Abstract:

Voter education campaigns often aim to increase voter participation and political accountability. We follow randomized interventions implemented nationwide during the 2009 Mozambican elections using a free newspaper, leaflets and text messaging. We investigate whether treatment effects were transmitted through social networks (kinship and chatting) or geographical proximity. For individuals personally targeted by the campaign, we estimate the reinforcement effect of proximity to other targeted individuals. For untargeted individuals we estimate the diffusion of the campaign depending on proximity to targeted individuals. We find evidence for both effects, similar across the different treatments and across the different connectedness measures. We observe that the treatments worked through networks by raising the levels of information and interest about the election, in line with the average treatments effects. However, differently from those average effects, we find negative network effects of voter education on voter participation. We interpret this result as a free-riding effect, likely to occur for costly actions. 

Marcel Fafchamps is Professor of Development Economics at Oxford University, a Professional Fellow at Mansfield College and the Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. Fafchamps’ research is focused primarily on institutions that enable exchange, including risk-coping strategies, market institutions, intra-household allocation and the allocation of economic activity across space, with a concentration on the regions of Africa and South Asia. He is also interested in spatial networks and social networks from a methodological perspective. His scholarship on the topic of market institutions is summarized in Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, (MIT Press, 2004), which his work on risk coping is addressed in Rural Poverty, Risk, and Development (Elgar Press, 2003). Fafchamps studied law and economics at the Université Catholique de Louvain and spent nearly five years working on rural development in Africa for the International Labour Organization before earning his Ph.D. in agricultural economics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. He taught development economics at Stanford from 1989 until 1998.

Six interdisciplinary student teams have been working with partner organizations in Nairobi to develop innovative prototypes using mobile technologies. They will do brief presentations and then you will have time to meet and discuss with them over light refreshments. For more information about the projects and partners see:

http://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs379l/

Almost every company is asking the question of survivability – how to balance business needs and growth, while meeting regulatory compliance and mitigating security risks? This question is facing organizations of all sizes, and for some the answer is changing the mission and scope of their IT security initiatives. In this session, Malcolm will discuss Intel’s approach to managing risk with its new “Protect to Enable” information security strategy.

Malcolm Harkins is vice president of the Information Technology Group and chief information security officer (CISO) and general manager of Information Risk and Security. The group is responsible for managing the risk, controls, privacy, security and other related compliance activities for all of Intel Corporation's information assets.

Before becoming Intel's first CISO, Harkins held roles in Finance, Procurement and Operations. He has managed efforts encompassing IT benchmarking and Sarbanes Oxley systems compliance. Joining Intel in 1992, Harkins previously held positions as the profit and loss manager for the Flash Products Group; general manager of Enterprise Capabilities, responsible for the delivery and support of Intel's finance and HR systems; and in an Intel business venture focusing on e-commerce hosting. Harkins previously taught at the CIO institute at the UCLA Anderson School of Business and was an adjunct faculty member at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. He received the 'Excellence in the Field of Security' award from the RSA conference as well as an Intel Achievement Award. Harkins received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California at Irvine and an MBA in finance and accounting from the University of California at Davis.

Dramatic improvements and cost reductions in renewable energy technologies have occurred over the past decade and even greater improvements are expected in the years to come. In addition, plentiful unconventional gas resources in North America and potentially broadly around the world provide prospects for a long-term lower carbon-emitting fossil fuel for electricity production and other uses. This optimistic outlook is in stark contrast to the energy situation in developing countries. Even today, several billion people lack access to electricity and clean cooking fuels. Additionally, industries in these developing countries--which are crucial for raising people from poverty, suffer from unreliable electricity and fuel supplies, which dramatically lowers productivity. This talk will first discuss the promising developments in advanced energy technologies and then explore the prospects, challenges and options for addressing energy access in the developing countries.

About the speaker: Sally M. Benson was appointed GCEP Director in January 2009 after holding the Executive Director post since March 2007. A Professor (Research) in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering (ERE) in the School of Earth Sciences, Benson has been a member of Stanford’s faculty since 2007. Her research group in ERE investigates fundamental characteristics of carbon dioxide storage in geologic formations as a means of climate change mitigation. She teaches courses on carbon dioxide capture and storage and greenhouse gas mitigation technologies.

Prior to joining GCEP, Benson worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), serving in a number of capacities, including Division Director for Earth Sciences, Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences, and Deputy Director for Operations. Benson graduated from Barnard College at Columbia University in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in geology. She completed her graduate education in 1988 at the University of California, Berkeley, after receiving master’s and doctoral degrees, both in materials science and mineral engineering.

During a daylong Moving Mountains Symposium a stellar roster of demographers, scientists, economists and activists will attempt to answer the big question about maximum population, and they will also tell us what can be done to ensure we live in a tenable world, one in which solitude is not extirpated. They will touch on subjects like water tables, food security, women's education, immigration, and human longevity.

FSE director Roz Naylor will address the challenges of feeding the growing world. Other participants include Stanford's Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb” and long-time leading voice on the population issue, who will talk about what will happen when the population bomb explodes. 

This presentation provided a history of efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons beginning with the discovery of nuclear fission continuing through the development of the bomb and the cold war and up to the present time. The current cases of Iran, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea were reviewed.