Upcoming events
Misum Open Seminar
Seminar topic: Why do Governments Overpromise and Underdeliver? Evidence from India's National Clean Air Programme
About the seminar:
What are the political consequences of setting ambitious policy targets, but then failing to meet them? We study this question in the context of India's National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), a flagship policy designed to cut air pollution by 40\% in 131 cities and address a crisis that causes 1.2 million deaths annually. Using multiple difference-in-differences approaches, we demonstrate that the program had no effect on air pollution. In a survey experiment with residents of NCAP cities, we show that informing citizens about NCAP boosted their approval of the government’s air pollution policy. Surprisingly, this effect persisted even when respondents were told the program had no impact --- revealing a clear political benefit from the ambitious announcement, and minimal cost for the implementation failure. This incentive structure is consistent with the lack of political commitment to implementing NCAP, which we document, and is a likely explanation for the program's failure.
Accounting for absent and silent stakeholders? From future generations to Nature.Paolo Quattrone is a leading scholar in accounting and governance, currently Professor of Accounting, Governance & Society. He is a Visiting Professor at MISUM’s Accounting Frameworks Platform and the Department of Accounting at SSE, Otto Møsted visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School and Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford. Having been Co-Editor-in-Chief of Organization Studies, he brings editorial leadership and insights from one of the foremost journals in organizational research.
About the seminar:
Paolo will examine how firms are increasingly pressured to respond not only to present stakeholders, but also to future generations (not yet born) and to nature, which lacks a voice. He will explore the challenge, for managers and scholars, of how to account for “missing stakeholders”, offering insights and opening a debate on this “mission impossible".
This Misum-ACE Breakfast Seminar, will take place at the Stockholm School of Economics on Tuesday, November 4th from 08-09 in room Ragnar. Please register here.
Is now the university outside the university? The Arteficial experiment at Palazzo Butera, Palermo.
Paolo Quattrone is a leading scholar in accounting and governance, currently Professor of Accounting, Governance & Society. He is a Visiting Professor at MISUM’s Accounting Frameworks Platform and the Department of Accounting at SSE, Otto Møsted visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School and Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford. Having been Co-Editor-in-Chief of Organization Studies, he brings editorial leadership and insights from one of the foremost journals in organizational research.
About the seminar:
Paolo Quattrone, visiting professor and Misum affiliate, will present an upcoming experiment he is conducting in Palermo. Joining him are Roberto Verganti and Pierre G. de Montoux from SSE, who will also take part in the initiative. Together, they will engage in an informal conversation, sharing reflections and insights from the experience.
Learn more about the experiment here: https://arteficium.org
This Misum Open Seminar, will take place at the Stockholm School of Economics on Wednesday, November 5th from 12-13 in room A138. Please register here.
Paternalistic Discrimination
Nina Buchmann is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Research Program in Development Economics at Princeton during the 2025-2026 year. In 2026, she will start as an Assistant Professor in the Economics department at UC Berkeley. She was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale University during the 2024-2025 academic year and received her PhD in Economics from Stanford in 2024. Her primary fields are development economics and behavioral economics.
Abstract:
We combine two field experiments in Bangladesh with a structural labor model to identify paternalistic discrimination, the differential treatment of two groups to protect one group, even against its will, from harmful or unpleasant situations. We observe hiring and application decisions for a night-shift job that provides worker transport at the end of the shift. In the first experiment, we use information about the transport to vary employers' perceptions of job costs to female workers while holding taste-based and statistical discrimination constant: Not informing employers about the transport decreases demand for female labor by 21%. Employers respond more to transport information than cash payments to female workers that enable workers to purchase transport themselves. In the second experiment, not informing applicants about the transport reduces female labor supply by 15%. In structural simulations, paternalistic discrimination has a larger effect on gender employment and wage gaps than taste-based and statistical discrimination.
This Misum Open Seminar, will take place at the Stockholm School of Economics on Thursday, September 25th from 12-13 in room A536. Please register here.