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for inviting me uh mm thanks a lot for coming so so it's the first time that
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i get to talk to a audience of computer scientists so i'm i'm sorry if
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what i'm doing with maybe we it for you and that maybe is kind of
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uh uh not the way you would two things about that in just a
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ask questions or or interrupt or or or uh if if something is kind of um uh it so
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i just give a talk us the way we would do that economics but but of course the
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um i'm not quite sure how the audience will react right so if
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if anything is kind of weird or unclear just just a interrupt
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so that's what i'm gonna talk about is called um yeah it's a paper
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is called a can power sharing foster peace uh evidence from northern ireland
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and this is joint work with uh hundreds miller from barcelona and so the the question we wanna ask here is
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and can power sharing uh be something that promotes a
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promotes peace it's it's a tricky topic because um
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well uh it's not easy to measure you know it's not easy to measure power sharing and it's not easy
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uh to to establish a causal relationship statistically speaking
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between these uh and uh and and peace
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so um our first the start start with some examples
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so i mean what what's the basic intuition here why do we expect that power sharing could play a role for peace
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well the idea is the following imagine that that you are i'm a i'm a minority group in
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society and you have a uh so to persons uh of the population or thirty five percent
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french speaking switzerland for example french speaking switzerland if french speaking switzerland
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was not re present it in the uh uh federal
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council inbound if a friend speaking switch that was not we
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presented as it heads uh of of department in administration
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et cetera in the police force uh in all important uh a decision uh uh committees
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what would happen well what may happen is that sooner or later
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french speaking switzerland which would be a would be annoyed
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and and and we started uh maybe uh some separatist movement right so what why hasn't it happened so far what why is there
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no a french speaking a party the formal who wants to split from the rest of swiss and why why hasn't it happened
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well the reason why it hasn't happened is that a friend speaking switzerland
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uh is quite well we presented in the government at least always two to three people in the swiss
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government are from the uh only from different speaking part of switzerland and at the same time
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i'm also in in all the the important decision at all the high
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level civil servants if if the if the boss officer is
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is german speaking the the rice balls is a french speaking or vice versa
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so usually you would always try to kind of have a every presentation between
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lacked in switzerland and uh i kind of joe german speaking switzer
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and so this kind of power sharing into its than what surely something that that would play a
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role because they basically a a more general level what you would expect is ready for that
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if a group is an important chair of the population is sort of the population but has no say in politics
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uh well this group may have incentives to just to try to split from the country uh and
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and this may end up in a in an s. so uh so that's for example um
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if you think of rwanda well in one uh for example what you have is is
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similar kind of constellation where basically the who two are awfully maybe seventy eighty percent
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of the population you have to tutsi being much smaller and at the point window
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who to took a uh took power at the beginning of the nineteen nineties
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uh use use you saw that uh to choose what kind of completely marginalised
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um and then that there was some to to to rebellion and and then uh you which a genocide
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of uh of who to send a killing moderate to twos and uh and that
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switches with one one million people dying in in in within hundred days
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so so clearly the this whole thing is quite a explodes if it's quite that
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important question of how you accommodate different groups and how they can share power
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um and so so well it's it's okay idea is really um as malcolm x. was saying it's
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the the ballot or the bullet either we can cost of this was about a black americans
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either we we can have real representation we can cast the pilot or if we cannot cast about well the
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only thing that remains is the bullet and so so that's kind of the the trade off here um
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uh so it's really a kind of comparing the relative gains of sticking to electoral
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politics or leaving electoral politics and going for for for some armed rebellion
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i give you two examples of where power sharing a one can argue made a
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really difference first thing is to switch civil war and will view is swiss
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and while viewing knows about the this with civil war
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okay so a civil war was in eighteen a forty seven eighteen for forty seven it
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was between the catholic uh cantons of switzerland who wanted just to lose defensive alliance
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and the protestant cantons of switzerland wanted to build a nation state as it was kind of
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uh invoke a in this century and so basically um the protestant cantons
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one um and so they have the choice a option one was
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the uh uh kill the catholics across ten option to was to do some power sharing and and
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they went for option two and option to what they did imply what it implied was that
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i'm a very rapidly the catholic conservatives uh at a ants it's it's fall
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apart partied a a p. d. c. uh was kind of strong invalid
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and so so the cuddly conservative party would kind of christian democrat party
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would kind of get very rapidly access to the to the government
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at the same time uh a parliament which to chandler's a re
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presenting giving a low at blocking minority to this small
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kayak aptly cantons would tend to be small so in switzerland you know oh around lucerne most of the
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small cantons or actually catholic which means that in terms of
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blocking a majority of the double majority of uh oh
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oh floats in the parliament but also for the direct
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democratic elections actually the small cat leash cantons uh
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close to loose and they actually have probably even a higher weight then the
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protestant cantons and you even see that today in some popular vote
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so what happened is kind of revolutionary the protestant winners of the battle
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instead of crashing the opposition they actually almost gave more
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rights to the opposition then they kept for themself
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so it was power sharing which was not just for but going maybe even be unfair
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and so that's that's kind of great what happened as an outcome was that well since
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then we one of the richest countries in the world and a piece ever since
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now let's take a look at northern island norton island what happened there on on an island historically the
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protestants were kind of a dominating the state and the catholics in sixty nine they started kind of
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the civic rights movement to to kind of uh uh uh fighting back
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no i'll talk in more detail about the whole uh the history of it bit bigger perspective
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but basically a pen for thirty years the protestants didn't want to share much power
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uh and there was this uh um a paramilitary fighting from the catholic side and in
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ninety eights they decided to make a power a sharing deal
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so i brokered by twenty player um that it's
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called the the belfast agreement on good friday agreement because it when it was in is the time
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and so in this agreement what they they shared power in the government uh with with catholics and protestants in it
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in the administration in the police force everywhere in society uh the catholics got their share
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of power and since then um uh acts of violence have rapidly plunged okay
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um now this is only one data point right we are the two anecdotes and and what we gonna do in
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this paper is much broader than that so we gonna look at that micro data for for little districts
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so we're not just it's not the paper with two anecdotes on on on two events it's like with many more data points
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that that the problem of course is it is it is a methodological problem here because if you know yeah if if they
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would just say well if you have power sharing uh and
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after power sharing um you you have a more pace
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uh is that correlation or causality well it may just be
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caught correlation is spurious correlation because imagine if if i
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if i share if i share a uh um uh i see a car which are well you should we
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share the train but if we come here with john i share a car and afterwards we we have a
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bonding and we get along well together then is it really that the fact that we shared a car
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made that we get the long well together or is it the fact that
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we got where uh along well together which was in the first place
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making us share a car right so if we would just say the fact
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that you have power sharing and then you get along well together
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the uh the the doesn't prove any causality may just be pure correlation
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it may be rather be getting along well together that would
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determine the power sharing and what we're gonna do with this paper is we try to tease out this correlation you want to show that
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actually some random changes in power sharing can show
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a call so impact of power sharing on
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uh getting along well together right that's that's that's the the menu of the day um
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and so basically what do we do when this paper what we do in this paper
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is an empirical analysis of the impact of power sharing at the local level
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so we knew was data from northern islands twenty six local
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district councils so it's like twenty six cantons uh
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and so the observation is a district council and they here so it would be
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like if we take the twenty six swiss cantons for the last thirty years
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and so uh we we we we get a at a thousand data points a bit less
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uh and so for each uh for each uh of these these
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three years we know whether there was power sharing or not
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and now the the slide okay um and so what we do is is called a and three a first we do
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um fixed effects regression ready filter out all the the the normal to the time invariant
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uh saying is yeah in these districts and we just look at what happens after the after shocks if
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power che uh if power sharing changes does this trigger it change later on in in in violence
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and then we do something else which is called instrumental valuable regression very basically
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exploring to random variation in whether power sharing a takes place or not
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now i don't uh uh in terms of the audience i know that
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informatics since globally on everything that's technical their way by that
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and uh in all the disciplines but maybe the way you do things maybe different that that then the way economist two things
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so who will few works which data sets like that who would kind of two
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statistical analysis we crash analysis of they visit who of you would do that
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everybody so everybody of you would to uh but but then they're also informative since we would uh would
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uh right right algorithms and to them by but you do both actually everybody does pose kind of
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okay very good and so everybody of you knows whether fixed effects is or not or
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you make the call that differently or who knows what to fix the fact is
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so what okay what what we call by fixed effects is really just a fancy name for
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for something really simple is the in economics we like to do that we take something
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a really simple and then we give it a fancy name and we feel smart so so so
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so basically it's like a separate constant for for each each group so if you have um
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um is like can i write on this whiteboard here or not ah okay so if i i with
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this i would actually destroyed if i would write on it right and you would get into trouble
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so so basically yeah so so we all know so this is to find this or
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okay so you know we all know what what what the real regression is
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so we have this uh points we have here um invaluable uh aches
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that could be power sharing p. s. and what we wanna explain is uh a piece
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or maybe you know the peace symbol right uh and so we want to explain that and so
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we have this data points and we we try to find a regression line that would minimise
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the the deviations from there it's the best fit kind kind
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of the uh minimise the least squared deviation from
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from this uh from this line now uh upper what fixed effects would do is would
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for four separate categories of points it would uh it would kind of um
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allow uh here's kind of a heterogeneous intercepts so the intercept here
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would we would allow h. to this constantly would allow it to be different for different categories
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so if we would run repression um of maybe a how does cooling to or what's the
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impact of schooling on i. q. uh or what no sorry what's the impact off
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of schooling or on on performance later on and we would do that and and women are kind of
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smarter right women are are are smarter and so their performance to start with would be better
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so what we what we would then have is that we would we would look
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at the impact of education on performance but we would allow for different intercept
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if the if the women are always ten points by that and the man anyway
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so that the constant uh for the men maybe ten and
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the constant uh a constant for women maybe twenty
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and so so by allowing it for different constant for different subgroups
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what we do is we filter um on observed heterogeneity if something is different about
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women being smarter then man and we cannot really captured without control variables
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then this different constant would kind of filter out for that right
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um and he it's exactly the same here what we tool uh integration this that some of these districts are different
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some of these districts have a history of getting along well together and and some of these
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this three streets have have a have a a tough history where they have been already bottles
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in the middle middle ages et cetera and so by by by allowing for different constant
00:14:31
uh what we do is we filter out all this time invariant invariance uh differences and we just
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uh uh compare at the impact of these shocks that that's what we do statistically
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and then and then we do other stuff statistically but all gonna um
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yeah i'll gonna talk about that uh when you get there so that's what we called fixed effects basically
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and then the the closely uh elections with the idea explain when you get there
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um so what do we find well they find is that power sharing does indeed curve fatalities
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and here we find that a call so the impact so it's not just correlation it's not just
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the guys getting along better would kind of to power sharing it's really that once for
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a for random reasons in someplace power sharing starts in in some other place power sharing doesn't
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start well this would actually trigger a decline in violence um and this effect would persist
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as as long as power sharing is in place but it would fade away once power sharing is going
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what does that mean for switzerland what it means for switzerland if if now some crazy party would get
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uh into power and uh and it get rid of the magic formula and kind of uh would
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kick out all french speakers from the swiss government well we may well in five years have
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some says a secessionist movement big trouble like so it means that power sharing in order for
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power sharing to to war and peace well it needs to remain in place you cannot
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just have it for a few years and then you remove within ten the effects would be perfect
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assistance that's not the case we needs to stay otherwise the fit the good effects are gone
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okay it's yeah uh and that the effects of
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quantitatively sizable so northern island um being um
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not an i love being really uh uh i was were very tough conflict with several thousand people dying
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we're roughly two thousand people dying and and here we can
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explain basically uh when you have power sharing the
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uh without power sharing the effects um the the risk of of a fatality
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would be roughly three times bigger and so if you would uh
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completely uh if you had instead of having power sharing in some places if you had
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had full power sharing everywhere that would save a town that lives in this context
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so quantitatively uh if we would go for full power sharing for for the whole period in all
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uh in all um in all districts we could kind of cox uh fatalities
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by half so it it's a huge effect um now maybe uh
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something other
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maybe before i go to related to what you may find we're to which maybe in natural science but people
00:17:12
may find where is that what what what the heck does does this guy focus on north northern ireland
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why don't you focus on the whole world or something like that well the the the the the
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thing what's very special about northern ireland what's special about not an island is not an island
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is is a rich country uh with conflict and that's very rare usually rich countries don't have
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conflict uh uh i mean or or or what you find in the literature that is
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uh is wells uh uh prosperity is one of the biggest predictors of peace
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statistically speaking so you have a few rich countries with conflict think of past country think of northern island et
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cetera but they're not many and so it's very rare to have a country that has extremely good statistics
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a statistical capacity very detailed information and at the same time
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uh really a plot the conflict that that that
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that's important to explain right uh and so uh that's why this makes uh not and i'm quite unique
00:18:08
and the state um actually this this uh to take that we get from northern ireland
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we wouldn't be able to get for any other country in this in this for
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um and if if we had less uh if we would do that on a on a more global scale the problem would
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be that that uh we you you couldn't really move you
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want a correlations and economics uh what we kind of
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we we lie uh so it's always in a committed solicit a trade off we perceive between
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being as tight as possible in terms of causality in explaining causality not just correlation verse who's
00:18:41
uh external validity and a covering the biggest part of data and of the world as possible
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here we we go for the for kind of um one country
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but with very good pay a with relatively good data
00:18:54
a while in order start this uh if if you're interested i can talk also about my all the research
00:18:59
we would sometimes cover the whole of africa for example so we also papers very quotable of africa
00:19:05
here i'll um so i have until until a lunchtime right
00:19:10
that's well or until noon so so basically here i i may also give you
00:19:14
a a bit of an overview of what other people do an economy so
00:19:17
some maybe maybe you don't have so many economists coming over
00:19:20
to give talks right so so basically economics um
00:19:25
i i make religious conflict is kind of a and fixing a white
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well actually we're uh so if if i talk to my
00:19:33
first year students about conflict they always say but okay why do
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you talk about political science and economics is that economics
00:19:40
well it is economics because globally what what people have found is that in the fifty poorest
00:19:45
countries of the world in terms economically speaking well forty out of the the fifty
00:19:51
at uh are the main problem is political stability so if you want to explain development
00:19:56
a few well if you want to do development economics explain grows and prosperity
00:20:01
well the first thing you should look at is not sings like inflation and
00:20:05
the classical uh economic factors are you what you should look at
00:20:09
one of one of the foremost factors that would create poverty is really political instability
00:20:15
political instability would be a huge uh you tracked and that's why uh in the in the last years the the
00:20:21
literature has really been exploding it's a huge boom of studying
00:20:24
and things like political instability in conflict in economics
00:20:28
and so it make uh ethnic conflict is like a big big topic so there are many people
00:20:32
starting it um what people would focus on uh one of the the results which is
00:20:39
this is not kind of a hundred percent related to my paper but i just
00:20:43
save for the for the sake of of of of uh it's important saying and and and given 'em but i give a little
00:20:49
a only of the leadership one concept that's really important is eight
00:20:53
make polarisation and so these people here for example um
00:20:58
as the one my rather right right uh or they're not get all the methodical with the
00:21:02
people who have studied this and i think polarisation is you craig in this is off
00:21:07
of composition of ethnic groups in in the in the country and what these papers have found
00:21:12
is that actually in a country that's completely ethnically homogeneous think of norway um
00:21:19
you don't have a huge level of comfort usually in a country that has
00:21:23
a home that's off small groups think of car now you don't have many
00:21:27
conflicts neither what is really the dangers composition what they found is
00:21:32
two uh two or three really big groups of similar size and that's the
00:21:36
the polarisation index and polarisation index would be maximum would be uh it's
00:21:42
in index from zero to one and it would be close to one if you have two groups of almost fifty percent of the population
00:21:47
and countries that would to uh would have very high polarisation would would be a
00:21:53
condors like angle are quite them allow one double room the uh all
00:21:57
these countries with with uh where where you see in the data have had
00:22:00
a lot of conflict a country where polarisation would be very high
00:22:05
but has been peacefully switzerland and that's why our institutions are really important and that's why i kind of
00:22:11
a a in this research focus on or whether is it possible to export nice with institutions
00:22:17
could that also working another country is kind of swiss uh a tradition of power sharing um yeah
00:22:24
institutional conflict again there there are a a series of uh of of papers on that
00:22:29
usually that what what what the papers find is not likely a very clear cut effect of um
00:22:36
yeah not a very clear cut effect off democracy uh what
00:22:40
what you see is that a full democracies like switzerland
00:22:43
uh they usually tend to have a no conflict or very little uh
00:22:48
then full autocracy is like north korea and they would uh uh
00:22:54
this film tried a full full apocryphal autocracy is like some conducted a really
00:22:59
full autocracy is well in this full autocracy is uh an again
00:23:04
i in full autocracy i it's kind of a level of conflict is
00:23:08
not very high because uh it's really hard to organise any
00:23:12
any uh any uh a manifestation demonstration without being put to jail
00:23:17
or while kind of that at the places where where i'm a
00:23:21
complete is highest people from the r. and all classes
00:23:25
and across seas which uh which uh is a concept saying countries in the middle
00:23:29
where you have some democracy but not full democracy think
00:23:33
of a venezuela for example venezuela you would have
00:23:36
a uh we would have enough democracy that people could go in the streets and organise themselves
00:23:41
but it's very far from a full democracy which means that
00:23:45
people have still grievances and complaints uh to formulate
00:23:49
while uh they are still have the means to convert to complain while in the full autocracy
00:23:54
spate they have a lot of things to complain but they they don't have the means
00:23:58
to complain while in switzerland they have the means to complain but not much to complain about
00:24:02
right so so it's kind of in the in the middle range where its dangers
00:24:06
another result in in a paper have with paul paul collier uh
00:24:10
is like uh what we find is that democracy actually um
00:24:14
the market is usually would would reduce a a complete a lot in in the really rich countries
00:24:20
while in in poor countries uh the uh it's it's a bit more ambiguous because in um
00:24:26
i had it that there is this dangerous phase at the moment when elections take
00:24:30
place so there's quite a lot of electoral violent think of cain yeah
00:24:33
uh and so so basically uh one of the conclusions is that
00:24:38
especially if if if in the country uh to to to take the risk of conflict on the
00:24:43
line would be relatively big and there's a lot of or the rounded all these risk factors
00:24:47
their democracy is good but you should try to accompany it for example with peacekeepers and observer
00:24:54
independent observers et cetera so it's not like you we cannot have just the naive
00:24:59
a ration of maybe george w. bush uh some years back or saying
00:25:04
well let's organise elections until gonna have peace or maybe seen uh in afghanistan and iraq it
00:25:09
it's not just the fact of running an election that would kind of automatically deliver peace right
00:25:14
so this would be or the or the results here in this literature now when we talk about um power sharing
00:25:21
they talk about power sharing our like more specifically what exists uh as paper some power sharing
00:25:27
i'm kind of the existing guru on power sharing in political science would
00:25:32
be lost eric sediments so we would have a few papers
00:25:35
where he would uh have expert coding of pay they would go for it to a country would sell we
00:25:41
sink in this country um peace groups are kind of sherry power and how does this compare with conflict
00:25:47
now this is this is great because this is already much better than what we had before
00:25:52
but it has a few problems to put the first problem is it's
00:25:55
hand coded by experts so the experts of course if they're coding
00:25:59
um well they are influenced by how well uh groups get get along well together
00:26:04
so if if you know if groups are unified stand that would maybe
00:26:09
prevents them to coded as power sharing so the coding is androgynous
00:26:13
that would be the coding maybe uh there's cognitive bias so
00:26:16
you would code something uh influenced by if you
00:26:20
caught something in your influence by the results then you would have in her independence of the oh
00:26:24
if they get along well together no if there's peace well we call that power sharing if it's not
00:26:28
peace we don't call the power sure so it's kind of the decoding of the variables problematic
00:26:33
that the second thing is also again that there is there a in
00:26:37
this state or not uh some random shocks in power sharing
00:26:41
so it's the near correlation and the mute correlation again as i
00:26:44
was saying if uh john and i take the train together
00:26:48
uh and then uh have a good laugh and and worker on a paper
00:26:52
with phil uh only the uh uh if uh we have a good
00:26:56
laugh then it's not the the train that has great it's the that
00:26:59
the collaboration but it's the collaboration that is created to train right
00:27:03
so so so kind of um yeah so that that's a bit and and the
00:27:07
data is really a aggregate so what what what do we do differently
00:27:11
um uh here is well uh we can only do it for one country because for the rest of it wouldn't be there but
00:27:18
but for one country we have they that's much more precise than what exists in all the in the existing with the chip
00:27:23
we have also data on the perpetrators and the big been so we really it's not just like i carry gets
00:27:28
people dying and we don't know why they die but we're actually no for each uh killing we know
00:27:34
who is the perpetrator uh from which religious background is the provider who is the big
00:27:38
them what is the reason the purple white upper uh the person was killed
00:27:42
and so it's really uh it's for for each uh event of the of
00:27:46
these two dozen events we have really detailed information about everything and um
00:27:51
especially important is that we code power she'll uh sharing from administrative records
00:27:57
so in the u. k. what what they have is a a a freedom uh of uh information though
00:28:03
uh the freedom of information little is is something great for for researchers because
00:28:09
if you send an email to uh to l. a. u. k. government a unit
00:28:14
i am um and if i mean if you if you don't ask them to
00:28:18
work for free for months for you then if you if if if your
00:28:22
if you request can be dealt with within half a day or
00:28:25
so then they are obliged to on so you for transparency
00:28:29
so if we we have sent to emails to all of these twenty six a district
00:28:34
saying we want a list of all the the mayors to heads of these local
00:28:39
government and the vice mares the that the advise the president of these local
00:28:44
governments for the last forty years uh you have to send it to us
00:28:47
the core research more politely uh uh with the freedom of information little
00:28:53
and so uh most of them send it immediately and then some we had to send like
00:28:58
uh ten emails and have asked them a bit but at the end everybody answered
00:29:03
and so uh the law requires them to answer that and so we have of of these
00:29:08
of these uh of these districts we have a bit of you know who are
00:29:12
awarded the two main person in the government and historically how it works in northern island
00:29:17
the power sharing is that if you have power sharing between to go to parties
00:29:21
uh what you typically would do is some rotation involving that the head of the government and the vice set
00:29:26
so if we have a power sharing between this way since the
00:29:30
and the south africans uh for example then it would be
00:29:33
that uh once they had a south african and once the the vice say this within the next year we turn around
00:29:39
and so if you want to identify a some explicit or implicit power sharing
00:29:44
in in a government there what you can do is to see if
00:29:47
the if the head is catholic uh of catholic group uh and
00:29:51
and the vice head of a protestant party or vice versa then that would be
00:29:54
typically uh and power sharing it's of course may should with error but um
00:30:00
but it's automatic coding with another retirement automatic coding it eliminates all these cognitive
00:30:06
bias that you would have if experts would coded so we kind of
00:30:09
like this uh automatic way of coding uh and the
00:30:13
error to air it gets the noise where we
00:30:16
wrongly attribute something to power sharing or we we miss out on power sharing well we would
00:30:21
think of that most there's at integration by us so uh at
00:30:24
tenacious bias meaning that if in these regulations you add noise
00:30:29
well it makes the it makes the results we couldn't they are actually are
00:30:33
in reality so it may on their estimate if anything is the length of our results and so
00:30:40
and then we do this fixed effects which again but people don't to in the
00:30:43
literature so far uh on power sharing and then the last point is
00:30:48
that we yeah we have a we exploit exogenous
00:30:52
variation around the majority special so want me
00:30:55
to actually then in the second part of the paper is we compare uh cases
00:31:00
where um uh that that the biggest party has
00:31:05
is close to the fifty percent threshold but doesn't reach it with cases where
00:31:09
there really similar but that that that part is just a ball
00:31:13
the the fifty percent thresholding can govern alone so we for example uh if for example you
00:31:19
you are a party that that that reaches a forty nine percent of the votes
00:31:24
um and then you oblige or more you either you do i hung a hung government
00:31:29
like with a minority government or you have to reach out to the other group
00:31:33
to to form a coalition government like mercury in in germany if it works out a you try to do
00:31:38
a a um a coalition government uh and um so if you have forty nine percent of the votes
00:31:44
you are really kind of uh you have big incentives to do a coalition government with the others
00:31:49
power sharing while if now you have fifty one percent of the votes are very compatible case we have
00:31:55
fifty one percent of the vote well then you can govern alone you don't need the others
00:31:59
and so we're we we don't want to uh compare apples with peers but we want
00:32:03
to compare things that are comparable and so if we compare it the the
00:32:08
the the co consolation which forty nine percent of the votes with fifty one percent of the vote
00:32:12
it's just random whether you're at forty nine or fifty one but with forty nine you may
00:32:17
not to the power sharing well with fifty one you may do the power sharing
00:32:20
and so that's a random variation and make such as variations we would call in economics
00:32:25
that would kind of trigger to power sharing in so we can identify the causal impact
00:32:30
of the power sharing own then the the outcome of of peace or no peace
00:32:35
so that's kind of to distract the chain that's also update allows to do that uh up to some point
00:32:40
while the existing data out a pair of you people before wouldn't allow that right
00:32:46
so that's a no another kind of selling point of what we're doing
00:32:49
uh a few words on the on the context of northern island so norton islands so okay i don't know why uh um
00:32:58
yeah yeah project i didn't like the context of northern ireland so that so uh
00:33:03
northern part of island poster has been religiously divided since the sixteenth century
00:33:09
in nineteen and and so that has been kind of trouble uh of course uh
00:33:13
between the two different religious group in order and i in ireland in general
00:33:17
for a long time then i learnt became a country to probably go file in the beginning of the twenty century
00:33:23
uh but then things calmed down a bit and a violent again broke
00:33:27
out in nineteen sixty eight nineteen sixty eight was with the global
00:33:31
civic rights movement all around the world you know like uh the older hippies and stuff
00:33:35
and so basically i'm from sixty nine onwards sectarian violence exploded
00:33:41
um and and you had first or peaceful demonstrations and then if you would know this song of you to
00:33:46
a sunday bloody sunday uh so that was like um a demonstration but and the the the soldiers
00:33:52
we kind of shoot in in the in the in the crowd and that would
00:33:55
be a big list of the violence because it was perceived as kind of
00:33:59
uh arbitrary nasty state violence right uh yeah and so so kind of uh
00:34:05
um uh yeah and and the perception i mean
00:34:08
historically speaking i it was like a terrible
00:34:12
i tell people reaction of the of the police forces and so basically uh from
00:34:18
then on a while inspired so violence would explode from sixty nine on wood
00:34:23
and um and uh uh at some point uh even parts of terry or belfast
00:34:28
the police wouldn't even they're entering they were kind of no go zones
00:34:32
and then from seventy six it would kind of become a bit more quiet also because
00:34:36
the u. k. would send more troops in so it was more like that
00:34:40
they're saying okay by sending more troops in they could kind of get better control of the situation but it has to buy no way
00:34:46
sending troops in alone would not solve the problem and the problem was really kind of souls
00:34:51
in ninety eight where uh you had like on the national level a power sharing
00:34:56
on the national level between catholics and protestants but all ready before that
00:35:00
in the nineteen from the nineteen seventies on which they were local power sharing
00:35:04
at the local district eleven so it was kind of the it is experimentation on the
00:35:08
local level with power sharing that would then prepared a fertile ground for a nationwide
00:35:13
power sharing in ninety eight and what we can exploit here in the paper is
00:35:17
stays in the local power sharing in the in the seventies eighties and nineties
00:35:22
and not like the the topeka nation a national event because the big
00:35:26
national event this one data point we cannot do regression with one
00:35:29
data point right so so yeah so that's that's that's what we
00:35:33
what we gonna uh focus on now of course if um
00:35:38
now would break six troubles uh are again flaming up a bit so so
00:35:42
if you read for example recent article in the economist of last week
00:35:46
uh again um is so does that their travels to form
00:35:49
a a government and parties don't get along uh uh
00:35:53
uh uh well together at the moment uh and so the big problem is of course that that uh
00:36:00
and the question of what happens with with norton island uh uh what was not
00:36:05
really important as long as uh i was less import less salient as
00:36:09
long as the u. k. and ireland repose part of the u. because the
00:36:13
the border between rip public of uh i learned the northern island
00:36:16
what was a very porous border because it was posing the you know if the u.
00:36:21
k. nice to you then of course it becomes a hard border again between north
00:36:25
and south island and then that this may trigger new you trouble so so uh it
00:36:30
it's clear that uh that that it it's not over although since ninety eight
00:36:36
things are much better so our our data and fatalities data from stockton and kane
00:36:41
and we have all it in another paper with with thomas miller into features also
00:36:46
we have a created a and a data sets that are based on this available data very it's very
00:36:52
chill localised so you know the uh latitude longitude we
00:36:56
know exactly which treat as things take place
00:36:59
um the power sharing is collected by us as i was saying that the way we call what we call this power sharing is if
00:37:06
it off to to uh uh main people in the government one is
00:37:10
of the catholic block and one is of the protestant block
00:37:13
and we also to various refinements so we we know that for example some parties they were hostile to power sharing
00:37:19
so we would also say okay now let's filter let's only caught a
00:37:23
code uh this is partially if you have the catholic block
00:37:26
and the protestant block and none of the parties involved are one
00:37:29
of the uh of the with the ones that are notoriously
00:37:32
house style to power sharing and so we we do like three or four different ways
00:37:36
of coding it and show robustness to the to the of the results with that
00:37:40
and then we have various results on from that sense was on the share of catholics protestants et cetera
00:37:45
so in terms of what what what is the role correlation before doing any regression let's have
00:37:50
a look at the road data here you see the the the correlation or basically
00:37:56
oh here we have the timeline horizontally vertically you have
00:38:00
the number of council districts with power sharing and
00:38:03
that's uh that the dotted variable and so it is a rare is from zero to twenty six
00:38:08
uh so if everybody would and so it goes up to eighteen side at the
00:38:13
at the end quite many would actually do the power sharing while um
00:38:18
uh here the total fatalities that's the the solid line and that which vary from zero to forty
00:38:24
uh you see uh so that would be good people being killed in it is strict in
00:38:29
here so that would be a would be a fatalities in the cool poll a
00:38:35
the rule uh in the here uh uh seventy five for example so it would be one district a a
00:38:42
or cantonese with everybody would be a and here so it's it's quite scores of scented
00:38:46
numbers what you see is the role correlation is kind of negative meaning that
00:38:51
when you have low power sharing of more violent and where you have high power sharing you have less violent
00:38:57
now again this could just be a correlation so that's why we have to go further but that's like the big picture
00:39:04
and so now let's let's look at what happens with uh the regressions so very questions um
00:39:11
uh
00:39:13
so yeah uh you'll you'll know what what s. is right if i understood well right right okay
00:39:19
so yeah so we start with with with this it's simplest possible regression that well as
00:39:23
very basically put a does this fit uh uh between
00:39:27
the the the the the datsun b. we minimise
00:39:30
the squared deviation from from the fit line so we just try try to find the best fit
00:39:36
that that the observation is the district here as i was saying i can't and the uh
00:39:40
um the dependent variable is the number of complete related and vitality spurt thousand inhabitants
00:39:47
so uh so that that uh yeah it's it's
00:39:50
per population in a given administrative district here
00:39:55
the main experiment about it was a dummy of whether there is power sharing or not
00:40:00
so uh whether the little power is shared or not and so that's the regression read on so the equation is the following
00:40:06
so we explain fatalities at the district here level it's are
00:40:10
dependent variable that explain explain it with with a constant
00:40:15
and so actually with the fixed effects we gonna have constants that are specific for each cantons where um
00:40:21
then we we explain it with uh with our valuable power
00:40:24
sharing which batteries at the district here level so
00:40:27
uh it can belfast that you know prefaced would be several districts but
00:40:31
but like the western belfast district in a here seventy six could be power sharing but in seventy seven not
00:40:37
so it it varies at the district here level then we have uh this fixed effects which is a constant
00:40:43
for each district and we also have a et time affects which is the constant for each year
00:40:49
which would filter out every a global shocks hitting the whole economy so if
00:40:54
for example a closer to the big power power uh a sharing
00:40:59
uh later on the the player uh agreement of um
00:41:02
the good friday agreement if if getting closer to
00:41:05
the years uh two thousand two thousand well if that is something that would kind of um
00:41:11
that would uh decrease violence altogether well then this global effect hitting the whole
00:41:16
lot an island would be a a fill that out by the fact
00:41:20
that we also have a a a dummy variable account at a constant
00:41:24
or for each year which which with again a filter these out
00:41:28
and then we have some some uh some vector of all the control variables bearing
00:41:32
at that year level uh like a district your level and some editor
00:41:37
um so what that these are the results for for this or let's regression so uh the left hand what explains
00:41:44
casualties per capita how many people die per hundred thousand uh uh at the variable of interest is power sharing
00:41:51
first we we just do a analysts without doing these fixed effects in this
00:41:56
time effect and then with fixed in time effects uh um that
00:42:01
specification and then we add some controls we control for this teachers of catholic parties of
00:42:06
the protestant parties and and that's the the result what we get is basically
00:42:12
well let me get is uh that we find this statistically significant effect that the
00:42:17
one percent level of power sharing reducing that the level of conflict and
00:42:22
and here uh uh well that the corporation doesn't say so much but as i
00:42:26
was saying effects is really big if if you uh if you um
00:42:31
i it would actually given at the part baseline risk is low uh
00:42:37
uh here uh it would uh it can full power sharing would there would uh
00:42:43
the two three times less uh fatalities then if you have zero power sharing
00:42:49
so that's kind of what we what we do first and then we we look at okay and so uh intuitively
00:42:56
when we run this regressions we can estimate um we can
00:43:01
estimate what would be the average level of cat casualties
00:43:05
uh twelve me in the twelve months before power sharing start
00:43:09
and in the twelve months after power sharing start
00:43:12
so that's just a visual that's the same saying more or less than the regression that
00:43:16
i've just shown us the table but just a visual representation of that issue like
00:43:21
and so what you see here that that's at the level of says you on what you see
00:43:25
is that before the power sharing starts fatalities are are larger and after our saying starts
00:43:31
about these are lower right yeah that's so that's what you see visually and then if we
00:43:36
look at the what happens if you stop our sharing it's the other way around
00:43:40
so meaning that if you if you stop power sharing here at the point zero and you compare the
00:43:45
twelve months before with twelve months off there's and here on the scale of the casualties per head
00:43:51
what you see is that uh what while power sharing is still
00:43:54
in place casualties allow and then off the power sharing stops
00:43:58
casualties go off and that's what i was saying is that well
00:44:02
if now in switzerland we we uh we we we had
00:44:06
we had the bad idea of removing a whole lacked in speaking
00:44:10
switzerland from the government uh very soon troubles could start
00:44:14
so it's not like something that you can take for granted you always have to keep up the the
00:44:18
power sharing otherwise it's beneficial effects uh disappear and
00:44:23
that's what you see here graphically now um
00:44:27
let's uh let's talk so uh i uh let's talk a bit about uh the
00:44:34
this ad to s. l. s. a regression so well viewer knows what to s. l. s. it's
00:44:42
so it's the same thing as instrumental variables kind of it's a two
00:44:45
stage least square aggression meant maybe you do exactly the same
00:44:49
but you call it differently the kick it may well be but basically what we do there is we have a first h.
00:44:55
and in the first stage we we explain when power sharing takes place
00:45:00
and then um uh i can also do a show that graphically of it
00:45:05
uh so basically what we have is we have um a viable
00:45:12
no
00:45:14
majority so we have this variable this valuable no majority uh uh
00:45:25
would affect
00:45:28
the variable
00:45:30
what what uh affect the valuable power sharing
00:45:38
sharing
00:45:41
and the valuable power sharing
00:45:45
worked effect
00:45:48
a conflict the numbers of people killed right
00:45:54
ah
00:45:56
okay maybe yeah i know that
00:46:00
but no majority shouldn't have a direct effect
00:46:05
on on conflict and and so it's it it's uh should have a direct effect on conflict
00:46:12
um when you control for vouchers of the of the of of the parking that's what what what we do
00:46:18
and so so basically what what does that mean well what what what we do is we
00:46:23
we want to see what's that we want to see what's the the the in what's the impact of power sharing
00:46:29
on conflict but the problem is that if we don't use this instrument of no majority well that could be
00:46:36
a a causality running the other way around that conflict eaters power
00:46:40
sharing and so given that we're interested in the cool also
00:46:44
effect of power sharing on conflict but uh uh and want to
00:46:47
filter out any all their effect going in the other
00:46:50
direction what we do is we we it was a variable
00:46:53
that affects power sharing but that doesn't affect conflict
00:46:57
and so that that uh uh so so that's uh that that's the idea behind the
00:47:02
idea is that we want to look at at some kind of a random variation
00:47:06
uh in in the power sharing a valuable um that would not have a direct effect on conflict
00:47:13
uh and here again as a saying if you're close to this threshold if we
00:47:16
compare that in a forty nine votes per cents with the fifty one percent
00:47:21
we don't we of course if we compare a place with zero percent of
00:47:26
protestant boats with a place with a hundred percent protestant about these places are different that's
00:47:31
clear so we cannot compare them but if we compare forty nine which fifty one
00:47:35
vote vote chip then the places are very comparable and we expect
00:47:39
uh the the no majority valuable tool only affect power sharing
00:47:44
uh uh as complex rule the channel of power sharing and that's kind of the
00:47:48
idea of what we have here um and so when we do that yeah
00:47:54
when we do that maybe to show first the first stage that what we do in the first h. at the first stages this
00:48:02
and then the second stage uh is is the strike that's the second
00:48:06
stage and that's why collect two stages critically deaths to state
00:48:10
so the first stage we look is no majority really a powerful uh an explanatory variable
00:48:16
of power sherry does it really matter in what we see here yes it does
00:48:20
so if not always sectarian party neither the catholic or the protestant block
00:48:24
has it been that they're also neutral parties that are non sectarian
00:48:29
but but if neither of the of the two blocks has a majority well this would what's the likelihood
00:48:34
of power sharing by almost forty percent so there is also power sharing that takes place if
00:48:40
if it's not a if a if a if a a group as a majority so even if you
00:48:45
have to fifty one per cents you may still be nice enough to do the power sharing but
00:48:50
the likelihood in terms of pro probability that power sharing takes place is
00:48:54
much larger if nobody has the the the the majority right
00:48:59
and so that's that's the first thing so so we find indeed that no majority
00:49:04
the powerful instrument of power sharing an l. let's look at the second stage
00:49:08
if we look at the second stage what we see is then that's that this
00:49:13
instrument of power sharing a that is a in the c. i. decreases conflict
00:49:18
very substantially and uh that's what we see here even if you control for the teachers et cetera
00:49:24
uh for the fixed effect so we continued to control and then me what we do is we look at different band with
00:49:30
so here we compare it situation uh where turbo chairs of
00:49:34
the biggest part is between thirty percent and seventy percent
00:49:38
a bit close to the to the re we cannot get as close as
00:49:41
forty nine versus fifty one because you wouldn't have enough data points
00:49:45
but first we we are rather browse between thirty and seventy
00:49:49
and then between uh thirty five and a sixty five
00:49:54
and then at the closest we can get is really between forty
00:49:57
and sixty percent of of work so ten percentage points
00:50:01
from the majority threshold where we argue that indeed the
00:50:06
yeah a place where you get forty five percent or fifty five percent of the vote are still kind of comparable
00:50:12
now of course uh if we wanted to do even better if we wanted really to kind of
00:50:18
um uh i uh i i if you wanted to be
00:50:22
even more confident on the results what we would have
00:50:25
to have would be more data points so that we could have a a even more narrow window right
00:50:31
um so so by the way something i forgot to stated that the paper be prepared it
00:50:36
for a for a for a journal called economic policy in case uh
00:50:41
uh so we eh revising its uh i currently for for for for this
00:50:46
for this journal which is just something i i should also say uh for the
00:50:50
top uh yeah so so basically um yeah so that that that's the perfect
00:50:55
we find that that indeed even for a narrow bandwidth even when you control for all this stuff
00:51:00
we we find this this causal effect of power sharing own conflict
00:51:05
um then we do a a bunch of robustness checked well not gonna talk about them in detail
00:51:10
so we use different population data different ways of coding power sharing it different construction of the boundaries
00:51:17
uh we also stock in ninety five uh in some specifications
00:51:21
just to be sure that that we don't pick up a nationwide uh effect of that big ninety eight
00:51:27
power sharing nationwide we also restrict yourself around election right before the election right
00:51:33
after the election because uh for the control variables lack causality is
00:51:38
uh or for example the demographic controls or political
00:51:43
uh uh controls so um yeah and then
00:51:48
we do heterogeneous effect but that's basically don't find anything right uh is uh nothing is significant so we we
00:51:54
wanted to look at to be defined a stronger effect if there are more catholics in a place
00:51:59
and we don't really we find a an effect that speaks in other no
00:52:03
matter whether you have more or less catholics in in a place
00:52:06
so to conclude um so that this or ethical argument white power
00:52:11
sharing could matter is is that it's very simple but
00:52:14
it makes sense right to say that if you're completely excluded from power well you may have incentives
00:52:20
as malcolm x. puts it to to uh to replace the the ballot with the bullet
00:52:25
i'm not an island is an ideal setting to study this because a kind of a it's
00:52:30
a rich country having conflict and they're not many cases of rich countries are in conflict
00:52:34
so the data quality is excellent here compared to what we could otherwise get
00:52:39
um the empirical strike what what does it do that is it is it links to me to
00:52:46
uh so uh empirical strategy other saying based on fixed effects
00:52:51
instrumental valuable and restricting good observations close to this
00:52:55
rational conclusion is that power sharing reduces violent
00:52:58
not just a few words on the cabinets on the on we have to be we have to results of course as always have
00:53:04
to be taken with a grain of salt so what what are the things you have to be careful about first of all
00:53:10
that weakness of the paper is that we don't have so many observations right next to this
00:53:16
racial so i would have loved to run the regression just forty nine versus fifty one
00:53:21
and so given that there is not enough data points we have to have a a a a
00:53:25
window that is that is not so small so we have to we have to buy
00:53:29
if we if we be in the even the results have to buy the assumptions that place
00:53:34
with forty five percent of words and fifty five per support are not very different right
00:53:39
that's the first copy at um while if we if we uh if we have more data we could do something
00:53:45
which is called economics a regression discontinuity design i don't know if you do that also come you designs
00:53:51
this is quite a cool the methodology but basically you would really compare
00:53:57
uh that's the threshold uh uh to the different um at the
00:54:01
different observations uh and you can also do that graphically this is quite cool but we don't have enough alterations to do that
00:54:08
second a caddy at is external validity is it of course we have one country
00:54:13
and what works for switzerland and works for northern ireland does it mean
00:54:17
that it also needs necessary to work for libya or live along
00:54:22
uh or three long car well it's not clear right the context to really really matters as well and so
00:54:28
what what would be really important especially if you think of uh uh for example e. d. i.
00:54:35
it may be harder to do a power make power sharing work that they've been what is
00:54:39
in switzerland it and in a northern island so what would be really interesting now
00:54:45
if if somebody could do some similar a paper but with data for for ever come
00:54:50
to that is very different maybe from from another continent maybe confidence less rich
00:54:55
so that we see that how how far to results can be generalised so that

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