Political Economy Program Meeting
Organized by Ruixue Jia and Matias Iaryczower
May 1, 2026
Royal Sonesta Hotel, 40 Edwin H. Land Blvd., Cambridge, MA
Format: 25 minutes for authors, 15 minutes for discussants, remaining 20 minutes for authors to respond to discussants and Q&A
Friday, May 1
8:30am
Breakfast
9:00am

Multidimensional Signaling and the Rise of Cultural Politics

Daron Acemoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
Georgy Egorov, Northwestern University and NBER
Konstantin Sonin, University of Chicago

Discussant:
Navin Kartik, Columbia University
10:00am
Break
10:15am

Anticipating State Action: Risk Perceptions and Consumption under Immigration Enforcement

Alberto Ciancio, University of Glasgow
Camilo García-Jimeno, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Discussant:
Felipe M. Gonçalves, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER
11:15am
Break
11:30am

Platforms as Editors: How Algorithmic Curation Shape Online News Slant

Yikang Shen, Carnegie Mellon University

Discussant:
Gregory J. Martin, Stanford University
12:30pm
Lunch
1:30pm

Crisis, State Capacity, and the Rise of Absolutism: A Design-based Analysis of the Thirty Years’ War

Luis Bosshart, Harvard University
Matthias Weigand, Harvard University

Discussant:
Alexey Makarin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2:30pm
Break
2:45pm

Inefficiencies in Local Infrastructure: Evidence from Drinking Water in California

Pierre Bodere, Yale University
Giulia Brancaccio, New York University and NBER
Karam Kang, University of Wisconsin - Madison and NBER

Discussant:
Nicolas Longuet-Marx, Stanford University
3:45pm
Break
4:00pm

Do Parties and Voters Disagree? An Equilibrium Analysis of Candidate Selection in India

Arvind Magesan, University of Calgary
Andrea Szabo, University of Houston
Gergely Ujhelyi, University of Houston

Discussant:
TBA
5:00pm
Adjourn
6:00pm
Dinner