PhD Workshop on Networks and Political Economy @ Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

The Ph.D. Workshop in Networks and Political Economy @ Paris 1 aims to create a platform for young researchers across diverse fields of economics. The workshop provides a unique opportunity for researchers to discuss their projects. Members from the faculty of Paris 1, and potentially external scholars from other Paris universities, will offer their feedback as discussants for participants' presentations.

The workshop will take place on the 25th and 26th of January 2024. We anticipate hosting 14 participants, each awarded 20 minutes for their presentations, followed by a 5-minute discussion and questions. The event will be held on the 6th floor of Maison de Sciences Economiques, Department of Economics of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, providing a conducive environment for fruitful interactions and knowledge sharing. The deadline for the application will be on the 30th of October, and it can be done by submitting an extended abstract.

Additionally, we will host 4 keynote speakers: David Chavalarias, Alan Kirman, Maria Petrova, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. These eminent speakers will further enrich the workshop's intellectual discourse and inspire young researchers.

During these two days we will try to answer the question: “How can we understand the complex behavioral dynamics that emerge from the interaction of individuals, mass media, and politicians?”

We aim to achieve this objective by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration among young researchers who share similar research interests but employ different methodologies, or those who apply similar methodologies but focus on different topics. Hence, candidates from all branches of economics, regardless of the topic covered, or the methodology employed, are welcomed.

We strongly believe that incentivizing the influence between different areas of economics is vital for cultivating a thriving academic environment that encourages the production of innovative scientific research. In particular, methodologies like agent-based models, network econometrics, and measures of complexity, can be extremely useful and important by revealing aspects that may go unnoticed with orthodox approaches. For example, the interaction between heterogeneous agents when we study the propagation of ideas, or the interpersonal relations between congressmen when passing a bill, or simply how the efficiency of political institutions might be linked to complexity and economic fitness.

We are convinced that the best way to sponsor these new approaches is to organize events that allow researchers who do not know these methodologies, to see how they can be used and what they can achieve. We think that modern approaches should try to talk to the widest public possible, making themselves known to researchers who otherwise might keep ignoring them and miss an opportunity to expand the potential of their own research.

To facilitate this, the workshop will feature extremely diverse works, featuring applied econometrics, network analysis, text analysis, spatial econometrics, agent-based models, machine learning, and behavioral economics, among others. We aim at doing so while always maintaining a strong thematic focus on political economy, in particular, social norms, political polarization, media economics, and others.

Email us: phd-workshop@univ-paris1.fr
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/phdworkshop/home