Philosophy Politics & Economics2017-2018
On December 1, 2017, Tim Salmon, Professor of Economics and Director of Doctoral Studies at Southern Methodist University, gave a talk on The Effect of HOAs on City Secession as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On November 17, 2017 Raymond Fisman, Slater Family Professor in Behavioral Economics at Boston University, gave a talk on The (changing) distributional preferences of Americans as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
As of November 15, 2017, all back issues of SPICE are now available in the new SPICE repository site on the Penn Scholarly Commons.
On November 13, 2017, Michael Novakovic, Enforcement Division at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Assunta Vivolo, Senior Counsel in the Divisions of Enforcement’s Market Abuse Unit in the Philadelphia Office of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), gave a talk On White-Collar Crime, Insider Trading, and Offering Frauds as a part of PPE’s Crime and Corruption Speaker Series.
On November 11, 2017, PPE Post Doc, Eugen Dimant, along with Johannes Buckenmaier, Ann-Christin Posten, and Ulrich Schmidt, posted a working paper, Efficient Institutions and Effective Deterrence: On Timing and Uncertainty of Punishment, on REPEC.
On November 9, 2017, PPE Post Doc, Cristina Bicchieri, Eugen Dimant, and Erte Xiao, published a discussion paper, Deviant or Wrong? The Effects of Norm Information on the Efficacy of Punishment, in Nottingham's CeDEx working paper series.
On November 8, 2017, Cristina Bicchieri, discussed her new book, published by Oxford, Norms in the Wild, as a part of Penn’s Library Research Tea series.
On November 8, 2017, PPE's Undergraduate Advisory Board hosted PPE Takes Tapan event for current and future PPE students to meet other PPE students and learn more about the major.
On November 3rd, 2017, Ran Shorrer, Assistant Professor of Economics at Penn State, gave a talk on Obvious Mistakes in a Strategically Simple College Admissions Environment as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On October 30, 2017, Matthew Harvey, Senior Litigation Specialist in the Integrity Vice Presidency (INT) at the World Bank, gave a talk on Fighting Corruption: The International Development Perspective as a part of PPE’s Crime and Corruption Capstone Speaker Series.
On October 27, 2017, Maya Bar-Hillel, Professor of Psychology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, gave a talk on Learning Psychology from Riddles: The Case of Stumpers as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On October 20, 2017, Juan D. Carrillo, Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California and a Research Fellow in the Industrial Organization and Public Policy Programs of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), will gave a talk on Altruism and Strategic Giving in Children and Adolescents as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On October 13, 2017, Danila Serra, Assistant Professor of Economics at Southern Methodist University, gave a talk on Motivating Whistleblowers as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On October 13, 2017, Cristina Bicchieri spoke on Behavioral Change in Sanitation: Ending OD in India at thePenn India Research Symposium.
On October 10, 2017, PPE Post Doc, Eugen Dimant, along with Johannes Buckenmaier, Ann-Christin Posten, and Ulrich Schmidt, published a working paper, On Punishment Institutions and Effective Deterrence of Illicit Behavior, on Kiel Institute for the World Economy's website.
On October 10,2017, Cristina Bicchieri and PPE Gates Grant Post Doc, Erik Thulin, published a chapter, Norm-Supporting Emotions: From Villages to Complex Societies, in the book Morality, Governance, and Social Institutions: Reflections on Russell Hardin, edited by Thomas Christiano, Ingrid Creppell, and Jack Knight.
On October 9, 2017, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Eric H. Ruona and Assistant United States Attorney Richard P. Barrett gave a talk on Philadelphia Corruption: The Case Against Judge Joseph Waters, as a part of PPE’s Crime and Corruption Capstone.
In September 2017, PPE Post Doc, Eugen Dimant, along with Johannes Buckenmaier and Luigi Mittone, published a discussion paper, Effects of Institutional History and Leniency on Collusive Corruption and Tax Evasion, in Nottingham's CeDEx working paper series.
On September 26, 2017, PPE Post Doc, Eugen Dimant, along with Time Krieger and Daniel Meierrieks published a paper, Negative Returns: U.S. Military Policy and Anti-American Terrorism, in the Hoover Institutions Economics Working Paper Series.
On September 23, 2017, Jazmin Delgado, Domenic Powell, Juliette Gomez, Erika Guadalupe Nunez, and Benjamin Miller spoke and led a workshop on How to Open Borders and Defeat Deportations. The event was copsonsored by PPE and the Free Migration Project.
On September 22, 2017, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Assistant Professor of Economics at UCLA Anderson School of Managementgave a talk on "Choosing Your Pond: Revealed-Preference Estimates of Relative Income Concerns" (joint with N. Bottan) as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On September 8, 2017, PPE held a Junior Cohort Meeting with Doug Paletta (PPE), Chris Nave (MBDS), Todd Rothman (Career Services), Ann Vernon-Grey (CURF), Wallace Genser (CURF), Einav Hart (PPE Post Doc), and Alessandro Sontuoso (PPE Post Doc).
On August 29, 2017, Penn's Master of Behavioral and Decision Sciences (MBDS), Directed by Cristina Bicchieri, welcomed its innaugural class.
PPE is pleased to welcome our new Research Specialists, Arjun Khandelwal and Yuhao (David) Xu.
PPE is please to welcome visiting scholars Tatiana Forero-Torres, Eleonora Mei, and Keerthi Potluri.
2016-2017
On August 19, 2017, Cristina Bicchieri was featured in the Coursera Blog in a post on World Humanitarian Day.
PPE majors Ibrahim Bakri, Bowen Lu, Boladale Babalakin, Adam Tashman, Gerhard Williams, Jay Choi, Andrew Fisher, Carmen Garcia Gallego, and Steven Shinparticipated in the 2017 Think Tanks & Civil Societies’ summer research conference.
Congratulations to PPE majors Jessica Abrams, Kyle Bigley, Liam Gennari, Claire Greenberg, Jongmin Jeon, Margaret Molen, Taylor Nefussy, Matthew Survis, Benjamin Feis, and Kyle Grigel for being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa this year!
On May 1, 2017, PPE Post Doc, Eugen Dimant spoke at The Lab @ DC on The Contagion of Pro- and Anti-Social Behavior, Punishment and Norm-Compliance.
On April 20, 2017, C. Mónica Capra, Professor in the Department of Economics at Claremont Graduate University, gave a talk on Understanding Decision Processes: A Protocol Analysis Approach, as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On April 20, 2017, Cristina Bicchieri's research in her new book, Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms, is profiled in the Penn Current article, A Penn philosopher's five-step guide to changing ingrained societal behaviors.
On April 13, 2017, Melinda Ford, Doctoral Candidate in Accounting, Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, gave a talk on Code of Ethics: Window Dressing or Norm Trigger as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On April 6, 2017, Kyle Hyndman, Associate Professor at the Naveen Jindal school of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas, gave a talk on Present-Bias, Procrastination and Deadlines in a Field Experiment as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On April 1, 2017, Cristina Bicchieri was interviewed by Robert Talisse from newbooksnetwork.com about her latest book, Norms in the Wild from Oxford University Press, 2017.
On March 30th, David Yokum, J.D., Ph.D., Director of The Lab @ DC, spoke at PPE's 17th Annual Goldstone Forum on Tales of Psychological Science from City Hall to Oval Office. Click here for video of talk.
On March 30th, Richard Barrett, Supervisory Assistant United States Attorney Chief gave a talk on Official Misconduct or Criminal Corruption: Considerations in Charging Official Corruption as a part of PPE’s Crime and Corruption Capstone.
On March 16, 2017, Cristina Bicchieri gave a keynote address on "Norms, Networks, & Sanitation" at the PPE Society Conference in New Orleans.
On March 9, 2017, Cristina Bicchieri gave the Keynote address on "Social Norm Violations in Random-Choice Settings" at the Workshop on Social Norms and Peer Effects at the University of Nottingham, UK.
On March 3, 2017, Cristina Bicchieri spoke on a Social Norms Panel at the American Philosophical Association's Central Division 114th Annual Meeting in Kansas City, MO.
On Mach 2, 2017, Christopher T. Robertson, Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and Professor of Law, University of Arizona (on leave) Visiting Professor, NYU Law (2016-17), gave a talk on Estimating Wasteful Moral Hazard under the Access-Theory of Health Insurance: An Experimental Approach, as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On February 24, 2017, findings from PPE Post Doc, Eugen Dimant's, recent working paper, Match Fixing and Sports Betting in Football: Empirical Evidence from the German Bundesliga, were highlighted in Reuters.
On February 23, 2017 Wei Zhan, Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the Department of Economics at Texas A&M University, spoke on Does How We Measure Altruism Matter?: Playing Both Roles in Dictator Games as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On February 23, 2017 David Hawkes, Special Litigation Unit at the World Bank gave a talk on “Development Aid and the Transnational Fight Against Corruption” for PPE’s Crime and Corruption Capstone.
February 16, 2017 - Student Highlight: PPE Congratulates Virginia Burns (PPE, c/o '19) for her historic third conference championship in 500-yd freestyle!
On February 16, 2017, Michael Novakovic, Enforcement Division at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, gave a talk on Offering Frauds: The Techniques and Mentality of the Promoters as a part of PPE's Crime and Corruption class.
On Febrary 9, 2017, Pavitra Govindan, PhD Candidate in the Economics Department at Brown University, gave a talk on How do group norms affect individuals' compliance with the law? as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On February 2, 2017, Gavin Kilduff, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at New York University Stern School of Business, spoke on The psychology of rivalry as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On February 2, 2017, Eric Ruona, Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI, spoke on Inside the FBI’s Philadelphia Judicial Corruption Investigation as a part of PPE's Crime and Corruption class.
Eugen Dimant, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, and Guglielmo Tosato's article, Causes and Effects of Corruption: What has past decade's empirical research taught us? A Survey,will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Economic Surveys.
In January, 2017, Einav Hart, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, presented a poster, "Third party observers reveal intentional and unintentional harm to vicitims" (w. Barbara Mellers and Cristina Biccchieri), at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual convention in San Antonio, TX.
On January 26, 2017, Marco Castillo, Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, spoke on Time to Give: A Field Experiment on Intertemporal Charitable Giving as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On January 11. 2017, PPE Student Andro Mathewson was recognized with a Powering Student Research Spotlight.
In December, 2016, Eugen Dimant, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, had a manuscript entitled "Causes and Effects of Corruption: What has Past Decade’s Empirical Research Taught Us? A Survey" accepted to be published in the Journal of Economic Surveys.
In December, 2016, Eugen Dimant, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, received the Presidium award for best dissertation of 2015/2016.
In December, 2016, Einav Hart, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, gave a talk on "Getting less than what you pay for: Negotiations decrease worker motivation" (w. Maurice Schweitzer) at Tel Aviv University's Organizational Behaviour Seminar in Tel Aviv, Israel.
On December 9, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri gave a talk on "Scripts, Schemata, and Social Norms" at the Social Philosophy & Policy Conference: Learning and Changing Norms at the University of Arizona's Center for the Philosophy of Freedom.
In November, 2016, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF) Research Grant Award Committee selected Hannah Harney's research project, “A Study of Lies: how Social Norms Affect Deception,” to receive a Fall 2016 The College Alumni Society Board of Managers and Presidents Undergraduate Research Grants from the College Alumni Society. This project is under Prof. Bicchieri and supervised by PPE's Post Doc, Eugen Dimant.
In November, 2016, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF) Research Grant Award Committee selected Kristin Yeakel's research project, “Effects of Dual Asymmetry on Competitive Behavior: An Experimental Study,” to receive a Fall 2016 The College Alumni Society Board of Managers and Presidents Undergraduate Research Grants from the College Alumni Society. This project is under Prof. Bicchieri and supervised by PPE's Post Doc, Einav Hart.
On Thursday, November 17, 2016, Laura Macchi, Université Milano-Bicocca, and Riccardo Viale, Université LUISS-Rome, gave a talk on their recently released book, Cognitive Unconscious and Human Rationality (MIT Press, 2016) as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
In November, 2016, The SAS Green Team, of which PPE Program Coordinator Sarah Gish-Kraus is a member, was selected to receive a 2016 Scholl of Arts and Sciences Staff Recognition Award.
In November, 2016, Einav Hart, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, presented a poster on "Getting less than what you pay for: Negotiations decrease worker motivation" (w. Maurice Schweitzer) at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making in Boston, MA.
In November, 2016, Eugen Dimant, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, attended the Southern Economics Conference in Washington, D.C. and gave talks on four papers: "Tax Evasion Revised: Surprising Experimental Evidence on the Role of Principal Witness Regulations," "Deterrence and the Timing of Punishment," "Corruption and Asymmetric Punishment Reginmes," and "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity."
On November 21, 2016, Alexander Funcke, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, presented a his paper, Dynamically Determined Situations and Polulations for Coordination, at the Southern Economic Association's 86th Annual Meeting.
On November 17, 2016, PPE Senior Matthew Survis's Upstander Initiative was recognized as part of an article in the Penn Current on "Teaching the Holocaust to remember, to learn, and to bear witness."
On November 16, 2016, PPE hosted a Study Abroad Fair where PPE Majors shared about their experiences abroad.
On November 15, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri, the Director of the new Master of Behavior & Decision Sciences Program, spoke at an information session on the program which is to start in the Fall of 2017.
On November 10, 2016, Karla Hoff, Lead Economist in the World Bank's Development Research Group and Co-Director of the World Development Report 2015, gave a talk on Community solidarity and social contracting in village India: The effects of culture on the emergence of efficient institutions*, as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series. *Paper by Karla Hoff, The World Bank and Rohini Somanathan, Delhi School of Economics
On November 9, 2016, Alessandro Sontuoso, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, gave a talk on "Self-Serving Conformism" at The Penn Laboratory for Experimental Evolutionary Psychology (PLEEP).
On November 5, 2016, Alexander Funcke, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, and Immigration Lawyer David Bennion, in collaboration co-organized a Weekend Exploring Liberty Seminar - Opening the Borders: Free Movement, Free People. The program was a collaboration with the Institute for Humane Studies, the University of Pennsylvania Effective Altruists, and the Free Migration Project. It was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.
On November 3, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri gave a talk omn Bias and Mistakes at the University of Pennsylvania's Italian Studies' XXII AISLLI Conference: Errors and Mistakes.
On October 27, 2016, Bryan McCannon, Assistant Professor of Economics at West Virginia University's College of Business and Economics, spoke on The Source of Deviant Behavior, as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On October 26, 2016, Richard Barrett, Supervisory Assistant United States Attorney, Chief of Corruption, Labor Racketeering, Civil Rights and Tax, spoke on The Prosecution of Public Corruption in Federal Courts, for PPE's Economics of Crime and Corruption class.
On October 24, 2016, Carla Bagnoli, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Modena and Professorial Fellow at the University of Oslo, gave a talk on Hard Times: A non-standard constructivist account of change in view, as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On October 24, 2016, Quy-Toan Do, Senior Economist in the Poverty Team and Development Research Group at The World Bank, gave a talk on Transnational crime and implications for global governance, for PPE's Economics of Crime and Corruption class.
On October 23, 2016, an interview with Cristina Bicchieri about her work on social norms was published in an article on Avvenire.
On October 20, 2016, Jason Dana, Assistant Professor of Management and Marketing at Yale School of Management, gave a talk on Abstract vs. concrete construals of fair allocations, as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On October 19, 2016, Eugen Dimant, a Postdoctoral Researcher in PPE, gave a talk on The Dark Side of Reputation at the Pennsylvania Lab for Experimental Evolutionary Psychology lab meeting.
On October 13, 2016, Ellen Peters, Professor of Psychology, Director of the Decision Sciences Collaborative, and Professor of Medicine at the Department of Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University, spoke on Linking science with policy: A perspective from risk perception and decision psychology, as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On September 28, 2016, Michael B. Novakovic, Esq., Assistant Regional Director of the Enforcement Division at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Daniel L. Koster, CPA, CRCP, Data Analytics Specialist for the Complex Financial Instruments Unit, Enforcement Division at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission spoke on Who's in Your Wallet? for PPE's Economics of Crime and Corruption class.
On Sembember 22, 2016, Christine L. Exley, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School spoke on Why Mondy Cannot Buy Time, as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On September 21, 2016, PPE hosted Afternoon C.O.F.F.E.E., an afternoon Considering Options For Foreign Educational Experimences with PPE's Associated Director and a Resource Coordinator from Penn Abraod.
On September 15, 2016, Junior Professor Roberto Fumagalli, University of Bayreuth, London School of Economics, gave a talk on Who is Afraid of Scientific Imperialism?as a part of PPE's BeLab Speaker Series.
On September 14, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri discussed forced marriage and what happens when people in such a position decide to leave on PBS Newshour. This PBS Segment is also featured on Penn News Today.
In August, 2016, The German Society for Experimental Economic Research awareded Eugen Dimant, a PPE Postdoctoral Fellow, the Heinz-Sauermann Award for the best experimental dissertation of 2015/2016.
On August 28, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri was quoted in the Health and Science article Using psychology to change deadly bathroom habits in India on Philly.com.
On August 10, 2016, Katerine Jimenez, a PPE Senior, was featured in Penn News Today.
On August 4, 2016, The Journal of Rationality and Society published an article, Partial participation towards collective action: To stifle or instigate, by Alexander Funcke, a post doctoral fellow in PPE, and Ulrik Franke.
Cristina Bicchieri and Philosophy Graduate Student Thomas Noah were featured in the Penn News for their work on morality and social norms.
PPE Major Rahima Jamal was featured by the Public Policy Initiative for her work this summer at USAID.
In July of 2016 Einav Hart, PPE Post Doctoral Fellow, along with Judith Avrahami and Yaakov Kareev published an article titled Enlarging the market yet decreasing the profit: An experimental study of competitive behavior when investment affects the prizein the Journal of Judgment and Decision Making.
On July 25, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri's work on social norms through a new three-year grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was profiled in the Penn Current article Penn project aims to stop open defacation by changing social norms.
On June 15-16, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri gave the Keynote Lecture at the 3rd International Conference in Economic Philosophy, The Economic Agent and its Representations, in Aix en Provice, France.
On June 3, 2016, PPE Junior Gabe Kleiman was named Big Five Student-Athlete of the Year
In June of 2016, PPE Major Bryce Arbour was featured in Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative.
2015-2016
The May 28, 2016 volume of The Economist cited work by Peter Miller, the John Templeton Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in the PPE Program. The magazine published an article on the possible consequences of adopting a system of compulsory voting. The article referenced Peter's paper (co-authored with Paul Gronke) "Voting by Mail and Turnout in Oregon" which demonstrated that, contrary to a previously published study, voting by mail did not increase turnout in primary or general elections in Oregon.
On May 26, 2016, PPE core instructor Sudeep Bhatia's research was featured in The Penn News article Penn Study: People More Likely to Defer Making Decisions the Longer They Wait.
PPE senior Robert Lundquist was awarded the University's 2016 Spoon Award recognizing students who have actively contributed to campus life through activities and leadership.
PPE would like to recognize several of its students for receiving grants and awards: Daniel Eder (Phi Beta Kappa), Matthew Roberts (Phi Beta Kappa), Shuhao Fan (Hassenfeld Foundation Social Impact Research Grant; Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship and Constitutionalism Undergraduate Grant), Ya Huang (Kanta Marwah College Alumni Society Undergraduate Research Grant), Minhyung Lee (Gelfman International Summer Fund), Edwin Paz (Gelfman International Summer Fund).
On April, 27, 2016, Peter Miller, the John Templeton Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow within the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program, published a blog post titled If we want more people with disabilities to vote, then we need to expand access to mail ballots on the London School of Economics and Political Science blog.
On May, 5, 2016, PPE core instructor Sudeep Bhatia's research was featured in The Penn Current article Distance to an event changes how people describe it.
On April 29, 2016, Senior Shuhao Fan and Junior Sriram Sridharan participated in the Philosophy Department's 2016 Undergraduate Research Fair.
On April 27, 2016, PPE Major Mackenzie Gray received a 2016 Vittorini Prize for Italian Studies.
On April 21, 2016, Trevor Potter, Founding President of the Campaign Legal Center and former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, gave PPE's Annual Godlstone Forum talk on Courts, Corruption, and the Future of American Elections.
On April 20, 2016 Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker at the Philosophy Colloquium Series at the University of Maryland.
On April 18, 2016, PPE hosted a Study Abroad Forum for PPE students to meet other PPE students who have studied around the world and find out about their experiences abroad.
On April 15, 2016, Alexander Stremitzer, Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, spoke on Promises, Reliance, and Psychological Lock-in as a part of the 2016 Liberty Lecture Series.
On April 12, 2016, the PPE Program in conjunction with the other majors in Cohen Hall held a two-hour open house during Quaker Days.
On April 7, 2016, Erwin Dekker, Assistant Professor in Cultural Economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, spoke on The Viennese Students of Civilization: The meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered, as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On March 28, 2016, Doug Miller ('C12) gave PPE's Alumni Talk on Transforming Global Energy Use and applying the interdisciplinary PPE education beyond Penn's campus, based on his academic and professional work in clean energy.
On March 24, 2016, Daniel Friedman, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, gave a talk on The Economy as an Evolving Network: Some Empirical Results (Paper by Curtis Kephart, Daniel Friedman, and Matt Baumer) as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On March 23, 2016, Eugen Dimant, Postdoctoral Fellow with our PPE Program, gave a talk on Deterrence and the timing of punishment* (paper co-written by Johannes Buckenmaier,Eugen Dimant, Ann-Christin Posten, and Ulrich Schmidt) as a part of The Pennsylvania Lab for Experimental Evolutionary Psychology's speaker series.
On March 22, 2016, Matthew McFillin – KPMG Partner, Brian Noone – KPMG Manager, and Chris Hurd – KPMG Manager gave a talk on KPMG Forensic - More than just dead bodies for Eugen Dimants' capstone course on The Economics of Corruption.
On March 21, 2016, Seniors on PPE's Undergraduate Advisory Board hosted an event called What I WIsh I knew: Tips and Tricks for Rising PPE Seniors.
On March 17, 2016, Daniel Houser, Professor of Economics at the Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science (ICES) at George Mason University, spoke on Temptation and Commitment in the Laboratory, as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On March 15, 2016, Lauren Thompson, a Juvenile Probation Officer with Philadelphia's Family Court, spoke on Philadelphia Juvenile Justice for Eugen Dimants' capstone course on The Economics of Corruption.
On March 11, 2016 Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker at the Public Choice Society Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
On March 4, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker at the Center for Social Complexity at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
On Feburary 29, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri, was the Keynote Speaker at the Passages Project Consultation on Norms Interventions with USAID in Washington, D.C.
On February 25, 2016, Sudeep Bhatia, Assistant Professor of Psychology at The University of Pennsylvania, spoke on A Cognitive Model of Strategic Deliberation and Decision Making, as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On February 25, 2016, Rico Modess, Chief Audit Executive at SAP SE, spoke on Fraud Prevention and Compliance for Eugen Dimants' capstone course on The Economics of Corruption.
On February 23, 2016, PPE's Director, Cristina Bicchieri, spoke on Trendsetters at Harrison College House.
On February 19, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri was a guest lecturer at the Mershon Center for International Security in Columbus, Ohio.
On February 16, 2016, PPE's Undergraduate Advisory Board hosted PPE Does Pod, an event for current and prospective majors.
On February 16, 2016, Enrique Fatas, Professor of Economics and Head of the School of Economics at the University of East Anglia, gave a talk on The Intrinsic Value of Power, as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On February 16, 2016, Phil Nichols, Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a talk on Russian Efforts to Control Corruption in Russia, for Eugen Dimants' capstone course on The Economics of Corruption.
On February 12, 2016, Doug Paletta, Associate Diretor of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program, teamed up with Penn Abroad to host Afternoon C.O.F.F.E.E., an Afternoon Considering Options For Foreign Educational Experiences.
On February 11, 2016, Eugen Dimant, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Philosophy, Politics & Economics Program and member of the Behavioral Ethics Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a talk On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity, as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On February 4, 2016, James Konow, Chair of Economics and Ethics atKiel University in Germany and Professor of Economics at Loyola Marymount University, spoke on Experiments on Equity and Equality as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On February 2, 2016, PPE Junior Tabeen Hossain was featured in Penn News Today.
On January 30, 2016, Cristina Bicchieri, Director of PPE, spoke on a panel at the Wilma Theater about altruism and its relation to the central question of the existence and the nature of moral reasoning in their production of Tom Stoppard's play, The Hard Problem.
On January 21, 2016, Einav Hart, Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program here at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a talk on Costly contests and the will to win as a part of PPE's lecture series.
On Jaunary 18, 2016 Cristina Bicchieri gave the Inaugural Lecture for the PPE Society at the APA Meeting in Washington D.C.
On January 13, 2016, Erin Krupka, Assistant Professor at the School of Information at the University of Michigan, spoke on Social norms and identity dependent preferences, as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
January, 2016, PPE is pleased to welcome our new Postdoctoral Fellow, Eugen Dimant.
On December 11-12, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker at a workshop on corruption at LUISS University in Rome.
On November 17, 2015, Peter Leeson, Professor of Economics and BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at George Mason University, spoke on
Entrepreneurship and the European Witch Trials as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
On November 14, 2015, Doug Paletta, Associate Director of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program spoke on Two Approaches to Rationality: Hobbes' Foole and Hume's Knave at the 2015 Northeastern Political Science Association Meeting.
On November 12-13, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was a Keynote Speaker at the Converence on Moral Institutions at Utrecht university in The Netherlands.
On November 9, 2015, Scott Barry Kaufman, Professor of Psychology and Scientific Director at Imagination Institute and the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on Openness to Experience and Creativity as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
On November 6-7, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker at a conference in honor of Russell Hardin at New York University.
On November 5, 2015, Ruth Dassonneville, Assistant Professor of Political Science at The University of Montreal, spoke on How do Voters Assess the Economy? An Experimental Test of Benchmarking, as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
On November 3, 2015, David Audretsch, Distinguished Professor and Director at the Institute for Development Strategies and Ameritech Chair of Economic Development, spoke on Entrepreneurship and Openness as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
On October 27, 2015, Alberto Antonioni, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Institute for BioComputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI) in Zaragoza, Spain, spoke on Spatial Coordination and Cooperation Among Humans: Experimental Results as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
On October 15, 2015, Peter Miller, John Templeton Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at The University of Pennsylvania spoke on Mobilizing the Young Vote: Direct Mail Voter Guides and Turnout in the Chicago 2015 Mayoral Election.
On October 14, 2015, Martin van Hees, Professor Ethics and Head of Department at VU University of Amsterdam, spoke on The Impossibility of Pure Libertarianism, as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
In October, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker at a workshop on Addressing Social and Cultural Norms that Underlie the Acceptance of Violence at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.
On September 23, 2015, Ram Mudambi, Frank M. Speakman Professor of Strategy and Perelman Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Strategic Management at the Fox School of Business at Temple University, gave a talk on Entrepreneurship and Culture: Connectivity and the innovativeness of cities, as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
On September 23-26, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was the Keynote Speaker at the European Philosophy of Science Association in Dusseldorf, Germany.
On September 22, 2015, PPE's Undergraduate Advisory Board hosted PPE Does Pod, an event for current and prospective majors.
On September 17, 2015, Gary Bolton, O. P. Jindal Chair Professor of Managerial Economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, spoke on Inflated Reputation: Leniency and Moral Wiggle Room in Trader Feedback Systems as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On September 14,Roberto Fumagalli, Junior Professor of Philosophy of Economics at Bayreuth University, gave a talk on Choice Models and Realistic Ontologies: Three Challenges to Neuro-Psychological Modellers as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On September 9-12, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was the Keynote Speaker at the Knowledge and Institutions Symposium in Heidelberg, Germany.
On September 7, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker on a panel on Norm-following and Law-abiding at the American Political Science Association in San Francisco.
On August 11, 2015, Penn News Profiled PPE senior, Davis Berlind.
PPE is pleased to welcome our new Postdoctoral Fellow, Einav Hart, as well as visiting scholars Deshani Ganegoda and Ruth Yamilett Guillen Salas.
2014-2015
The work of Peter Miller (John Templeton Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow and instructor in the PPE program) was cited in the Supreme Court majority decision in the recent case Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. In the decision, the Court found the use of independent, appointed commissions to draw electoral districts is consistent with the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Miller's dissertation (completed at the University of California, Irvine in 2013) examined redistricting in the United States, with a particular focus on commissions in the western United States. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for a majority of the Court, cited his paper Redistricting Commissions in the Western United States (co-authored with Bernard Grofman, professor of political science at UCI) when discussing the use of redistricting commissions in the States, finding "nonpartisan and bipartisan commissions generally draw their maps in a timely fashion and create districts both more competitive and more likely to survive legal challenge."
Cristina Bicchieri has been awarded an honorary fellowship at Wolfson College at Cambridge University.
In July of 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker at the Law and Economics Workshop at the University of Bonn.
In July of 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was an invited speaker at the 14th European Congress of Psychology in Milan, Italy..
Professor Cristina Bicchieri, S. J. P. Harvie Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, and Director of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program, has been awarded the 2015 Pufendorf Medal and has been invited to hold the Pufendorf lecture series at Lund University’s Department of Philosophy, Sweden. The lectures are open to the public and are given by either a prominent philosopher or cognitive scientist, or someone who combine these disciplines. Professor Bicchieri has been invited because of her outstanding interdisciplinary research on social norms, combining subtle philosophical analysis with psychological empirical work of high quality.
Previous Pufendorf lecturers have been Margaret Boden, David Armstrong, Philip Pettit, John R. Searle, Patricia Smith Churchland, Francois Recanati, Robert Stalnaker, T.M. Scanlon, Nicholas Humphrey, Nancy Cartwright, Christine M. Korsgaard, and Herbert H Clark.
The Pufendorf lectures are named after one of the most famous philosophers and academics from Lund University, Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694), who is perhaps best known for his impact on economic theory, by way of Adam Smith.
In June of 2015, Cristina Bicchieri gave the Pufendorf Lectures at the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies in Lund, Sweden.
On June 8-10, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri spoke at the Social Reality Workshop at Gothenburg University in Sweden.
On May 10-15, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was the Keynote Speaker at the Socail Norms and Institutions Conference, ETH, in Ascona, Switzerland.
On May 1, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri spoke at the Economics Department at George Mason University.
On May 1, 2015, Marta Serra-Garcia, Assistant Professor of Economics at UCSD, Rady School of Management, gave a talk on Motivated Self-Deception, Identity and Unethical Behavior (joint work with Uri Gneezy, Silvia Saccardo and Roel van Veldhuizen) as a part of PPE's BeLab Lecture Series.
On April 30, 2015, Tyler Cowen, Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and Chairman and General Director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, gave a talk on The Importance of Defining the Feasible Set as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
On April 23,2015, Riccardo Viale, Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Scuola Nazionale dell'Amministrazione, Rome and at Laboratory on Cognitive Sciences, Fondazione Rosselli, Turin, gave a talk on Cognition and Epistemology of Social Sciences.
On April 16, 2015, Jacob T. Levy, Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory Associate Graduate Program Director, Department of Political Science, Associate member of the Department of Philosophy, and Coordinator of the Research Group on Constitutional Studies at McGill University, gave a talk on Rationalism, Pluralism and Freedom as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lecture Series.
On April 15-17, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri was the Keynot Speaker at the International Meeting in Experimental and Behavioural Social Sciences (IMEBESS) in Toulouse, France.
On April 9, 2015, Russell Hardin, Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences at New York University, gave a talk on Social Yes, Contract No, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On April 2, 2015, Gary Charness, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, gave a talk on Inducing Social Norms in Laboratory Allocation Choices, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On March 31, 2015, Alian Elkann, a prominent European novelist, intellectual, journalist, and interviewer, gave PPE's 2015 Goldstone Lecture on Jewish Life in Europe and the United States.
On March 27, 2015, Jason Brennan, Assistant Professor of Strategy, Economics,Ethics and Public Policy at Georgetown University, spoke on Markets without limits as a part of the 2015 Liberty Lectures Series.
On March 20-21, 2015, Cristina Bicchieri, was the Keynote speaker at the 2015 Pitt-CMU Philosophy Graduate Conference.
On March 19, 2015, Marta Maras, Assistant Professor, Department of Management and Technology
Bocconi University, Italy, gave a talk on Holier than Thou? A Natural Field Experiment on Social Information in Charitable Giving, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On February 26, 2015, Ronald Inglehart, Lowenstein Professor of Political Science at University of Michigan, gave a talk on Cultural Change, Slow and Fast: The transition from Pro-fertility norms to Individual-choice norms, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On February 19, 2015, Rukia Dahir, Founder of Edna Adan Hospital Foundation, spoke on Female Genital Cutting/Female Genital Mutilation in Somaliland, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On February 12, 2015, Sebastiano Bavetta, Professor of Economics at Università di Palermo, Research Associate at London School of Economics, and Visiting Scholar with the PPE Program, gave a talk on Freedom and Happiness, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On February 5, 2015,Marijane Luistro Jonsson, from Stockholm School of Economics and Visiting Scholar with the PPE Program, gave a talk on Conditional cooperation in the face of disasters, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On January 29,2015, Scott Page, Leonid Hurwicz Collegiate Professor of Complex Systems, Political Science, and Economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, gave a talk on When Order Affects Performance: Institutional Sequencing, Cultural Sway, and Behavioral Path Dependence, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On January 22, 2015, Kristina Botts, PhD Student, Norwegian Choice Labs, gave a talk called You've got mail: A randomized field experiment on tax evasion, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
January, 2015, PPE Welcomes visiting scholars Marijane Jonsson, a PhD student at the Stockholm School of Economics, Jiaxi Peng a student at the Fourth Military Medical University, Eugen Dimant from Paderborn University, Germany & Harvard University, and Carlo Cordasco from University of Sheffield.
On November 20, 2014, Sheheryar Banuri, Economist with the Development Research Group (Macroeconomics and Growth Team) and Director of the Behavioral Science Lab at the World Bank, spoke on Pro-Social Motivation, Effort and the Call to Public ServiceI, as a part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On November 19, 2014, E. Glen Weyl, from Microsoft Research New England and University of Chicago, spoke on The Openness-Equality Trade-Off in Global Redistribution, as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On November 2, 2014, Matteo Colombo, Postdoctoral Fellow at Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science, spoke on Explanatory Judgement, Moral Offense and Value-Free Science, based on an emprical study done with Leandra Bucher and Yoel Inbar, as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On October 23, 2014, Ernesto Reuben, Assistant Professor of Management at Columbia Business School, spoke on Fairness and Coordination: THe Role of Fairness Principles in Coordination Failure and Success, as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On October 17,2014, Ericka Scherenberg Farret, PhD. in Economics from the University of Texas at Dallas, spoke on Parenting, Teaching or Peer Pressure: A Real-Effort Field Experiment on Children’s Pro-Social Behavior, as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On September 18, 2014, Catherine Eckel, Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, spoke on Solidarity Among the Poor: Risk Sharing in Three Texas Communities, as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
PPE welcomes Postdocoral Fellow Alexander Funcke.
2013-2014
On May 8, 2014, Reuben Kline, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University, spoke on
The Climate Change Game: Wealth Inequality and Asymmetric Responsibility in Climate Change Mitigation, as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On May 1, 2014, Andrew Samuel, Assistant Professor of Economics at Loyola University, spoke on
Optimal Fines under Announced and Surprise Inspections, as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On April 17, 2014, Stanley Fish, Floerscheimer Distinguished Professor of Law at Yeshiva University and
The Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Law at Florida International University, spoke on Academic Freedom and the Boycott of Israeli Universities at PPE's 14th Annual Goldstone Forum.
On March 2, 2014, John Tomasi, Professor of Political Science, Political Theory Project at Brown University, gave a talk on Free Market Fairness as a part of PPE's Freedom Lecture Series, funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.
On February 14, 2014, Jerry Gaus, James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, gave a talk on The Egalitarian Species as a part of PPE's Freedom Lecture Series, funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.
On January, 24, 2014,Gari Walkowitz, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Management,Corporate Development and Business Ethics at the University of Cologne and visiting scholar with the PPE Program, gave a talk on Drawing the Fig Leaf: Moral Hypocrisy in Simple Distribution Tasks, as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
In 2013, Sebastiano Bavetta and Pietro Navarra published Il vantaggio delle libertà, Rubbettino. The book describes and measures empirically the idea of freedom as autonomy. It shows the profound consequences that such a freedom would have on the economic, political and ethical life of the country, if embraced. In so doing, the book outlines an innovative path to reform Italy in a libertarian sense – a path where freedom is at the same time a tool and an end of policies and politics.
Ultimately, the book highlights the substantial advantages that descend from the enjoyment of freedoms and argues that autonomous behavior and the affirmation of a truly open society are the best opportunity Italians have to emerge from the difficulties that they are suffering. (Buy here or here).
On December 6, 2013, Mary Catherine Maternowska, Child Progection Specialist at the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, gave a talk on A Multi-Country Study of the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On November 19, 2013, David Ong, Assistant Professor of Economics at Peking University - HSBC Business School, gave a talk on Deserving Altruism: An Experiment in Pure Indirect Reciprocity as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On November 14, 2013, PPE co-sponsored The Collegium Institute Student Association at Penn's talk, Catholic Economics? Capitalism, Solidarity, and Modern Catholic Social Thought.
On Novebemr 5, 2013, Gloria Origgi, Institut Nicod, Paris and Italian Academy of Advanced Studies at Columbia, spoke on Towards and Epistemology of Trust as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On Octeober 25, 2013, Damon Centola, Associate Professor at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Social Innovations Lab, spoke on Social Science Online: Experimental Designs for Studying Norm Change as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
Cristina Bicchieri spoke at the Tsinghua Logic Conference which ran October 14-16, 2013 at Tsinghua University, in China.
On October 4, 2013, Alexander Funcke, PhD candidate at the Centre for the Study of Cultural Evolution and Research Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, gave a Work-In-Progress Lunch Seminar on Conventional Corruption as a part of the PPE Freedom Lecture Series.
On Octover 2, 2013, Sunita Sah, Assistant Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics & Public Policy at Georgetown University and Research Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, spoke on The Over-Prescription of Disclosure in Managing Conflicts of Interest as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
On September 17, 2013, Ariel Rubinstein, Professor of Economics at Tel Aviv University and NYU, gave a talk on Modeling and Experimenting Bounded Rationality as a part of the PPE Freedom Lecture Series.
On September 26, 2013, Nan Zhang, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, gave a talk on Marginality, Social Stigma, and Changing the Culture of Corruption as part of the PPE BeLab Lecture Series.
2012-2013
On June 28, 2013, Rosemarie Nagel, UPF-ICREA-BGSE, visiting NYU, gave a talk on Keynesian Beauty Contest Games: Level k vs. Signals for PPE's Behavioral Ethics Lab's lunch seminar series.
On June 21, 2013, Nicolas Buamard, Post Doctoral Fellow, in the PPE Program at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a talk on Explaining the Axial Age:How Increased Energy Capture Favored Ascetic Wisdoms and Moralizing Religions for PPE's Behavioral Ethics Lab's lunch seminar series.
On April 30, 2013, Jason Dana, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a talk on The Price Is Sexist: Taste Based Discrimination by Contestants on The Price Is Right for PPE's Behavioral Ethics Lab's lunch seminar series.
On April 19, 2013, Sigrid Suetens, from Tilburg University, gave a talk on Heterogeneous stake-sensitive guilt aversion for PPE's Behavioral Ethics Lab's lunch seminar series.
On April 18, 2013, Pascal Boyer, Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis, gave a talk on The naturalness of social institutions: Evolutionary foundations of some social norms.
On March 28, 2013, Soo Hong Chew, Professor of Economics at National University of Singapore, spoke on Ambiguity, Familiarity, and the Equity Home Bias Puzzle:Theory and Evidence from Experiments involving Neuroimaging and Molecular Genetics.
Molly Melching, the founder and executive director of Tostan, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) whose mission it is to empower African communities for sustainable development and social transformation in the respect of human rights, spoke on Changing Harmful Social Norms in Traditional Societies at the 13th Annual Goldstone Forum on March 26, 2013.
Cristina Bicchieri and the Penn-UNICEF Summer Program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change were featured in an article in the January-February 2013 issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar, Karla Hoff, for the Spring 2013 Semester.
Cristina Bicchieri will give the Inaugural Address of the Ferrando Family Lecture Series in Philosophy at the University of Michigan in January.
Cristina Bicchieri will give the Silver Jubilee Lectures at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research ((IGIDR) in Mumbai, India, in January.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar, Francesca Lipari for the Spring and Fall 2013 terms.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar Karla Hoff, Senior Research Economist in the Development Economics Group at the World Bank, as a visiting scholar for the Spring 2013 term.
Cristina Bicchieri was interviewed by RAI, the Italian television, on game theory. Watch the interview here.
Cristina Bicchieri spoke on Social Progress: Psychology and Normative Constraints at the 2012 René Descartes Lectures at Tilburg University, The Netherlands on November 28 - 30, 2012.
On November 23, 2012, Sebastiano Bavetta and Pietro Navarra presented their new book The Economics of Freedom at Universita DeGli Studi Di Palermo.
On November 19, 2012, David G. Rand, Professor of Psychology at Yale and Research Scientist with the Human Evolutionary Biology Department at Harvard University, spoke on Spontaneous giving and calculated greed: Intuitive cooperation in social dilemmas.
On November 12, 2012, Fiery Cushman, Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences at Brown University, spoke on Action, outcome and value: From computational neuroscience to political dispute.
On November 8, 2012 Erik Angner, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Economics, and Public Policy and Fellow at theInstitute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University, spoke on Subjective Well-Being: When, and Why, It Matters.
On October 25, 2012 there was a Book Launch for The Economics of Freedom:Theory, Measurement, and Policy Implications by Sebastiano Bavetta and Pietro Navarra.
Sebastiano Bavetta and Pietro Navarra's
On October 18, 2012, Cristina Bicchieri will speak on Social Norms and Social Change at the UNSPOKEN Conference: Create Space for Gender-Peace which is at the 2nd Annual Human Rights Festival.
PPE co-sponsored the keynote speaker, Ian Shapiro, for The Ivy League International student Networking Conference (ILINC) on October 12-13, 2012, which was developed and hosted by The Assembly of International Students (AIS).
PPE welcomes visiting student scholars Benedetta Neige Ferraccioli and Marta Vigneri for the Fall 2012 Term.
PPE welcomes visiting scholars Pietro Navarra, Professor of Public Sector Economics at the Università degli Studi di Messina, in Italy and Sebastiano Bavetta, Professor of Economics at Università degli Studi di Palermo, in Italy for the Fall 2012 Term.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar Jan Willem Lindemans for the 2012 Academic Year.
PPE welcomes Postdocoral Fellow Ting Jiang.
2011-2012
From July 2, - July 13, 2012 PPE hosted the third annual Penn-UNICEF summer program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change.
Congratulations to Limor Bordoley, the first ever PPE recipient of the Rose Undergraduate Research Award. The Rose Award is the most prestigious research award granted by the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research project was called Rethinking the Six Day War: An Analysis of Counter Factual Explanations and was supervised by Professor Ian Lustick of Political Science.
Congratulations are also due to Caroline Cohn and David Shuldiner for being recognized for their research activities by The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF).
Douglas Miller a 2011 Penn Undergraduate Climate Action Grant in the amount of $5,000 for his “Sustainable Behavior Inducement” project.
On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, Jerry Gaus, James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, spoke On the Appropriate Mode of Justifying a Public Moral Constitution.
On Thursday, April 12th, 2012, Steven Goldstone, Class of '67 and Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of ConAgra Foods, Inc., had a conversation with PPE majors.
On April 5th, 2012, Peter Vanderschraaf, Professor at the University of California Merced and Institute for Advanced Study, spoke on Artificial Natural Laws.
In March 2012, Cristina Bicchieri, spoke on Social Norm Entrepreneurship: Collective Action for Common Good? at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
Edward Rendell, C'65, former governor of Pennsylvania and the former mayor of Philadelphia, spoke on America: Falling Apart, Falling Behind at the 12th Annual Goldstone Forum on March 20, 2012.
On March 15, 2012, Chiara Lisciandra, from the Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science at Tilburg University, spoke on Conformorality: A Study on Normative Judgment and Conformity.
On February 28, 2012, Cristina Bicchieri was featured in the University of Pennslyvania Almanac for her appointment as the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative ethics in the School of Arts and Scineces.
On February 2, 2012 the PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held it's annual PPE Alumni/Careers Panel.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar Karla Hoff, Senior Research Economist at the World Bank, for the Spring 2012 Term.
On December 20, 2011 Cristina Bicchieri was quoted in the article, Don't Meniton It: How 'Undiscussables' Can Undermine an Organization, published in Knowledge@Wharton.
On December 1, 2011 Alvin Goldman, Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, spoke on Don’t' Be a Know-It-All: Why Social Epistemology Can -- and Sometimes Should -- Promote Ignorance.
On November 10, 2011 Elliot Turiel, Professor of Cognition and Development atUniversity of California Berkley Graduate School of Education, spoke on Moral and Social Reasoning: The Role of Inequalities, Injustices, and Social Opposition.
On November 3, 2011 Gilbert Harman, James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, spoke on Moral Reasoning.
On November 2, 2011 James Kitts, Assistant Professor of Management at Columbia University, spoke on Group Processes, Social Norms, and Local Network Dynamics.
On October 27, 2011 Hugo Mercier, a Post Doctoral Fellow with the PPE Program, spoke on Why Do HumansReason?.
On October 16th and October 18th, 2011 Cristina Bicchieri was be featured on Resonance104.4fm, http://resonancefm.com/. A podcast of the show can be accessed on http://www.philosophynow.org/.
Pietro Navarra and Sebastiano Bavetta, from The London School of Economics, gave a lecture on 'Freedom of Choice: Theory, Measure and Policy Implications, on September 28th, 2011.
On September 8, 2011, Dan M. Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, spoke about The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change.
PPE welcomes Postdoctoral Fellows Nicolas Baumard and Ryan Muldoon.
PPE welcomes visiting scholars Pietro Navarra, Professor of Public Sector Economics at the Università degli Studi di Messina, in Italy and Sebastiano Bavetta, Professor of Economics at Università degli Studi di Palermo, in Italy for the Fall 2011 Term.
2010-2011
On August 15, 2011 Hugo Mercier was interviewed about Did Reason Evolve For Arguing? on Point of Inquiry, the radio show and podcast of the Center for Inquiry.
On August 15, 2011 Hugo Mercier was interviewed on Big Picture Science on Radio SETI.
On July 28, 2011 Paolo Mefalopulos, Chief of Programme Communication at UNICEF in India and one of the participants in the 2011 Penn-UNICEF Summer Program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change, published a blog entry, The Role of Social Norms in Achieving Behavior Change, about concepts he learned from the program.
On July 18th, 2011 Hugo Mercier was interviewed about The Arguments for Arguments on the Colin McEnroe Show on WNPR.
The recently concluded, second Penn-UNICEF Summer Program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change, directed and created by Cristina Bicchieri, S. J. P. Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethis at The University of Pennsylvania and Gerrie Mackie, Associate Professor of Political Science at University of California, San Diego, has been highlighted in UNICEF's Internal Communication Network.
Steven F. Goldstone, PPE's funder, was featured in the Spring/Summer 2011 Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine.
On June 17, 2011 Cristina Bicchieri, PPE Program Director and Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies, was named the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics.
Hugo Mercier published a reply in the June 15, 2011 New York Times, Researcher Responds to Arguments Over His Theory of Arguing, to the June 14, 2011 New York Times article, Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth, clarifying a common misconception drawn from the article.
Hugo Mercier, a Post Doctoral Fellow with the PPE Program, was featured in the June 14, 2011 New York Times article Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth.
On May 16, 2011 Hugo Mercier discusses Arguementative Theory in an interview on Counterpoint on ABC Radio National.
On April 27, 2011 Hugo Mercier was interviewed about The Argumentative Theory on the online salon at Edge.org
On April 5, 2011 Nassim N. Taleb, a successful hedge fund manager, professor of financial mathematics, bestselling NYT author of the "Black Swan" and philosopher, spoke at the 11th Annual Goldstone Forum on Antifragility: How To Live In a World We Don't Understand, and Enjoy it.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF) awarded PPE Major Douglas Miller a 2011 Penn Undergraduate Climate Action Grant in the amount of $5,000 for his “Sustainable Behavior Inducement” project.
PPE would like to congratulate Ben Moskowitz on being PPE's first ever Dean's Scholar. He is a simultaneously pursuing a PPE major and a Masters in Government at Fels. This is one of the highest academic honors available to students in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Brian Skyrms, Distinguished Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science and Economics at Universityof California Irvine, spoke on Signals, the Flow of Information, Collective Action on February 17, 2011.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held the annual PPE Alumni Panel on February 10, 2011.
The Winter 2010 Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine published an article, Changing Norms to Change Lives, discussing the ongoing work of Cristina Bicchieri,Carol and Michael Lowenstein Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies and director of the PPE program, as a human rights and social norms consultant for United Nations Children's Fund.
Iain McLean, Official Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College and Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford, spoke on The Scottish origins of nonestablishment and free exercise of religion in the US Constitution on December 6, 2010.
Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber's paper, Why Do Humans Reason? was featured in Oliver Burkeman's column This column will change your life: The power of persuasion in the November 26th, 2010 issue of The Guardian.
PPE has created videos of some of the recent alumni talking about how PPE has helped their career choices. The videos may be viewed here.
PPE welcomes visiting scholars Pietro Navarra, Professor of Public Sector Economics at the Università degli Studi di Messina, in Italy and Sebastiano Bavetta, Professor of Economics at Università degli Studi di Palermo, in Italy for the Fall 2010 Term.
2009-10
Summer, 2009: John Gasper, a PPE Post Doc, was hired as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Carnegie Mellon University Qatar.
Hugo Mercier, one of PPE's Post Docs was quoted in a Newsweek article on August 5, 2010, which was then picked up in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra.
PPE hosted the Penn-UNICEF summer program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change from July 5 - July 16, 2010.
Francesco Guala, Professor of Economics at the University of Milan, spoke on Scanning the Humean Brain: The Neuroscience of Social Norms and Conventions on April 22, 2010.
Joseph Heath, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, spoke on The Status of Conventional Morality on April 15, 2010.
Josh Knobe, Professor of Cognitive Science and Philosophy at Yale University, spoke on Person as Scientist, Person as Moralist, on April 12, 2010.
John Ahlquist, Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, spoke on Provoking Preferences: Leaders, Followers, and Organizational Culture, on April 8, 2010.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held the annual PPE Alumni Panel on Arpil 6, 2010.
Joseph Mazor, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at The Center for Human Values at Princeton University, spoke on
How to Divide Heterogeneous, Imperfectly Divisible Resources Equally: The Case for an Equal-Division-of-Proceeds Auction, on March 25, 2010.
Malcolm Gladwell, a prominent journalist, public intellectual, and author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Outliers: The Story of Success and What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, spoke on culture and legislation at the 10th Annual Goldstone Forum on January 28, 2010.
Carlo Martini, Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS) at Tilburg University and Visiting Scholar with the PPE Program, spoke on The Role of Experts in the Epistemology of Economics on December 10, 2009.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held Student Office Hours on November 20, 2009.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held a PPE Information Session for prospective majors on November 2, 2009.
Gerry Mackie, Professor of Political Science at University of California, San Diego, spoke on Cognitive and Affective Aspects of Three Concepts of Liberty on October 29, 2009.
Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, spoke on Democracy and the argument from collective intelligence: the necessity of a dialogue between democratic theory and cognitive sciences on October 28, 2009. Read her Majority Rule paper here and her Democratic Reason paper here.
Stephen Stich, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, spoke on The Evolution of Morality? on September 24, 2009.
2008-2009
The Goldstone Forum speaker for 2009-10 will be Malcolm Gladwell. Mr. Gladwell is a prominent journalist, and public intellectual. He is also the author of the influential and best-selling books: The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), and Outliers (2008)
Summer, 2009: Erte Xiao, a PPE Post Doc, was hired as an Assistant Professor for the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.
On May 17, 2009, PPE held a reception for its graduating seniors.
In April, the Spring 2009 issue of SPICE, PPE's undergraduate student journal, was published.
PPE and History of Art Major Nathaniel Foulds, Class of 2010, was awarded a College Summer Humanities Internship at the Arthur Ross Gallery.
PPE Major Lauren Springer, Class of 2011, was awarded a College Summer Humanities Internship at the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Stephan Hartmann, Chair in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science in the Department of Philosophy at Tilburg University and Director of the Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science, spoke on Disagreement and Consensus in Science on April 29, 2009.
Ryan Muldoon, who has advised students for PPE, has been awarded a School of Arts and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Graduate Student.
Shaun Nichols, Professor of Philosophy at The University of Arizona, spoke on Normative Ethics and the Psychology of Moral Luck on April 2, 2009.
Dan Sperber, Research Director at the Jean Nicod Institute, CNRS, spoke on Epistemic Vigilance on Arpil 1, 2009.
Guido Moellering, Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, spoke on The Relationship between Trust and Deception on March 25, 2009.
Jason Dana, Assistant Professor of Psychology at The University of Pennsylvania, spoke on Reluctant Altruism on March 26th, 2009.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held their Peer Mentorship Program kickoff event on March 19, 2009.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at The University Center for Human Values, Princeton, spoke on The Life of Honor on March 19, 2009.
Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics and Princeton University and Nobel Laureate, 2008, spoke on The Economic Challenges Ahead at the 2008-9 Goldstone Forum on February 18, 2009.
Joe Kable, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on Psychological and neural mechanisms for choosing between immediate and delayed rewards, on February 5, 2009.
Hugo Mercier, Post Doctoral Scholar with the PPE Program at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on The Argumentative Mind on January 29, 2009.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held an Alumni Panel with a Q & A session for current PPE Majors featuring Rafael Burde of Primary Insight, affiliate of JP Morgan, Stuart Berger of Schactner & Portnoy (Law), Ari Friedman of Onex (Private Equity), Bain & Co, and Amna Nawaz of NBC Nightly News on January 27, 2009.
Cristina Bicchieri, Carol and Michael Lowenstein Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies and director of the PPE program,
was featured in the Winter 2008 Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine in an article titled Losing the Turst Game?.
Cristina Bicchieri, Carol and Michael Lowenstein Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies and director of the PPE program, has been knighted by the Italian government Cavaliere al Merito della Reppublica Italiana. This is one of the highest honors conferred by the Italian government for contributions in the field of arts and sciences.
Robert Wonderling, Pennsylvania Senator and Chairman of The Communications and Technology Committee, spoke on The Youth Vote in the Presidential Election & Efforts to Continue to Engage Young People in Public Service and the Political Process on November 13, 2008.
Geoffrey Goodwin, Assistant Professor of Psychology at The University of Pennsylvania, spoke on The objectivity of moral beliefs: Psychological findings and implications on November 6, 2008.
Chetan Dave, Assistant Professor for The School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas, spoke on Sen's Paradox with Intentions-Based Preferences and Loss Aversion: Theory and Experimental Application on September 25, 2008.
2007-2008
Steve Levitt, Alvin Baum Professor of Economics and Director of the Becker Center on Price Theory at the University of Chicago and author of Freakonomics, spoke at the 2007-8 Goldstone Forum on April 21.
David Dillenberger, Princeton University, spoke on Preferences for One-Shot Resolution of Uncertainty and Allais-Type Behavior on February 15, 2008.
Giacomo Sillari, Post Doctoral Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on Coordination, Cognition, and Common Knowledge: How Social Conventions Work on February 1, 2008.
Lara Buchak, Philosophy Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, spoke on Risk Without Regret on January 25, 2008.
Mark Pauly, Bendheim Professor and Professor of Health Care Systems, Business and Public Policy, Insurance and Risk Management, and Economics at The Wharton School, spoke on Health Care Economics in the USA on January 22, 2008.
Till Grüne-Yanoff, researcher at the Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, as well as a visiting fellow at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method of the London School of Economics, spoke on How Economists Reacquired Game Theory After Iits Biological Metamorphosis on January 18, 2008.
Colin Allen, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and Professor of Cognitive Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, spoke on How to Reason Without Words: Inference as Categorization on January 17, 2008.
Justin Wolfers, Assistant Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Wharton School, spoke on Discrimination in the NBA on October 25, 2007.
Steven F. Goldstone, C ’67, has given $1.5 million to the School of Arts and Sciences to strengthen the undergraduate Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) program. Mr. Goldstone, who majored in political science at Penn, has been a key supporter of PPE since 2001, when he gave $2 million to the program. This recent gift will be used to expand PPE-sponsored activities and undergraduate research opportunities, and to support post-doctoral appointments and visiting professors.
PHILADELPHIA - Stephen Danley a University of Pennsylvania graduate from Germantown, Md., has won the prestigious Marshall Scholarship. Danley is the eighth Marshall Scholar from Penn and the University's sixth in the last seven years. Marshall Scholarships provide opportunities for young Americans of outstanding ability to study at educational institutions in the United Kingdom.
Danley, who earned a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from the College of the School of Arts and Sciences in 2007, plans to pursue an M. Phil. in comparative social policy at Oxford University in England.
"Stephen is a true Renaissance man," Penn Provost Ronald J. Daniels said. "He is a basketball star, a team leader, a poet, a New York Times blogger and a passionate student of social policy. We are extremely proud that he will represent Penn abroad as a Marshall Scholar."
2006-2007
PPE sponsored Penn undergraduate student MicroFinance conference.
Dennis Thompson,Professor of Political Philosophy and Director, Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, spoke at the 2006-7 Goldstone Forum on March 27.
PPE welcomes new faculty Jason Dana , Giacomo Sillari and Erte Xiao.
Erte Xiao wins Russel Sage Foundation Grant in Behavioral Economics. The grant is for research on a project titled: “Punish in Private and Praise in Public."
On March 24, 2007, PPE was proud to co-sponsor " Justice and the Social Contract": a symposium on Samuel Freeman's "Justice and the Social Contract." This was a conference in honor and celebration of the publication of Samuel Freeman’s book, “Justice and the Social Contract: Essays on Rawlsian Political Philosophy” (Oxford University Press 2006). Samuel Freeman is a Professor of Philosophy affiliated with the PPE progranm, and the former director of PPE.
Talk by Carol Gould, Director of the Center for Global Ethics and Politics at Temple University, spoke on March 15, 2007 on Transnational Power, Coercion and Democracy.
Till Grüne-Yanoff, Post Doc Researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, spoke on "Learning from Economic Models" January 29, 2007, 4-5 PM, 104 Logan Hall.
Bill Titelman, Partner at Bernstein, Liebhard & Lifshitz, spoke on "Corporate Culture and the Threat to the American Way of Life: The View of a Radicalized Victim" on November 20, 2006.
Sebastiano Maffetone, Professor of Political Philosophy, LUISS-Guido Carli University and Suor Orsola Benincasa University, Italy; Director, CERSDU (Center for Research and Studies on Human Rights) spoke on Universal Duty and Global Justice on October 20, 2006.
2005-2006
New PPE student journal launched.
PPE is pleased to have distinguished philospopher Brian Skyrms vist the program and teach a course during the spring semester.
PPE has greatly revamped its undergraduate major in the 2005-6 academic year. Now PPE students have an enormous degree of choice in "individualizing" their major within themes, and can take classes in SAS, Wharton and the Law School.
PPE 2004-5 Goldstone Forum Speaker Thomas Schelling awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science.
PPE Student Taylor Buley publishes book: "The Fresh Politics Reader: Making Current Events And Public Affairs Relevant to Young Americans"