The Intensive Seminar was a seminar aimed at PhD-students who are supervised by the Jean Monnet Chair. The seminar had two parts. In the first, a PhD student presents a thesis chapter or a draft paper aimed at an international conference or scientific journal. In the second part, a seminal article related to the economic analysis of European law is discussed.

Past Seminars:

2016

This year’s subject was ‘Public Utilities’. The seminar had two active parts. In the first part the PhD students were concerned with a presentation of their research (elaborate on a chapter of the thesis; structure of the thesis; research article etc.). Also, a subsequent discussion in the seminar was present. In the second part of the seminar  a discussion of a seminal article concerned with the seminar’s topic was held. One of the PhD students would summarize the article in the seminar and prepare a little bit for initiating a debate about it. Everyone was expected to read the article in order to contribute to the discussion.

The following articles were discussed during the seminars:

• November 17: George J. Stigler and Claire Friedland (1962), What Can Regulators Regulate? The Case of Electricity, Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 5, 1-16.

• November 24: Harold Demsetz (1968), Why Regulate Utilities?, The Journal of Law & Economics , vol. 11, 55-65.

• December 1: R. H. Coase (1970), The Theory of Public Utility Pricing and Its Application, The Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, vol. 1, 113-128.

• December 8: P.L. Joskow and R. Schmalensee (1986), Incentive Regulation For Electric Utilities, Yale Journal on Regulation, vol. 4, 1-49.

• December 15: Mark Crain and Asghar Zardkoohi (1978), A Test of the Property-Rights Theory of the Firm: Water Utilities in the United States, The Journal of Law & Economics, vol. 21, 395-408.

2015

This year’s subject will be “Migration”. For two main reasons, migration is highly topical. First, it is due to the concept of free exchange of people in the EU and mass migrations from the Central and Eastern Europe since 2004; and second, because of thousands of refugees from Asian and African conflict zones who currently attempt to storm the EU borders in search for better lives. In this seminar we will try to get a better understanding over migration, what generates migration and, likewise, what the effects of migration are.

The following articles were discussed during the seminars:

• October 29: Charles M. Tiebout (1956), A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures, Journal of Political Economy, vol. 64, 416-424.
• November 5: Albert O. Hirshman (1993), Exit, Voice, and the Fate of the German Democratic Republic: An Essay in Conceptual History, World Politics, vol. 45, 173-202.
• November 26: Hans-Werner Sinn and Wolfgang Ochel (2003), Social Union, Convergence and Migration, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 41, 869-896.
• December 3: Graziano Battistella (2009), Migration and Human Rights: The Uneasy but Essential Relationship, in R. Cholewinski, P. De Guchteneire. A. Pécoud (eds.), ‘Migration and Human Rights. The United Nations Convention on Migrant Workers’ Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 47-69.
• December 17: Adam B. Cox and Eric A. Posner (2007), The Second-Order Structure of Immigration Law, Stanford Law Review, vol. 59, 809-856.

2014

This year’s topic will be “Bureaucracy”. Bureaucracies affect everyone’s life. Bureaucracies are the government’s strong arm and we would expect that the power of bureaucracies is limited to their legitimate extent. This holds true even more for the EU. However, in reality bureaucracies live their own life and prosper on the account of tax payers’ money. In this seminar we will try to get a better understanding of what bureaucracies are, why controlling them is often not easy and how they work internally.

The following articles were discussed during the seminars:

• October 23: Max Weber (1922), Bureaucracy. Excerpt from the book Economy and Society.
• November 13: William A. Niskanen (1968), The Peculiar Economics of Bureaucracy. American Economic Review, vol. 58, 293-305.
• December 4: Terry Moe (1995), The Politics of Structural Choice: Toward a Theory of Public Bureaucracy, in Williamson Oliver E. (ed.), ‘Organization Theory. From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 116-153.
• December 18: Oliver E. Williamson (1999), Public and private bureaucracies: a transaction cost economics perspectives, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, vol. 15, 306-342.
• January 8: Johan Olsen (2008), The Ups and Downs of Bureaucratic Organization, Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 11, 13-37.

2013

Money

2012

European Union (federalism)

2011

Property Rights

2010

Institutional Development