The Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business hosted the 4th annual Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE) Conference on April 26-27. STAJE is an academic project that contributes to the understanding of entrepreneurship, firm growth, and institutions by studying the new entrepreneurial dynamic in Japan. Faculty from over 20 universities, government officials including the U.S. ambassador to APEC, and business leaders presented their research and papers over the two-day conference.

When one mentions the word “entrepreneurship,” Japan does not immediately come to mind. Although Japan has as many startups each year as the United States – adjusting for the size of the economy - in many ways entrepreneurship is misunderstood in Japan. This makes it an ideal laboratory for researching and observing entrepreneurial behavior because it is an economy similar to the United States in many ways. So, if there are differences – and there is a popular perception that the differences are great – the study of Japan will sharpen our understanding of Silicon Valley and the world economy.

Background

In the 1980s, large companies that were entrepreneurial when they started, like Sony, Honda, Toyota, and Mitsubishi, became successful large companies and were envied around the world. There was a great pride in Japanese electronics and manufacturing as Walkman and Camry became household names in Japan and abroad. The Walkman was an innovative mobile music device, the first of its kind on the market long before the iPod launched in 2001. The goal for many, if not all, college graduates was to get a job with a Japanese company or government that offered the security of lifetime employment.

Along with the growth of the Japanese economy, personal incomes were growing as companies continued to expand. The hallmark signs of Japanese wealth were lavishly displayed with the acquisition of second homes in Hawaii, impressionist art from renowned auction houses, the purchase of land and buildings around the world, and popular stories of luxurious travel and dining experiences. Meanwhile, real estate and stock prices in Japan soared setting the stage for an asset bubble collapse similar to the U.S. experience in 2007. The Nikkei 225 stock price average peaked at over 30,000 in December of 1989. It remains less than 9,000 over 20 years later.

Changes to regulations

The persistent decline in Japanese asset values during the 1990s caused much policy, legal, and corporate strategic change. As the Japanese economy reached its nadir after the collapse of its asset bubble, a broad business and policy criticism arose that the legal and informal institutional architecture of Japan was no longer relevant to a new economic age in a globalized setting. Moreover, the old banks were illiquid and had to be reorganized. New laws were passed affecting the formation, financing, and exit or dissolution of firms.

One example of the change was the reform of bankruptcy laws in Japan. During the 1980s bankruptcy was used to recollect debt and to punish irresponsible managers. There was a belief that bad decisions were not only a corporate responsibility, but also a personal one as well and therefore it was acceptable that a manager’s personal assets be seized in order to satisfy a corporate debt. This type of regulation may be partially responsible for perceptions of the risk adverse nature of the Japanese firms. Conversely, especially in Silicon Valley, failure is often seen as an opportunity to grow and learn from mistakes. Japanese policy-makers sought to emulate Silicon Valley where bankruptcy is viewed more as a normal and necessary element of the startup environment. Understanding this, in 2001 - 2003 reforms were enacted in Japan’s laws. These changes included lowering the maximum liability exposure that directors and CEOs were subjected to from unlimited personal exposure in many cases to limited assets at risk.

In a

recent paper, presented by STAJE researcher Robert Eberhart, they discover that “lowering failure barriers increases new firm performance and generates exceptional growth firms.” Eberhart says, “using Japan as a laboratory, we were able to show that laws that make it easier to start firms determine whether one can be an entrepreneur. But easing the laws that punish bankruptcy determine whether one wants to be an entrepreneur. In this way, studying Japan helps us understand entrepreneurship everywhere.”

New attitudes

Nowadays Japan is dynamic and changing. High growth new firms like GREE, DeNA, and Rakuten are not well known outside of Japan but are profitable, large, and acquiring firms around the world as well as being responsible for employment of thousands. Japanese firms are acquiring manufacturing capacity in China and Korea as they focus on high profit components instead of name brands. Data from STAJE’s research shows that new firms that start in Japan in the last ten years now employ millions. In contrast, Sony recently terminated 10,000 employees in Japan. Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo have scaled back in many business units and Toyota lost market share over quality concerns. There has been a breakdown in the social contract system of job security through lifetime employment. Job security in a large company, once a mainstay of working for a Japanese company, is no longer as available and undergraduates coming out of college are now more willing to work for foreign companies or to try something on their own. Students are beginning to show interest in entrepreneurship and there is a feeling of doing something for oneself is more important than relying on the “salary man” job. Venture capital firms and incubators are starting to sprout in Japan. Open Network Lab (Onlab) is Japan’s version of Silicon Valley based Y Combinator, an incubator that provides technology startups with mentorship, office space, and an introductory investment of approximately US$12,000 in exchange for equity. Even large Japanese giants are getting into the game; NTT Investments, the investment division of Japan’s largest telecommunications company, NTT DoCoMo, has invested in B Dash Ventures, a venture capital fund started by Hiroyuki Watanabe, a veteran venture capitalist in Japan.

The research at Stanford is helping to make the dynamic situation in Japan understandable. SPRIE-STAJE recently hosted an event in Tokyo with the US Embassy with over 500 attendees listening to research and views. Last year, SPRIE-STAJE hosted the US undersecretary of State, Robert Hormats, Japan’s ambassador to the US, Ichiro Fujisaki, the US ambassador to Japan, John Roos and dozens of representatives from industry and universities in both countries. STAJE facilitated the new joint work between the National Venture Capital Association and the Japanese Venture Capital Association. Research from STAJE is being used by joint U.S.-Japan government commissions on innovation and entrepreneurship – of which both Eberhart and SPRIE faculty co-director Professor William Miller are delegates - and the effort was recently featured in a joint communiqué of the White House and the Japanese Prime Minister’s office. STAJE has over 50 papers written and presented under its auspices and cooperated closely with the University of Tokyo.

Conclusion

Japan is a critical and exemplary part of the world’s cultural matrix that earned the respect of all around the world as Japanese people cooperated and showed its strength in the face of their disasters last year. As a famous researcher on Japan observed, Japan – a relatively small country – could not have become the 2nd largest economy in the world if it were not innovative and entrepreneurial. Its differences with the U.S. and other nations give researchers of entrepreneurship a powerful tool and laboratory. According to Professor William Miller, “culture is defined by the system in the environment, and when the system changes, the culture changes.” In Japan, research has shown that lowering failure barriers, such as reducing personal asset risk, increases new firm performance and contributes to an entrepreneur-friendly environment. SPRIE’s Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship is leading timely and relevant research to help us understand not only Japan, but ourselves.

In 2008, the world passed an invisible but momentous milestone: for the first time, more than half of the human population lived in cities, with urbanization projected to intensify to more than 5 billion people by 2030. During the past handful of years, billions of dollars have been invested by governments and the private sector, from building whole new smart green cities of Songdo and Masdar to creating new services on mobile devices in New York City and Barcelona. What have we learned to date? What is on the horizon?

On June 26-27, the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) hosted a circle of experts from six countries to examine “Innovations for Smart Green City: What’s Working, What’s Not and What’s Next”. Professor William J. Perry - Chair, US Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and former US Secretary of Defense delivered the opening keynote on potential game changers on the energy landscape. Subsequent speakers from leading universities, research institutes and firms shared insights gleaned from their direct involvement in smart city projects in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Busan, Chengdu, Chicago, Chongqing, Dalian, Guangzhou, Masdar, New York City, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore and more.

Leaders from university research labs shared pioneering deployment and analysis of information technologies in sensors, from autonomous car research at Stanford to the work at MIT’s Senseable City Lab on whole city intelligent traffic monitoring in Singapore. The Roundtable closed with a look at emerging technologies, new research partnerships, and the pipeline for relevant clean-tech startups. The 1 1/2 day event ended with a keynote by Rex Northen, executive director of CleanTech Open which has been involved with finding, fostering and funding around 600 start-ups with $660 million in funds over the past six years.

Next steps include concrete actions to support the call for presenters and discussants, representing experience from architecture to IT, to better integrate research and action across disciplines, organizational boundaries and national borders. With generous support from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and others, SPRIE will continue to collaborate and work in this area.

---

Roundtable Videos

William J. Perry, Chairman, US Secretary of Energy Advisory Board; Former US Secretary of Defense; Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus), and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
"Energy...The Good News"

---

Cliff Thomas, Managing Director, Smart + Connected Communities, Cisco
"Digital Urban Transformation"

---

Jung-Hoon Lee, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Information, Yonsei University; SPRIE Visiting Scholar, Stanford Graduate School of Business
"Toward a Framework for Smart Cities: A Comparison of Seoul, San Francisco and Amsterdam"

---

Ko-Yang Wang, Chief Technology Officer, Institute for Information Industry (III)
"Smart System Services in Smart Green Cities"

---

James Sweeney, Director, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, Stanford University
"Green" Cities and Energy Efficiency"

---

Sven Beiker, Executive Director, Center for Automotive Research (CARS), Stanford University
"New Research on Autonomous Driving"

---

Kung Wang, Professor, China University of Technology
"Cross-strait Partnering on Smart Energy Management and Innovation in the Post-Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement Era"

   

Vincent Chen

   

Holly Fetter

   

Imani Franklin

   

Mariah Halperin

  

   

Lina Hidalgo

   

Kabir Sawhney

   

Anna Schickele

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce the 2013 class of undergraduate senior honors students. 

Honors students will spend four quarters participating in research seminars to refine their proposed thesis topic, while working in consultation with a CDDRL faculty advisor to supervise their project. In September, the group will travel to Washington, D.C. for honors college where they will visit leading government and development organizations to witness policymaking in practice and consult with key decision-makers.

Please join CDDRL in congratulating the 2013 Senior Honors students and welcoming them to the Center.

Below are profiles of the nine honors students highlighting their academic interests, why they applied to CDDRL, and some fun facts.  

 

---

Keith Calix

Keith Calix

Major: International Relations

Hometown: Astoria, NY

Thesis topic: What is the relationship between the coloured experience and youth involvement in gangsterism in Cape Town, South Africa?

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Schools are one of the principal generators, justifiers and vehicles of radicalized thoughts, actions and identities. The challenge in a post-apartheid South Africa continues to be whether and how the roles, rules, social character and functioning of schools can reform to challenge the retrograde aspects of such formation and stimulate new forms of acknowledgement, social practice and acceptance. Ultimately, I hope my research will provide insight about how education reform can be used as a tool to promote democracy and improve human rights conditions.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? In many ways my personal and academic experiences have led me from a more general interest in education development to a more specific interest in post-apartheid education reform as a form of retrospective justice, the institutional, social and economic barriers to education reform, and understanding education reform as a means of promoting democracy and respect for human rights. Pursuing this in the work in the CDDRL community alongside talented and experienced faculty and students from a wide array of disciplines, interests, and experiences will ultimately enhance my understanding of development and one day, I can hopefully use these insights and experiences as a practitioner.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Human rights lawyer/fieldwork in education development.

What are your summer research plans: During the summer I will be working on my thesis in Cape Town, South Africa.

Fun fact about yourself: I’ve recently appeared on Italian television for an interview, bungee jumped from the world’s highest commercial bridge, and rode an ostrich.

---

 

Vincent Chen

Vincent Chen

Major: Earth Systems & Economics

Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan

Thesis topic: How democratic and autocratic systems affect the formation and efficacy of their environmental policies.

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? As the importance of climate and energy issues continue to rise in the global political agenda, both developed and developing nations are in dire need to identify individually tailored policy routes for sustainable development. With a wide array of political systems across countries, my research aims to shed light on the difference of environmental policy creation between democratic and autocratic governments and hopefully provide real world applications for policy makers in charting the most appropriate development route. In particular, I hope to provide insights for developing democracies to leapfrog the environmental impacts associated with democratization and avoid mistakes mature democracies have committed in the past.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? My studies in environmental science ultimately manifested the important role social sciences play in solving our environmental challenges. In the center of this challenge lies the tricky balance between development and environmental stewardship. The CDDRL program serves as a great opportunity for me to explore the complex relationship between these concepts.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Although I am interested in opportunities that span public, private and social sectors, I will definitely be working on issues pertaining to our environment.

What are your summer research plans: I will be spending my summer in Washington, DC with the climate and energy team of the United Nations Foundation, as well as conducting interviews for my research back home in Taiwan.

Fun fact about yourself: Spent five weeks on a uninhabited island the size of four square miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during my sophomore summer. 

---

 

Holly Fetter

Holly Fetter

Major: Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (B.A.), Sociology (M.A.)

Hometown: Dallas, TX

Thesis topic: The influence of U.S. funding on the development of China's civil society

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Organizations and individuals from the U.S. are eager to support democracy, development, and the rule of law in foreign countries. Through my research on the U.S. presence in China, I hope to understand how we can do this work more ethically and effectively. How can we avoid imposing our values and priorities onto a nation's bourgeoning civil society? How can we promote indigenous modes of fundraising and management training, thus avoiding any potential expressions of neo-imperialism?

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I wanted a challenge, and I knew that writing an honors thesis in a foreign discipline would be a rewarding intellectual experience. The apparent support from faculty as well as the connections to experts on my topic were also enticing. And I'm looking forward to the big D.C. trip.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: I'd like to practice community lawyering in the U.S.

What are your summer research plans: I'll be in Beijing, China, interviewing folks at NGOs and grant-giving organizations, reading lots of books and articles, and eating good food.

Fun fact about yourself: I like to write and cause a ruckus, so I started a blog for Stanford activists called STATIC. You should check it out!

---

 

Imani Franklin

Imani Franklin

Major: International Relations

Hometown: Atlanta, GA

Thesis topic: How Western beauty standards impact the preference for lighter skin in the developing world, with case-studies of India, Nigeria, and Thailand

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? This question matters for global development, in part, because it is an issue of public health. Researchers have long associated high rates of eating disorders and other mental health issues among American women with their continuous exposure to Western media’s narrow image of beauty. Given the unprecedented globalization of this image of beauty throughout much of the developing world, are non-Western women experiencing similar psychological health problems? From findings on skin bleaching cream in Tanzania to the rise of bulimia in Fiji in the late 1990s, a growing body of research attributes harmful body-altering practices to increased exposure to American consumerist media. I want to assess whether this causal link stands under empirical scrutiny, and whether this relationship shifts in different regional contexts of the world.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I am drawn to CDDRL’s honors program because of the intimate scholarly community of peers and mentors it provides. I believe this program will empower me to think more critically and scientifically about how one social issue impacts another.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: In the future, I hope to work with international policy to improve human rights protections in the Middle East and North Africa.

What are your summer research plans: I am currently studying Arabic in Jordan and will conduct primary research for my honors thesis in Amman.

Fun fact about yourself: In my free time, I enjoy learning the dance moves from High School Musical movies and attempting to make peach cobbler from scratch.

---

 

Mariah Halperin

Mariah Halperin

Major: History

Hometown: San Francisco, CA

Thesis topic: The development of democracy in Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP)

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Turkey has taken a unique path to democracy, beginning with Ataturk, yet many scholars worldwide have presented Turkey as a model for the rest of the Islamic world. The AKP, the party in power for the last decade, has in many ways changed the path Turkey had been on previously. With these changes and the recent uprisings in the Middle East, my thesis will hopefully speak to the viability of other countries following Turkey's example. 

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? The CDDRL undergraduate honors program is an amazing opportunity to deepen my studies of a topic that interests me so much. Working with a small group of dedicated, like-minded students will be a great way get feedback to develop and strengthen my thesis. Additionally, the outstanding faculty (and staff!) of the CDDRL are so supportive and eager to help students pursue their interests in any way they can.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Either diplomacy or journalism in Turkey and the Middle East.

What are your summer research plans: I will be in Turkey for over two months this summer, conducting interviews with a wide range of people who can lend their perspective on my topic.

Fun fact about yourself: I am an extreme San Francisco Giants baseball fan.

---

 

Thomas Alan Hendee

Thomas Alan Hendee

Major: Human Biology

Hometown: Sao Paulo, Brazil / Grand Rapids, Michigan

Thesis topic: I will be looking at the social determinants of health in Brazilian informal settlements and how they affect child health. 

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? By 2050, seventy-percent of the world will be living in cities, and the World Bank estimates that 32.7% of urban dwellers in developing regions will be living in slums. These informal urban settlements pose a significant problem for economic development, governance, and public health. 

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? This program will allow me to spend my last year engrossed in a topic of interest, and put my Brazilian heritage and Portuguese language skills to academic use by adding to the dialogue of a field that I hope to enter. I look forward to being surrounded by a group of peers from whom I can learn, and at the same time have the chance to be mentored by some of Stanford’s most renowned faculty.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: I am still debating if medical school is a part of my future; however, I am confident that I will be involved with some kind of internationally focused health work.

What are your summer research plans: I will be doing a tremendous amount of reading in order to get a better understanding of what has already been said; furthermore, I plan to perform as many Skype interviews as possible with involved individuals in Brazil.

Fun fact about yourself: In the summer of 2011, I spent one-week on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) participating in an ecotourism consulting job.

---

 

Lina Hidalgo

Lina Hidalgo

Major: Political Science

Hometown: Bogotá, Colombia

Thesis topic: What allowed citizen resistance to turn against the state in Egypt in 2011, but not in China.

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? I hope that my project will offer some hints as to why citizens faced with economic and social grievances fail to challenge - through their protests - the state structure that perpetrates those grievances. This can provide a lens through which to study other developing societies that fail to rise against oppression.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I have been able to see development challenges firsthand growing up and am honored to have the opportunity to learn from experts in the Center about the ideas and approaches taken to tackle these issues.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: I hope to learn more about development challenges globally by working in the Middle East or Asia, and eventually help implement better development policy worldwide through an international organizations, government work, or activism.

What are your summer research plans: I will be in China interviewing factory workers about their perceptions of inequality and speak with scholars about the broader issues I plan to address in my thesis. I will then travel to Egypt to interview political party leaders about how they saw long-standing grievances translated into the political sphere.

Fun fact about yourself: I've broken my two front teeth.

---

 

Kabir Sawhney

Kabir Sawhney

Major: Management Science and Engineering

Hometown: Morristown, NJ

Thesis topic: The effect of regime type on a country’s propensity to default on its sovereign debt obligations.

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? The link between a country’s regime type and its sovereign debt is crucial to further understanding the differences in the choices democracies and autocracies make in regards to their sovereign debt. Debt itself is important, because sovereign debt crises can have many negative consequences, including setting economic development back many years in some countries.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I took Professor Diamond and Professor Stoner-Weiss’ class in my sophomore year, and I really loved the course content and wanted to engage more with these topics. For my honors thesis, I really wanted to have an interdisciplinary experience, combining my interests in democracy and development with my academic focus in finance and financial markets, and the CDDRL program was a great place to do that.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: I’d like to work in financial markets; my long-term career goal is to one day run my own hedge fund with a mix of investment strategies.

What are your summer research plans: Since my thesis doesn’t require any field work, I’ll be working on refining my quantitative analysis and gathering relevant data from databases and other sources, to be able to carry out my analysis in earnest starting in fall quarter.

Fun fact about yourself: Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies! I like making all sorts of different kinds of foods, but my favorites have to be Thai, Indian and Chinese.

---

 

Anna Schickele

Anna Schickele

Major: Public Policy and Economics

Hometown: Davis, CA

Thesis topic: Determinants of farmer participation in agricultural development projects in rural Peru.

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? If non-governmental organizations are to implement successful development projects, they must figure out how to effectively engage would-be participants.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I'm attracted to the academic community. Though writing a thesis is a solitary activity, I hope the other students and I will support each other and form friendships as we go through the process together.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: I'd like to find a way to perfect my Spanish, improve my French, and maybe learn Arabic.

What are your summer research plans: I'll be in Peru at the end of August. If all goes well, I plan to make a second trip in December.

Fun fact about yourself: I've eaten alpaca, camel, guinea pig, and snails. 

The Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center announces the availability of two 2012–13 pre-doctoral research assistantships in health economics research on evidence-based health policy in East Asia. The assistantships support masters or pre-doctoral students with excellent econometrics skills who are interested in microeconomic analysis of recent health policy reforms in Japan or China. Student research assistants (RAs) will receive salary and tuition allowance for up to 10 units (depending on the time commitment) in the Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters of the 2012–13 academic year.

Two positions are open until filled. One RA would support research by Jay Bhattacharya and Karen Eggleston on hospital payment reforms in Japan; ability to read and write Japanese would be ideal. A second RA position will support research by Karen Eggleston and Kate Bundorf on maternal and child health in China; knowledge of Chinese would be ideal. Both positions require excellent microeconomics and data analysis skills. We seek a student who is able to start on an hourly basis in July or August 2012 and continue with RA-ship support beginning Autumn quarter.

Applicants should send the following materials to the research assistantship coordinator, Lisa Lee:

• CV
• Description of research interests, previous RA experience, and relevant skills (one page).
• Copy of transcripts.
• One letter of recommendation, sent directly to AHPP.

Deadline for receipt of all materials is July 20, 2012. Please address all materials to:

Lisa Lee
Administrative Associate for AHPP and SEAF

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

llee888@stanford.edu
(650) 725-2429 (voice)
(650) 723-6530 (fax)

Eleven talented Stanford seniors have completed the Undergraduate Senior Honors Program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) to graduate with honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law. Completing their theses on issues of global importance ranging from the impact of technology on government openness to the effectiveness of democratic governance projects, CDDRL honors students have contributed original research and analysis to policy-relevant topics. They will graduate from Stanford University on June 17.

Over the course of the year-long program, students worked in consultation with CDDRL affiliated faculty members and attended honors research workshops to develop their thesis project. Many traveled abroad to collect data, conduct interviews, and to spend time in the country they were researching. Collectively, their topics documented some of the most pressing issues impacting democracy today in China, Sudan, Greece, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Latin America, and beyond.  

In recognition of their exemplary and original senior theses, Mitul Bhat and John Ryan Mosbacher received the CDDRL Department Best Thesis Award for their research exploring welfare programs in Latin America and the developing oil industry in Uganda, respectively. Otis Reid received the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize and the Firestone Medal for Excellence, the top prizes for undergraduate social science research, for his thesis on the impact of concentrated ownership on the value of publically traded firms on the Ghana Stock Exchange.

After graduation, several honors students will leave Stanford to pursue careers at McKinsey & Company consulting group, serve as war crime monitors in Cambodia, work at a brand and marketing consultancy in San Francisco, conduct data analysis at a Palo Alto-based technology firm, work at a Boston-based international development finance startup using targeted investment for poverty alleviation, and conduct research in the political science field. The rest will be pursuing advanced and co-terminal degrees at Columbia Journalism School, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University.

A list of the 2012 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors students, their theses advisors, and a link to their theses can be found here:

 

Mitul Bhat	Not All Programs are Created Equal: An Exploration of Welfare Programs in Latin America and their Impact on Income Inequality Advisor: Beatriz Magaloni
Shadi Bushra	Linkages Between Youth Pro-Democracy Activists in Sudan and the Prospects for Joint Collective Action Advisor: Larry Diamond
Colin Casey	Waging Peace in Hostile Territory: How Rising Powers and Receding Leadership Constrained US Efforts in Sudan  Advisor: Francis Fukuyama
Nicholas Dugdale	Is Reform Possible at a Time of Political Crisis?: An Assessment of Greece's Efforts to Combat Tax Evasion and Shadow Economy Participation  Advisor: Francis Fukuyama
Daniel Mattes	Nunca Más: Trials and Judicial Capacity in Post-Transitional Argentina  Advisor: Helen Stacy
Hava Mirell	Keeping Diamonds “Kosher”: Re-evaluating the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme in the Wake of Zimbabwe’s Marange Diamond Crisis  Advisor: Kathryn Stoner-Weiss
Jack Mosbacher	Bracing for the Boom: Translating Oil into Development in Uganda  Advisor: Larry Diamond
Jenna Nicholas	21st Century China: Does Civil Society Play a Role in Promoting Reform in China?   Advisors: Francis Fukuyama & Thomas Fingar
Daniel Ong	Beyond the Buzzword: Analyzing the "Government 2.0" Movement of Technologists Around Government  Advisor: Larry Diamond
Annamaria Prati	United Nations Development Programme: An Analysis of the Impact of the Structure on the Efficacy of its Democratic Governance Projects Advisor: Stephen Stedman
Otis Reid	Monitoring, Expropriating, and Interfering: Concentrated Ownership, Government Holdings, and Firm Value on the Ghana Stock Exchange Advisor: Avner Greif

 

 

Ross Feehan has written a very interdisciplinary thesis, spanning the fields of aquaculture production, climate, risk analysis, and ethics. As an Earth Systems major with a strong concentration in religious studies, Ross worked hard to bridge his interests in a piece of work that is relevant to smallholder producers and policymakers in China and in other producing countries. Ross’ thesis is well-written, well-documented, and firmly grounded in several core disciplines of Earth Systems.

Ross analyzed the role of index insurance for extreme weather impacts on aquaculture production in great detail. He used the science to develop a statistical method for evaluating risk and insurance market behavior. He also devoted much effort to designing an ethical approach that incorporated values that he could understand and assess in the context of insurance schemes. His attempt to integrate two major fields of interest from his undergraduate and co-term training at Stanford is laudable. Feehan was advised by FSE director Rosamond L. Naylor.

Thesis abstract

China’s aquaculture industry, which is the largest in the world, is predominantly uninsured. Aquaculture insurance in China remains to be nascent despite previous and ongoing efforts to insure farmers against diseases, natural hazards, and other threats. This study assesses the opportunity for insurance development in China and suggests an aquaculture insurance solution for Hainan Province using quantitative and qualitative analyses. An index insurance program in Hainan Province could utilize typhoon and rainfall measures as proxies for the damages that aquaculture farmers experience. This program could insure farmers across Hainan, though calculations of risk reveal that some of Hainan’s administrative regions are more perilous than others. Risk in Hainan will increase as climate change intensifies. Now, and in the future, aquaculture insurance should assume a greater role in Hainan’s management of natural hazard risk only if insurance and its provisioning abide by both practical and ethical criteria that, inter alia, uphold the value of all creation.