Calvin Thrall (Columbia), "Industrial Diversification and the Rise of the Local Chamber"
2025-10-08 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Abstract: Despite the well-documented nationalization of local politics over the late 20th century, one type of local organization has flourished: the chamber of commerce. Local chambers, influential interest groups in which firms operating in a given municipality band together to lobby for improved local business conditions, are now present in over 6,700 municipalities across nearly 2,300 counties. Why has the private sector been so successful at organizing locally, despite the costs inherent in collective action? I argue that industrial diversification at the local level makes chamber formation more likely; when firms are co-located with complementary industries rather than direct competitors, lobbying for geographically-specific (“place-based”) benefits offers greater relative gains. I provide evidence in support of this explanation using new data on thousands of local chambers incorporated between 1970 and 2018, an identification strategy based on a novel Bartik-style shift-share instrument, and member-level data for twenty individual chambers. The results demonstrate how broader patterns of structural economic change have affected interest representation at the local level.
Moderator: Gabi Spilker
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Laura Comini (Michigan) and Hao Zhang (NYU), How Disasters Drive Action: Subsidiaries, Supply Chains, and Climate Lobbying
2025-11-19 12:00 - 13:00
Tackling climate change generates non-rivalrous and non-excludable benefits, while the costs of climate action fall on individual firms. This should incentivize firms to free ride on each others’ efforts. Yet, corporate lobbying on climate issues has increased steadily across sectors. We develop a framework where exposure to climate disasters reduces free-riding by aligning private incentives with collective good. Disasters update firms’ perception of future costs, risk likelihood, and discount rates, motivating present-day action. Ownership and production networks amplify this effect by making costs measurable, concentrated, and attributable to a few firms. Supplier substitutability, however, limits the diffusion of action. Using a comprehensive dataset linking U.S. firms, domestic subsidiaries, and supply chain partners to environmental lobbying, we find that disasters affecting firms or their subsidiaries increase lobbying, while disasters impacting suppliers matter only when alternatives are scarce. These results highlight spatial and structural factors shaping climate action in multi-unit, networked firms.
Moderator: Sarah Bauerle Danzman
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Carles Boix (Princeton), Valentina Gonzalez-Rostani (USC), Erica Owen (Pittsburgh, presenter), "The Political Economy of Automation and Fragmented Production: Evidence from Mexico"
2025-12-10 12:00 - 13:00
How does automation in the Global North shape politics and violence in the Global South? We develop a political economy theory in which robot adoption in advanced economies reduces demand for export-oriented labor in developing countries, depressing wages and employment and creating social and political consequences. We test this argument in Mexico, a close trade partner of the United States. Using commuting-zone data, we construct exposure measures combining pre-NAFTA export employment with U.S. industry robot growth and initial offshoring intensity, while accounting for domestic robot adoption and other shocks. To address endogeneity, we instrument foreign exposure with European robot diffusion. We find that regions more exposed to foreign robots experience higher levels of violent organized crime, including narcocrime and homicides (but not property crime), and stronger support for left-populist candidates. These findings demonstrate how automation shocks ripple through global value chains to reshape society and elections.
Moderator: Stephen Chaudoin
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Sojun Park (MIT), "Innovation, Imitation, and Political Cleavages in International Trade and Patent Protection"
2026-01-21 12:00 - 13:00
When do exporting firms impose trade barriers against their foreign competitors in global markets? In this paper, I contend that the decline of market power drives exporting firms’ support for restrictive trade policies. I develop a theoretical model showing that product obsolescence leads incumbent firms to lobby for international intellectual property protection, which raises barriers to entry within their markets. To test the theory, I estimate product life cycles using millions of patent citations and analyze U.S. lobbying reports filed on U.S. trade agreements that adopt higher standards for global patent protection. I find that U.S. exporters that manufacture products with longer life cycles lobby Congress more to pass the trade agreements. Their lobbying reports also reveal the risk of imitation in international trade using keywords, such as counterfeit. The results imply that global businesses operatin behind the technological frontier engage in political activity for entry deterrence.
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Moderater: Rachel Wellhausen

Lisa Dellmuth (Stockholm), How Trade Retaliation Affects Regime Support
2026-02-18 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: Research has shown that restrictive trade policies, such as large subsidies, affect public opinion in affected states. This article examines the downstream effects of trade retaliation on public support for the democratic regime and its core representative institutions. It argues that exposure to retaliation can initially activate reciprocity preferences, increasing support for political institutions that are perceived to help government deter trade restrictions abroad. However, when the economic costs of retaliation become salient, exposure instead erodes regime support as citizens grow unwilling to bear these costs. The analysis draws on several datasets covering the United States from 2002 to 2022, combining individual- and local-level measures of regime support with exposure to retaliatory tariffs and online search behavior. The results suggest that US import tariffs do not systematically increase regime support. By contrast, exposure to foreign retaliatory tariffs reduces regime support between 2010-2022. These effects operate through sociotropic rather than personal evaluations. The findings suggest that, despite its strategic appeal as a deterrent, trade retaliation undermines durable regime support, revealing broader domestic political costs than previously understood.
Moderator: Federica Genovese
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Faisal Ahmed (Wellesley) and Jonas Bunte (Vienna), "Government Support and Firm Strategy: The Case of Ambassadors and Export Finance"
2026-03-18 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: States routinely help firms manage risk by providing two core forms of support: information that reduces uncertainty about markets, partners, and political conditions, and financing that insures against commercial and political loss. We argue that firms treat these tools as a unified portfolio and reallocate between them when one becomes temporarily unavailable. We examine this logic in the context of export promotion, where ambassadors provide market intelligence and informal enforcement, while export credit agencies (ECAs) supply insurance, guarantees, and loans. Ambassadorial vacancies disrupt the informational pillar while leaving financial support intact. Using nearly three decades of monthly, deal-level data from the U.S. Export–Import Bank matched to global ambassadorial appointment records, we show that vacancies significantly increase firms’ reliance on ECA support without altering EXIM’s screening standards, risk assessments, or deal sizes. The findings reveal how firms compensate for fluctuations in state capacity, highlighting substitution across informational and financial instruments as a general feature of economic statecraft.
Moderator: Maggie Peters
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Junghyun Lim (UNC), "Depopulation Paradox? Depopulation Risk and Immigration Policy Preferences"
2026-04-22 12:00 - 13:00
How does depopulation risk shape individuals’ support for open immigration policies? Depopulation poses growing challenges in developed economies, including declining tax revenue, and skills shortages. While immigration is often proposed as a major solution, it remains unclear whether those most affected are receptive to it. On one hand, depopulation may boost support for immigration by highlighting its economic benefits. Yet it may also raise concerns among natives about losing majority status and fostering out-group anxiety, leading to stronger opposition to immigration. I examine this question using a survey experiment in Italy, a country facing serious depopulation. I find that raising awareness about depopulation risk has little effect on preferences regarding immigration policies, while significantly increasing support for pro-natalist policies and the repatriation of co-nationals. Among those with strong in-group biases, depopulation awareness reduces support for immigration. These findings demonstrate a paradox: even as the need for immigration grows, public support remains limited or declines, revealing a key challenge in using immigration to mitigate depopulation.
Moderator: Stephen Chaudoin
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Theo Serlin (KCL, presenter) and Hye Young You (Princeton), "Protection by Covariance"
2026-06-17 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: Trade policy is the prototypical case of lobbying influence. Despite evidence to the contrary, most analyses of lobbying on trade assume a quid pro quo model of influence. We examine the implications of the legislative subsidy theory of lobbying for trade policy. We develop a model in which lobbying increases the weight legislators receive in the policymaking process. Industries seeking protection lobby legislators whose districts contain greater industry employment. Consequently, legislators whose districts contain large industries prone to lobby exert more influence on policy. In equilibrium, industries that co-locate with other large and lobbying-prone industries receive higher tariffs. We test these predictions using data on US trade policy from 1989 to 2016, exploiting redistricting-induced shocks to industry co-location. Within-district spillover effects help explain why existing studies estimate small effects of lobbying on trade policy. Lobbying advantages not only large and organized industries, but also weaker industries that share their locations.
Moderator: Bobby Gulotty
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