Speaker(s):
Anand Menon (King's College, London & Director UK in a changing Europe)
Chris Morris (BBC Europe correspondent)
Ian Dunt (Editor of politics.co.uk)
Geoff Evans (Nuffield College)

Chair:
Kalypso Nicolaidis (St Antony's College)

India has historically performed badly in the World Bank’s Doing Business Indicators and a key objective of the current Indian government is about improving de jure rules around investment decisions so as to facilitate economic growth. Using a novel methodology, I show that de facto deals rather than de jure rules characterise the business-state relationship in Indian states and more deal making is prevalent in states with weak capacity.

We examine how membership in a historical outgroup a↵ ects attitudes toward other outgroups later in time. We provide evidence from Greece, a country that serves as an entry port to Europe for a large number of refugees, and whose native population largely consists of descendants of ethnic Greeks that were forcibly relocated from Turkey in the early 20th century. Combining historical and survey data with an experimental manipulation we show that the history of forced relocation in an individual’s family weakly increases sympathy for Syrian refugees undergoing a similar experience today.

This paper revisits models of economic voting to argue that when alternative sources of information about incumbent competence (merit) are not available, it may be rational for citizens to cast an economic vote even if the economy is mostly determined by exogenous factors (luck). This vote, however, is unlikely to promote democratic accountability.