Stanford University

Mixed Signals: Crisis Lending and Capital Markets

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This seminar is part of the "Europe and the Global Economy" series.

How do geopolitical forces influence international capital markets? In particular, do market actors condition their responses to crisis lending initiatives on the political incentives of major lenders? In this paper, Randall Stone and co-writers Terrence Chapman, Songying Fang and Xin Li  analyze a formal model which demonstrates that the effect of crisis lending announcements on international investment flows is conditional on how market actors interpret the political and economic motivations behind lending decisions on the part of the lender and borrower. If investors believe the decision to accept crisis lending is a sign of economic weakness and lending decisions are influenced by the political interests of the major donor countries, then crisis lending may not reduce borrowing costs or quell fears of international investors. On the other hand, if market actors believe that crisis lending programs, and attendant austerity conditions, will significantly reduce the risk of a financial crisis, they may respond with increased private investment, creating a "catalytic effect."  In this model, the political biases of key lending countries can affect the inferences market actors draw, because some sovereign lenders have strategic interests in ensuring that certain borrowing countries do not collapse under the strain of economic crisis. Although this theory applies to multiple types of crisis lending, it helps explain discrepant empirical findings about market reactions to IMF programs. The implications of their theory is tested by examining how sovereign bond yields are affected by IMF program announcements, loan size, the scope of conditions attached to loans, and measures of the geopolitical interests of the United States, a key IMF principal.

Randall Stone (Ph.D. 1993, Harvard) is Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester.  His research is in international political economy and combines formal theory, quantitative methods, and qualitative fieldwork.  He is the author of Controlling Institutions:  International Organizations and the Global Economy (Cambridge University Press 2011), Lending Credibility:  The International Monetary Fund and the Post-Communist Transition (Princeton University Press, 2002) and Satellites and Commissars:  Strategy and Conflict in the Politics of Soviet-Bloc Trade  (Princeton University Press, 1996), as well as articles in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Review of International Organizations, and Global Environmental Politics.  He has been awarded grants by the NSF, SSRC, NCEEER, and IREX, was the last recipient of the Soviet Peace Prize (1991), and has been a Senior Fulbright Scholar visiting the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin.  He speaks German and Russian fluently and Polish moderately well, and reads all Slavic languages. 

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Randy Stone Professor of Political Science; Director of the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies and of the Peter D. Watson Center for Conflict and Cooperation Speaker the University of Rochester
Seminars
Europe and the Global Economy
Europe and the Global Economy Seminar Series

Trade Implications of TTIP for Countries Outside the EU and US

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This seminar is part of the "Europe and the Global Economy" series.

The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), if successful, will eliminate trade barriers between the US and the EU, both of which already have free trade agreements with many other countries, including several that are in FTAs with both (Canada, Korea, Mexico to name just a few).  Is TTIP therefore achieving true free trade with this larger group?  No. Restrictive rules of origin apply, and these can potentially interfere with trade and reduce welfare even when compared to a world without any of these FTAs.

Alan V. Deardorff is John W. Sweetland Professor of International Economics and Professor of Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan.  With a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University, he has been on the faculty at the University of Michigan since 1970, where he has served as Chair of Economics and now Associate Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.  His research has included both contributions to the theory of international trade and, with Robert M. Stern, development of the Michigan Model of World Production of Trade, used for analysis of multi-country, multi-sector changes in trade policy.

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Alan Deardorff John W. Sweetland Professor of International Economics and Professor of Economics and Public Policy Speaker the University of Michigan
Seminars
Europe and the Global Economy
Europe and the Global Economy Seminar Series

Membership Conditionality and Institutional Reform: The Case of the OECD

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The process of joining an IO may cause liberalization before membership. Thus studies that only evaluate compliance after membership underestimate the effects. Conditional membership may be one of the most important sources of leverage for IOs.  The rule-makers establish rules that don't go far beyond what they would otherwise do, but rule-takers often must accept a broad range of policy reforms they would not otherwise consider. The influence of accession conditions has been studied in the context of EU and NATO, where sizeable benefits and formal conditions motivate major concessions by applicants. This paper proposes to examine a much less powerful organization, the OECD. Here the qualifications for membership are ambiguous and leave open room for informal pressure for a range of economic reforms. The politics of joining organizations touch closely on concerns about status and legitimacy as well as functional demands for cooperation in complex issue areas. I will examine how OECD membership has motivated specific reforms in regulatory policies and trade in a comparison of the East European transition economies accession with that of Japan, Mexico, and Korea. Statistical analysis of patterns of when countries apply for membership will test for the role of economic and political conditions as well as the political relations among members.

Christina Davis is a professor at the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University. Her teaching and research interests bridge international relations and comparative politics, with a focus on trade policy. Professor Davis' interests include the politics and foreign policy of Japan, East Asia, and the European Union and the study of international organizations. She is the author of Food Fights Over Free Trade: How International Institutions Promote Agricultural Trade Liberalization (Princeton University Press, 2003) and Why Adjudicate? Enforcing Trade Rules in the WTO (Princeton University Press, 2012).
 
This seminar is part of TEC's "Europe and the Global Economy" program seminar series.

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Christina Davis Professor of Politics and International Affairs Speaker Princeton University
Seminars
Europe and the Global Economy
Europe and the Global Economy Seminar Series

Preventing Genocide: Do We Have the Responsibility to Protect?

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This event is being presented in partnership with CDDRL, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Hoover Institution, and a student led movement to end atrocities at Stanford (STAND).

Abstract:

Sixty-eight years after the Holocaust, governments continue to struggle with preventing genocide and mass atrocities. In 2005, United Nations member states agreed that nations share a responsibility to protect their citizens from genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. Join us for a discussion about how the responsibility to protect (or R2P) has been applied in recent crises.

 

Speakers bio:

Richard Williamson is a nonresident senior fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings and a principal in the consulting firm Salisbury Strategies LLP. His work focuses on human rights, multilateral diplomacy, nuclear nonproliferation and post-conflict reconstruction. Prior to those positions, Mr. Williamson served as U.S. special envoy to Sudan, under President George W. Bush. Earlier in the Bush administration, Mr. Williamson, who has broad foreign policy and negotiating experience, served as ambassador to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs, and as ambassador to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Previously, Mr. Williamson served in several other senior foreign policy positions under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, including as assistant secretary of state for international organizations at the Department of State, and as an assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Michael Abramowitz is director of the Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He joined the Museum in 2009 after nearly 25 years at the Washington Post, where he served as White House correspondent and previously as national editor, helping supervise coverage of national politics, the federal government, social policy, and national security. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a non-resident fellow of the German Marshall Fund. He was also a media fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Tod Lindberg is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, based in Hoover’s Washington, DC, office. His areas of research are political theory, international relations, national security policy, and US politics. 

Lindberg is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches in the School of Foreign Service. From 1999 until it ceased publication in 2013, he was editor of the bimonthly journal Policy Review.

In 2007–8, Lindberg served as head of the expert group on international norms and institutions of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, a joint project of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. In 2005, Lindberg was the coordinator for the group Preventing and Responding to Genocide and Major Human Rights Abuses for the United States Institute of Peace's Task Force on the United Nations. He was a member of the Steering Committee of the Princeton Project on National Security, for which he served as cochair of the working group on anti-Americanism. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lina Khatib is the co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She joined Stanford University in 2010 from the University of London where she was an Associate Professor. Her research is firmly interdisciplinary and focuses on the intersections of politics, media, and social factors in relation to the politics of the Middle East. She is also a consultant on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, US public diplomacy towards the Middle East, and political media and conflict in the Arab world, as well as on the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She has an active interest in the link between track two dialogue and democratization policy. She is also a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and, from 2010-2012, was a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School. 

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Richard Williamson Senior fellow in Foreign Policy Speaker Brookings
Michael Abramowitz Director of the Center for the Prevention of Genocide Moderator U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Tod Lindberg Research fellow at the Hoover Institution Speaker Stanford
Lina Khatib Program Manager Speaker Arab Reform and Democracy Program at CDDRL
Conferences

Putin's Russia: The Challenges Of Engagement

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John Sloan was appointed Canada’s ambassador to the Russian Federation, Armenia and Uzbekistan in August 2010.

From September 2006 until August 2010 he was Director General for Economic Policy in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In this capacity he was responsible for the coordination and delivery of Canadian objectives in the G8, G20 and APEC Summits, the OECD, for development policy and institutions and for the Department’s economic capacity building. He was Canada’s Senior Official (SOM) to the APEC process and Canada’s representative to the OECD Executive Committee in Special Session (ECSS). He was also Chair of the G8 Accountability Working Group which produced the G8 Accountability Report for the 2010 Muskoka Summit.

From July 2000 until September 2006 John Sloan worked at the Financial Services Authority in London, UK, the UK financial services regulator, where he was Special Advisor/Manager, Global Team. He was particularly involved in the work of the Financial Stability Forum and the Joint Forum and chaired the Joint Forum working group which produced the High-level Principles for Business Continuity for regulators and market participants, which were formally published in September 2006.

He has served as Canada’s Finance Counsellor in Tokyo and London. Other foreign postings include Geneva, Beijing and a first assignment in Tokyo, including two years at the FSI Japanese language school. Ottawa assignments include Senior Departmental Assistant to the Minister of International Trade and a secondment to the Department of Finance where he coordinated Canada’s Paris Club strategy.

John Sloan has a BA from Stanford University in Chinese Studies, and M.Sc. from the London School of Economics in International Relations and an MBA from Business School Lausanne. In 2000 he taught a course on contemporary Canada at Keio University, Tokyo.

John Sloan is the author of The Surprising Wines of Switzerland, published by Bergli Books, Basel. He also co-editedLa nouvelle Europe de l'Est, du plan au marché, published by Editions Bruylant, Brussels. An article he co-authored, The Structure of International Market Regulation, appeared in Financial Markets and Exchanges Law, published by Oxford University Press in March 2007.

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His Excellency Mr. John Sloan Canadian Ambassador to the Russian Federation Speaker
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2014 Sejong Korean Scholars Program now accepting applications

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The Sejong Korean Scholars Program (SKSP) is an online course for high school students sponsored by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. The course is offered twice per year—spring and fall—but applications for both terms must be submitted the previous fall. For each term, 20-25 exceptional high school students from throughout the United States are selected to engage in an intensive study of Korea.

The SKSP provides students with a broad overview of Korean history and culture. Ambassadors, top scholars, and experts throughout the United States provide online lectures and engage students in live discussion sessions. Students also complete readings and weekly assignments, with the coursework culminating in an independent research project. Final research projects are printed in journal format. Students who successfully complete the course earn Stanford Continuing Studies Program (CSP) credit and a Certificate of Completion from SPICE, Stanford University.

Students participate in 9–10 “virtual classes” via the Internet during either the Spring or Fall term. Students should expect to allot 4–6 hours per week to complete the lectures, discussions, readings, and assignments. Since this is a distance-learning course, however, students can structure most of the work around their individual schedules. Although intensive, this program equips participants with a rare degree of expertise about Korea that may have a significant impact on their choices of study and future careers. The SKSP is not a language course and is taught all in English. Students do not need to know the Korean language to participate in this course, and there are no student fees.

The 2014 Sejong Korean Scholars Program is currently accepting applications from all current high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors (Classes of 2014, 2015, and 2016) in the United States.  

For more information and to download the 2014 Sejong Korean Scholars Program application, please visit http://sejongscholars.org. All applications must be postmarked by the November 15, 2013 deadline.

Please contact Annie Lim, SKSP Instructor, at annielim@stanford.edu with questions or concerns.

 

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*Change of Speaker* Geography and Gridlock in the United States

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Speaker bio:

Jonathan Rodden is a professor in the political science department at Stanford who works on the comparative political economy of institutions. He has written several articles and a pair of books on federalism and fiscal decentralization. His most recent book, Hamilton’s Paradox: The Promise and Peril of Fiscal Federalism, was the recipient of the Gregory Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics in 2007. He frequently works with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on issues related to fiscal decentralization.

He has also written papers on the geographic distribution of political preferences within countries, legislative bargaining, the distribution of budgetary transfers across regions, and the historical origins of political institutions. He is currently writing a series of articles and a book on political geography and the drawing of electoral districts around the world.

Rodden received his PhD from Yale University and his BA from the University of Michigan, and was a Fulbright student at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Before joining the Stanford faculty in 2007, he was the Ford Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Jonathan Rodden Professor of Political Science Speaker Stanford University
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American Democracy Events
Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective

Mass Surveillance in America

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Abstract
The American government is at a crossroads in its relationship with the people it governs. Despite long-standing official denials, documents leaked to the press by 29-year-old government contractor Edward Snowden show that the United States has a vast domestic spying program in which it indiscriminately collects information on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans in the name of foreign intelligence and counterterrorism. These revelations impact our domestic law and policy as well as commercial and international interests.  In this talk, Granick will review what we now know about government surveillance, discuss the legality of these programs and discuss principles to help lawmakers and the public understand and respond to mass surveillance. 

Jennifer Granick is the Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Jennifer returns to Stanford after working with the internet boutique firm of Zwillgen PLLC. Before that, she was the Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Jennifer practices, speaks and writes about computer crime and security, electronic surveillance, consumer privacy, data protection, copyright, trademark and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. From 2001 to 2007, Jennifer was Executive Director of CIS and taught Cyberlaw, Computer Crime Law, Internet intermediary liability, and Internet law and policy. Before teaching at Stanford, Jennifer spent almost a decade practicing criminal defense law in California. She was selected by Information Security magazine in 2003 as one of 20 "Women of Vision" in the computer security field. She earned her law degree from University of California, Hastings College of the Law and her undergraduate degree from the New College of the University of South Florida.

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Jennifer Granick Director of Civil Liberties, Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society Speaker Stanford University
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Liberation Technology Seminar Series

A comparative look at Iran's nuclear program

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Speaker bio:

Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI. He is also an emeritus director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was co-director of CISAC from 2007-2012. Hecker currently is on sabbatical working on a book project and will return to Stanford in the summer of 2013 to resume his research and teaching.

Hecker's research interests include plutonium science, nuclear weapons policy and international security, nuclear security (including nonproliferation and counter terrorism), and cooperative nuclear threat reduction. Over the past 18 years, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials.

His current interests include the challenges of nuclear India, Pakistan, North Korea, and the nuclear aspirations of Iran. Hecker works closely with the Russian Academy of Sciences and is actively involved with the U.S. National Academies.

Hecker joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow before returning as technical staff member following a tenure at General Motors Research. He led the laboratory's Materials Science and Technology Division and Center for Materials Science before serving as laboratory director from 1986 through 1997, and senior fellow until July 2005.

Among his professional distinctions, Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; fellow of the TMS, or Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials Society; fellow of the American Society for Metals; fellow of the American Physical Society, honorary member of the American Ceramics Society; and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His achievements have been recognized with the Presidential Enrico Fermi Award, the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal, the Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, among other awards including the Alumni Association Gold Medal and the Undergraduate Distinguished Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in metallurgy.

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Siegfried S. Hecker

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C220
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Research Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
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Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor emeritus (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He was co-director of CISAC from 2007-2012. From 1986 to 1997, Dr. Hecker served as the fifth Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Hecker is an internationally recognized expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction, and nuclear security.

Dr. Hecker’s current research interests include nuclear nonproliferation and arms control, nuclear weapons policy, nuclear security, the safe and secure expansion of nuclear energy, and plutonium science. At the end of the Cold War, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. In June 2016, the Los Alamos Historical Society published two volumes edited by Dr. Hecker. The works, titled Doomed to Cooperate, document the history of Russian-U.S. laboratory-to-laboratory cooperation since 1992.

Dr. Hecker’s research projects at CISAC focus on cooperation with young and senior nuclear professionals in Russia and China to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism worldwide, to avoid a return to a nuclear arms race, and to promote the safe and secure global expansion of nuclear power. He also continues to assess the technical and political challenges of nuclear North Korea and the nuclear aspirations of Iran.

Dr. Hecker joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow before returning as technical staff member following a tenure at General Motors Research. He led the laboratory's Materials Science and Technology Division and Center for Materials Science before serving as laboratory director from 1986 through 1997, and senior fellow until July 2005.

Among his professional distinctions, Dr. Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; fellow of the TMS, or Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials Society; fellow of the American Society for Metals; fellow of the American Physical Society, honorary member of the American Ceramics Society; and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His achievements have been recognized with the Presidential Enrico Fermi Award, the 2020 Building Bridges Award from the Pacific Century Institute, the 2018 National Engineering Award from the American Association of Engineering Societies, the 2017 American Nuclear Society Eisenhower Medal, the American Physical Society’s Leo Szilard Prize, the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal, the Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, among other awards including the Alumni Association Gold Medal and the Undergraduate Distinguished Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in metallurgy.

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Ambassador to UN taps FSI's Weinstein as top adviser

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Jeremy M. Weinstein, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and an associate professor of political science, will take on a new role as chief of staff to Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations.

As Power’s top aide, Weinstein will be the ambassador’s principal policy adviser. He will play a central role in advancing her strategic priorities and U.S. foreign policy objectives at the U.N. He will also help Power manage the mission’s staff in New York and Washington. 

Jeremy Weinstein

He begins the job this week, as the continuing turmoil in the Middle East dominates foreign policy discussions.

“Recent world events pose critical challenges to the United Nations, a global institution that reflects our shared commitment to promoting peace, security, and human dignity,” said Weinstein, who will take a public service leave from Stanford where he is also the Ford-Dorsey Director of African Studies. “I am honored to join Ambassador Power’s excellent team at this important moment for the United States and the world.”

Weinstein and Power served together from 2009 to 2011 on the National Security Council, where he was the director of development and democracy and she was the special assistant to the president and senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights.

“Jeremy and I worked closely together during our time at the White House on issues that are central to our work in New York, including human rights, democracy, global development, and anti-corruption, including the launch of the Open Government Partnership,” Power wrote to her staff in announcing Weinstein’s appointment. “I am thrilled to have him join the team.”

Weinstein, 38, has focused his scholarly research on civil wars and political violence; ethnic politics and the political economy of development; and democracy, accountability and political change.

He received the Karl Deutsch Award this year from the International Studies Association. The award recognizes scholars younger than 40 – or are within 10 years of receiving a doctorate – who have made the most significant contributions to international relations and peace research.

“Jeremy's appointment is great news for the U.S. government and a welcome continuation of the FSI faculty's tradition of bipartisan public service,” said FSI Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar. “His experience in both international relations and the study of political institutions – along with his considerable creativity and energy – will serve him well in this crucial position, and we look forward to his return.”

Weinstein obtained a bachelor’s with high honors from Swarthmore College, and a master’s and doctorate in political economy and government from Harvard University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 2004, and was honored in 2008 with the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

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