissions will be notified by 31 March 2023

Structure of Presentations:

Every paper presentation will be assigned a discussant. It is thus important to submit full papers at least two weeks before the workshop, i.e. 5 June 2023 at the latest.

Convenors and Queries

For any queries, please contact any of the workshop convenors: Dr Luca Andriani (luca.andriani@bbk.ac.uk), Dr Randolph L Bruno (Randolph.bruno@ucl.ac.uk), Dr Elodie Douarin (e.douarin@ucl.ac.uk) and Prof Gerhard Schnyder (G.Schnyder@lboro.ac.uk)    

Call for Papers – London Workshop on Institutional Issues – 2021

Crisis and Persistence: Dynamics of institutional changes at the interface of the formal and informal institutions

Organised by The Friday Association for Institutional Studies

On behalf of the Friday Association for Institutional Studies (a collective including members of the Birkbeck Centre for Political Economy and Institutional Studies (CPEIS), the Centre for Comparative Studies of Emerging Economies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES UCL) and the Institute for International Management at Loughborough University London), we are pleased to announce the following call for contributions to our 4th annual London workshop on institutional studies (to be held online on 23 and 24 September 2021).

As the COVID sanitary emergency continues to unfold, and despite the glimmer of hope afforded by the vaccine roll-out in some parts of the world, we are reminded of the key role crises often play in institutional change. Indeed, they constitute opportunity windows for change and sometimes moments of critical junctures and structural breaks in the development of economic institutions (Collier and Collier 1991; Acemoglu and Robinson 2012). However, some – even major – emergencies do not seem to have the expected disruptive effect on institutional arrangements, with institutional features showing remarkable resilience in the face of major upheaval (Crouch 2011). One stream of scholarship focuses on “punctured equilibrium” models (Baumgartner and Jones 1993), “grammar of institutions” (Crawford and Ostrom 1995) or “critical junctures” (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012), that is to say on events or conditions generating big and radical institutional changes. Another stream of research has pointed out the importance of more subtle processes of institutional change, proposing theoretical tools that capture incremental, but still transformative processes of change (Mahoney and Thelen 2010; Streeck and Thelen 2005).  

Against this general backdrop, one important understudied aspect is the role of informal institutions and their interplay with formal institutions in processes of institutional change. Crises are often associated with disruption of the formal institutional order, while little attention is paid to the role of informal institutions. Informal institutions are sometimes seen as ‘second best’ (Rodrik 2008) compared to more formal institutional arrangement. However, in crisis situations when the formal institutional order breaks down or is severely challenged, informal institutions may prove crucial for economic activity to persist by providing resilience. Conversely, whether or not a crisis will provide an opportunity for formal institutional change may also depend on whether informal institutions supporting the status quo remain unchallenged or are equally shaken by the crisis. More generally, informal institutions have been conceptualised as shaping the implementation of formal institutions, making them a more fundamental driver of institutional change (Boettke, et al., 2008).

Overall, we thus contend that crises provide opportunities to further our understanding of the interplay between formal and informal institutions. Better understanding the interplay between formal and informal institutions in times of crises holds important lessons for both theory and policy making. In certain circumstances, socially desirable change does not happen although recurring crises may show the limitations of the existing system. Conversely, more research is needed on what makes institutions resilient to crises even when change appears desirable. Both issues require a better understanding of the interplay between formal and informal institutions.

We are thus calling for papers proposing to shed light on institutional change, either incremental or sudden, with an explicit focus on the role played by informal institutions, either theoretically or empirically. Questions of interest include – but are not limited to:

  • What are the antecedents of different types of institutional change in times of crisis?
  • What interactions exist between formal and informal institutions during crises?
  • How do informal institutions affect institutional change during crises?
  • Can crises reshape human behaviour above and beyond the “formal rules of the games”?
  • How/when/where do informal institutions provide resilience to institutional orders in crisis? How/when/where do they undermine institutional stability or support institutional change?

Submission:

Please send an abstract (max. 500 words) or a full paper (if available and preferred by the submitters) by 18 June 2021 to ssees-events@ucl.ac.uk

The submission should be sent with “Institutional Change Workshop” in the subject line.

Please note that the format of the submission (abstract or full paper) will not affect the chances of being accepted. Researchers submitting structured abstracts will not be treated less favourably than authors submitting full papers, as long as their key contribution and approach are made clear.

Authors of accepted submissions will be notified by 9 July 2021

Structure of Presentations:

Every paper presentation will be assigned a discussant. It is thus important to submit full papers at least two weeks before the workshop, i.e. 9 September 2021 at the latest.

Convenors and Queries

For any queries, please contact any of the workshop convenors: Dr Luca Andriani (luca.andriani@bbk.ac.uk), Dr Randolph L Bruno (Randolph.bruno@ucl.ac.uk), Dr Elodie Douarin (e.douarin@ucl.ac.uk) and Dr Gerhard Schnyder (G.Schnyder@lboro.ac.uk)    

When: [21 and 22 September 2021 – two half days {time to be confirmed after papers acceptance, to be able to adapt to the location of the speakers}]

Where: Hosted on zoom (logins detail to be circulated at a later date)

References:

Acemoglu, D. and J. Robinson (2012) Why Nations Fail. London: Profile Books Ltd.

Boettke, P., Coyne, C., & Leeson, P. (2008). Institutional Stickiness and the New Development Economics. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 67(2), 331–358.

Baumgartner, Frank R. and Bryan D. Jones. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Collier, Ruth Berins and David Collier. 1991. Framework: Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies.

Crawford, Sue E. S  Ostrom, Elinor;. (September 1995). “A grammar of institutions”. American Political Science Review89 (3)

Crouch, Colin. 2011. The Strange Non-Death of Neo-Liberalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Mahoney, James and Kathleen Thelen, eds. 2010. Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rodrik, Dani. 2008. “Second-Best Institutions.” NBER Working Paper Series 14050:1–4.

Streeck, Wolfgang and Kathleen Thelen. 2005. Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Book Launch: The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative Economics

We are delighted to invite you to this public event introducing and discussing the new Palgrave Handbook of Comparative Economics. The handbook will be introduced by Dr Elodie Douarin (UCL SSEES) – co-editor and contributor to the handbook, and Prof. Ron Smith (BBK) – contributor to the handbook, while Prof. Daniel Berkowitz (University of Pittsburgh) will provide some critical remarks.

Organiser: The Birkbeck Centre for Political Economy and Institutional Studies

Date and Time: 18th May at 2pm – 3pm (UK Time)

This event has been video recorded. Click here to watch the debate

The handbook aims to define comparative economics and to illustrate the breadth and depth of its contribution. It starts with an historiography of the field, arguing for a continued legacy of comparative economic systems, a field which some argued should have been replaced by institutional economics after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The process of transition to market capitalism is reviewed, and itself exemplifies a new combination of comparative analysis with a focus on institutional development. Going beyond, chapters broadening the application of comparative analysis and applying it to new issues and approaches are presented. Overall, comparative economics has evolved in the past 30 years, and remains a powerful approach for analysing important issues.

Panel:

Dr Elodie Douarin:

Dr. Douarin joined UCL SSEES in June 2012. She previously worked for Imperial College (Wye College), SOAS, Kent University and the University of Sussex. Her research focuses on Comparative and Cultural Economics. She has co-edited the Palgrave Handbook of Comparative Economics with Prof. Oleh Havrylyshyn (Carleton University).

Prof Ron Smith:

Prof. Smith is Professor of Applied Economics in the department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics at Birkbeck University. He received the 2011 Lewis Fry Richardson lifetime achievement award for contributions to the scientific study of militarised conflict, and among other work, has published “Military Economics: the interaction of power and money” with Palgrave in 2009.

Prof Daniel Berkowitz:

Prof. Berkowitz is Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh and Executive Secretary of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies. His research focuses on Comparative Institutions, Development, Applied Microeconomics, Law and Finance. He has published extensively, including “The Evolution of a Nation: How Geography and Law Shaped the American States”, a book published by Princeton University Press in 2011 with Karen Clay.

Chair: Dr Luca Andriani

Lecturer in Economics and Co-director of CPEIS – School of Business, Economics and Informatics. Birkbeck University of London

For registering to this event please click on the following link

https://ucl.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAqduqrqjkpE9wfAr5G5Zg1dZSGTbvVSya2

For any query please do not hesitate to contact one of the following persons

Luca Andriani at luca.andriani@bbk.ac.uk

Elodie Douarin at e.douarin@ucl.ac.uk

Patricia Gabalova at ssees-events@ucl.ac.uk  

Call for Papers – Panel organised by Social Capital Working Group – 2021

THEME: Strength in unity:

Building alliances and networks for economic and social change

11th International Conference in Political Economy,

“The Pandemic and the Future of Capitalism:

On the Political Economy of our Societies and Economies”

September 12-19, 2021 / Online Conference

Organisers:

Asimina Christoforou, Panteion University, Greece. Luca Andriani, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

In mainstream economics we often use the Robinson Crusoe metaphor. It represents the idealised economic man, the independent, industrious and self-sufficient man, who absolutely knows his needs and his surroundings; who rationally assesses his possibilities and makes choices; who seeks for novel ways to expand his potential; who conquers nature and defies backward-looking social checks; and who ingeniously combines all the means virtually available to him in order to increase personal prosperity and gratification. However, economists seem to be telling half of the story. Robinson Crusoe actually relied on the camaraderie of his fellowman Friday to deal with the obstacles they faced together, and he was only able to survive and progress by joining forces and associating with others. 

 The self-serving aspects of economic man are far from reality and overlook the social and institutional dimensions of the economy. The current health crisis strongly demonstrates how much we rely on cooperation and unity, alliances and networks, in order to address the challenges of our times. In fact, economic man is a social construct itself, which places markets over and above social values. In this session we wish to explore the collectives and networks people create to promote material well-being and restore substantive values of social and environmental protection. Examples of collectives include, among others, trade unions; environmental associations; worker-recuperated firms; commons and commoning; local communities; research and policy networks; public-private synergies; and social movements. How do these collectives emerge? What is their purpose? How do they evolve? How are they affected by history and culture, especially by the economic and health crises? How can cooperation be achieved within and between collectives in view of conflicting interests and needs? These are questions we would like to address in the session.    

We also encourage contributions that generally address the topic of social capital. We welcome works that derive from various social science disciplines and use different units of analysis (individual, regional, country or cross-country level), methodologies and techniques (theoretical, empirical, qualitative and quantitative). Participants can submit individual papers or organise sessions.

Please submit your proposal by May 15, 2021.

To submit a proposal, please use the Electronic Proposal Form (EPF), and carefully follow the instructions. You will need to select “Social Capital” from the list to submit a proposal to our sessions. The EPF will be opened on the IIPPE website (www.iippe.org) on April 15. As usual, submissions may be made as (a) proposals for individual papers (which IIPPE will group into panels), (b) proposals for panels, (c) proposals for streams of panels, or (d) proposals on activism. The EPF will be closed on May 15, and notification of acceptances will be sent out by May 31.

For queries and suggestions, you may contact Asimina Christoforou,Coordinator of the Social Capital Working Group: a.christoforou@panteion.gr.

Four Fridays for Corruption – Programme

Online Workshop Series – The Fridays have been Video-Recorded

Friday 6, November: The Political Economy of Corruption (this Friday has not been video-recorded)

Dorottya Sallai, London School of Economics Jozsef Martin, Corvinus University Budapest: Institutions as Agents of Systemic corruption and Rent- seeking

Mogens Justesen, Copenhagen Business School Luigi Manzetti, Southern Methodist University: Poverty, Partisanship, and Vote Buying

Giovanna Rodriguez-Garcia, Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, Mexico: Party System Nationalization Promoting Accountability to Curb Corruption

Friday 13, November 2020: Informal Practices, Corruption and Institutional Change : Click here to watch the video

John Heathershaw, David Lewis & Tom Mayne, University of Exeter: What Happens in London Stays in London? The relationship between overseas AML enforcement and the domestic position of kleptocratic ruling elites

Kyong Jun Choi, Jeju National University, Korea Jonson N. Porteux, Kansai Gaidai University, Japan: Leviathan for Sale: Maritime police privatization, bureaucratic corruption and the Sewol disaster

Emrah Gülsunar, University of Lund, Sweden: Making Economic Growth Sustained: British Parliament, legislation and abolishing rent-seeking in cotton textile industry during Industrial Revolution, 1748 – 1832

Friday 20, November 2020: Consequences of Corruption: Click here to watch the video

Andrea Tulli, University of Warwick: Sweeping the Dirt Under the Rug: Measuring spillovers from an anti-corruption measure

Luca J. Uberti, University of Luxembourg: Corruption and Growth: New historical evidence

Riccardo D’Emidio, University of Sussex: Policing Corruption or Corrupted Policing? Social norms and integrity in the Ghana Police Service

Friday 27, November 2020: Bribery, Anti-Social Behaviour and Local Governance: Click here to watch the video

Kristina S. Weißmüller, University of Bern: Tolerating Bribery in Public, Private, and Hybrid Organizations

Jérémy Celse, ESSCA School of Management and Guillermo Mateu, Burgundy School of Business: Rent-seeking Tournament with Sabotage: Fighting antisocial behaviours with envy?

Zsoka Koczan, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Michael Ganslmeier, University of Oxford: Governance in Regions and Cities

“Call for Paper: Four Fridays for Corruption”

Call for Papers

A Mini Online Workshop Series on

Corruption, Rent-Seeking Behaviour and Informal Practices in Institutional Contexts

every Friday in November 2020

(November 6, 13, 20, 27)

Brought to you by

Institute for International Management (Loughborough University London)

Centre for Political Economy and Institutional Studies (Birkbeck University of London)

Centre for Comparative Studies of Emerging Economies (University College London)

This mini-series of online workshops aims to bring together researchers from different disciplines to improve our theoretical, empirical and methodological understanding of different aspects of corruption, rent-seeking behaviours, and informal practices within different institutional contexts. 

A general consensus exists that corruption and other forms of rent-seeking behaviour impose tremendous costs on society, because they reduce funds devoted to public goods including safety, social services, and infrastructure. They create economic distortions, lower economic growth, and increase inequality. From the institutional perspective, institutions – as rules and norms able to constrain and shape human interactions (Hodgson 2006; North, 1990) – should minimise these collective action problems by discouraging and penalising rent-seeking behaviours. Within the literature on individuals’ conformity and compliance to rules (broadly defined as social norms), emphasis has been placed on the study of the reasons why institutions designed to contain such behaviours fail to act as expected (Batory 2012). Across different social science disciplines a consensus is emerging that corruption and other forms of rent-seeking behaviours cannot be reduced to a lack of institutional quality.

This workshop aims to provide an ad-hoc research platform to further this debate. We are interested in work that sheds light on corruption and other forms of rent-seeking behaviours within different institutional and socio-cultural contexts from a broad and interdisciplinary perspective. The workshop also aims to explore different aspects of informality, the complementarities existing between informal practices and different forms of institutions, and the relational mechanisms linking informal practices and corruption.

We welcome contributions from different academic disciplines (including, but not limited to, political science, economics, development studies, law, sociology, social psychology, and organisational studies), using different level of analysis (individuals, firms and organisations, sectors, regions, countries, etc.) and different methodologies and techniques (theoretical, empirical, qualitative, quantitative, comparative, etc.).   

Specifically, we invite submission of papers from any relevant discipline addressing issues including but not limited to:

  • Corruption and institutional quality/context
  • Determinants and/or consequences of corruption
  • Citizens’ attitudes towards rent-seeking behaviour
  • Informal practices, formal and informal institutions
  • Informal practices and corruption
  • Informal networks, social norms, and corruption
  • Trust, corruption and institutions
  • Corruption, tax evasion, and tax morale
  • Definitions and concepts of corruption
  •  Compliance and the Rule of Law

Application Procedure

Please send a structured abstract (max. 500 words) or a full paper (if available and preferred by the submitters) by 7 September 2020 to G.Schnyder@lboro.ac.uk. The submission should be sent with “Four Fridays for Corruption in the subject line.

Structured abstracts need to adopt the following structure:

Research Type: Conceptual, Theoretical, Empirical or Review (select one)

Research Question/Issue: 2 or 3 sentences presenting the focus of the paper

Method: 2 or 3 sentences clarifying the methodological approach chosen, and data source, if the paper is conceptual/theoretical, please state the main framework your research builds on.

Key Findings/Insights: 2 to 3 sentences explaining the findings or insights derived from your study. This section should highlight the contribution of your work to the broader literature.

Implications: in this section, please state the broader implications of your findings for researchers and/or policy-makers, as appropriate.

Please note that the format of the submission (structured abstract of full paper) will not affect the chances of being accepted. Researchers submitting structured abstracts will not be treated less favourably than authors submitting full papers.

Please also indicate on your abstract the time zone you will be residing in during November and what your preferred time for the session would be. We will try and accommodate timing requests as best we can.

Authors of accepted submissions will be notified by 28 September 2020.

Workshop Fees

There is no fee for attending the workshop.

Structure of Presentations

Each session will last for two hours. There will be 3 paper presentations of 20 minutes each followed by 5 min comments from the discussant. The remainder will be open discussion and Q&A.

We will decide on the time for the sessions depending on which time zones the presenters are in. Therefore, the precise timing of each Friday session will be announced once the selection of papers has been made.

Since every paper presentation will be assigned a discussant, it is thus important to submit full papers two weeks before each workshop.

Queries

For any queries, please contact any of the workshop convenors: Dr Luca Andriani (luca.andriani@bbk.ac.uk), Dr Randolph L Bruno (Randolph.bruno@ucl.ac.uk), Dr Elodie Douarin (e.douarin@ucl.ac.uk), Dr Gerhard Schnyder (G.Schnyder@lboro.ac.uk)    

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