Stanford University

The Divergent Paths of Taiwan and Hong Kong

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larry diamond, charles mok, jason hsu photos for event on april 12 on blue background
Join us on Tuesday, April 12 from 12 PM - 1 PM PT for “Internet Freedom Under Threat: The Divergent Paths of Taiwan and Hong Kong” featuring Charles Mok, Visiting Scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator and Jason Hsu, Chief Initiative Officer at Taiwan AI Labs, in conversation with Larry Diamond, co-lead for the Global Digital Policy Incubator and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. This weekly seminar series is jointly organized by the Cyber Policy Center’s Program on Democracy and the Internet and the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative.

About The Seminar: 

Both Taiwan and Hong Kong face increasing threats of online misinformation and cybersecurity risks, but the freedoms of the Internet for their citizens appear to be heading in opposite directions. From censorship and surveillance to influencing public opinions and elections, what are the lessons from the experiences of Hong Kong and Taiwan for the world?

Our speakers will provide an overview of the state of internet freedom in Hong Kong from before to after the enactment of the National Security Law in 2020. Censorship and surveillance are on the rise, and a misinformation law is looming on the horizon, to give the government and the police even more unfettered power. We will also cover the techniques used by cyber intrusion groups aimed at toppling election campaigns. Drawing research work from Taiwan AI Labs, we elaborate on how AI is used to track misinformation on social media particularly on Chinese-language speaking portals.

Jason Hsu is Senior Research Fellow at The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Harvard Kennedy School. From 2016 to 2020 Hsu served as Legislator At-Large in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (national parliament) overseeing technology policy, development, entrepreneurship and innovation. Known as Crypto Congressman, Jason is credited for setting up Asia Blockchain Alliance (ABA),Taiwan Parliamentary Coalition for Blockchain (TPCB) and Self- Regulatory Organization(SRO).

Charles Mok is a Visiting Scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator. Prior to his time at Stanford, Charles served as an elected member of the Legislative Council in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, representing the Information Technology functional constituency, for two terms from 2012 to 2020. He served alternatively as chair and vice chair of the Information Technology and Broadcasting Panel from 2016 to 2020. As a lawmaker, Charles was a champion for policies and legislations on privacy, open data, freedom of expression and information, cybersecurity, innovation, fintech, electronic health records, as well as human rights and democracy.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.  At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years.  He also co-leads with (Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy.

Larry Diamond

Charles Mok

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Research Scholar, Global Digital Policy Incubator
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Charles is a Research Scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford University, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society, and a board member of the International Centre for Trade Transparency and Monitoring. Charles served as an elected member of the Legislative Council in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, representing the Information Technology functional constituency, for two terms from 2012 to 2020. In 2021, he founded Tech for Good Asia, an initiative to advocate positive use of technology for businesses and civil communities. As an entrepreneur, Charles co-founded HKNet in 1994, one of the earliest Internet service providers in Hong Kong, which was acquired by NTT Communications in 2000. He was the founding chair of the Internet Society Hong Kong, honorary president and former president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, former chair of the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association, and former chair of the Asian, Australiasian and Pacific Islands Regional At-Large Organization (APRALO) of ICANN. Charles holds a BS in Computer and Electrical Engineering and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

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Jason Hsu
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Drell Lecture 2022: The President's Nuclear Button

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LECTURE RECORDING

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Currently, the president alone can authorize a nuclear strike while only Congress can declare war. Is it time to update our Cold War-era nuclear use policies?

Congressman Ted W. Lieu represents California’s 33rd Congressional District. In his fourth term in Congress, he sits on the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees. A former active-duty officer in the U.S. Air Force, Congressman Lieu established himself as a leader on the environment; cybersecurity; civil liberties; government ethics and veterans. Four times, he has introduced legislation to prevent the president from launching a nuclear first strike without congressional approval.

Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

Congressman Ted Lieu
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Drell Lecture

Russia’s ambitions, Ukraine’s resistance, and the West’s response

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Steven Pifer
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Steven Pifer: President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, his government, but also the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, continue to defiantly work in Kyiv, and they’re showing the determination that you’ve seen over the last two and a half weeks by the Ukrainians to resist the Russian attack. 

Read the rest at Brookings

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On March 15, as the Russia-Ukraine war neared the three-week mark, Brookings experts held a discussion on developments in the conflict so far and what might be coming.

Are We Dumb about Intelligence?

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Amy Zegart
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Amy Zegart is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of political science at Stanford University, and the author of a new book, Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. In this frank conversation, Zegart grades American intelligence-gathering operations, recent and historical, and compares them to their counterparts in China and Russia. Professor Zegart also discusses Silicon Valley’s crucial role in these operations and how they often conflict with the politics of the people running tech companies. Finally, Zegart discusses the crucial ability of the intelligence community to recruit the next generation of spies and analysts, some of whom may be her own students.

Watch with Uncommon Knowledge 

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Amy Zegart on the Capabilities of American Intel Gathering

Misty Mazzara

Stanford Health Policy
615 Crothers Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Senior Associate Director for Administration and Research Development
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MEd

Misty Mazzara is our Senior Associate Director for Administration and Research Development, working closely with leadership to further strategic initiatives and projects in the department.  Additionally, she manages our department administrative associate team and student services staff, and collaborates with the Director of Finance and Administration to oversee aspects of HR and facilities.  Misty received her M.Ed. from Texas A&M University-Kingsville and her BSW from University of Georgia. 

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What Facebook and Instagram Users Tell Us About Misinformation

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Join us on Tuesday, April 5th from 12 PM - 1 PM PT for “What Facebook and Instagram Users Tell Us About Misinformation” featuring Hubert Etienne, Philosopher and Researcher, Ecole Normale Supérieure and Meta AI in conversation with Julie Owono, Executive Director of the Content Policy & Society Lab. This weekly seminar series is jointly organized by the Cyber Policy Center’s Program on Democracy and the Internet and the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative.

About The Seminar: 

Social media users who report content are key allies in the management of online misinformation. However, no research has been conducted yet to understand their role and the different trends underlying their reporting activity. Hubert Etienne presents an original approach to studying misinformation by examining it from the reporting users’ perspective at the content-level and comparatively across regions and platforms. This leads Etienne to propose the first classification of reported content pieces, resulting from a review of items reported on Facebook and Instagram in France, the UK, and the US in June 2020 to observe meaningful distinctions regarding misinformation reporting between countries and platforms as it significantly varies in volume, type, topic, and manipulation technique. Etienne identifies four reporting behaviors, from which he derives four types of noise capable of explaining the majority of the inaccuracy in misinformation reporting. He finally shows that breaking down the user reporting signal into a plurality of behaviors allows us to build a simple classifier trained on a small dataset with a combination of basic users-reports capable of identifying these different types of noise.

Speakers:

Hubert Etienne is a philosopher conducting research in AI ethics and computational philosophy at École Normale Supérieure and Meta AI. His research focuses on social interactions, especially the moderation of problematic interactions in cyberspace. He is a lecturer in AI ethics à Sciences Po, in data economics at HEC Paris and in digital regulation at the National School of Administration. He is currently a visiting fellow at Harvard University.


Julie Owono is the Executive Director of the Content Policy & Society Lab (CPSL) and a fellow of the Program on Democracy and the Internet (PDI) at Stanford University. She is also the Executive Director of digital rights organization Internet Sans Frontières, one of the inaugural members of the Facebook Oversight Board, and an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. She holds a Master’s degree in International Law from la Sorbonne University in Paris, and practiced as a lawyer at the Paris Bar.

Hubert Etienne
Seminars

Pathways Into a Tech Policy Career

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Are you interested in a career in technology policy, but aren't sure how to get there from here? Trying to decide between law school and grad school, or industry and public service? Wondering what to do now to position yourself better for your dream job later? Join a panel of Stanford experts for an in-person event to discuss the many different pathways you can follow to achieve a rewarding career working on cutting-edge issues while making a positive difference in the world. 

Lunch will be provided. Social distancing will be available. This event will not be recorded or livestreamed.

PANELISTS:

Leslie Saul Garvin
Leslie Saul Garvin | Senior Program Director, Cardinal Careers, Haas Center for Public Service

Leslie graduated from Stanford with a degree in political science and a focus on international security and arms control. She has since worked in everything from small nonprofits to large tech corporations and high-tech trade associations. In tech, she led corporate social impact initiatives and public-private partnerships around education and cyber security. She also lobbied on science and workforce policy. 

andrew grotto
Andrew Grotto  | Director of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, Stanford Cyber Policy Center

Grotto’s research interests center on the national security and international economic dimensions of America’s global leadership in information technology innovation, and its growing reliance on this innovation for its economic and social life. Before coming to Stanford, Grotto was the Senior Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the White House in two presidential administrations. He has a JD from the University of California at Berkeley, an MPA from Harvard University, and a BA from the University of Kentucky.

Riana Pfefferkorn
Riana Pfefferkorn | Research Scholar, Stanford Internet Observatory

Riana Pfefferkorn is a Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She studies encryption policy, online trust and safety, and novel forms of electronic surveillance and data access by U.S. law enforcement and their impact on civil liberties. She has a JD from the University of Washington School of Law and a BA from Whitman College.

Building 60, Room 109

Riana Pfefferkorn

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Former Research Scholar, Stanford Internet Observatory
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Riana Pfefferkorn was a Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She investigated the U.S. and other governments' policies and practices for forcing decryption and/or influencing the security design of online platforms and services, devices, and products, both via technical means and through the courts and legislatures. Riana also studies novel forms of electronic surveillance and data access by U.S. law enforcement and their impact on civil liberties. 

Previously, Riana was the Associate Director of Surveillance and Cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, where she remains an affiliate. Prior to joining Stanford, she was an associate in the Internet Strategy & Litigation group at the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, and a law clerk to the Honorable Bruce J. McGiverin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. During law school, she interned for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Riana has spoken at various legal and security conferences, including Black Hat and DEF CON's Crypto & Privacy Village. She is frequently quoted in the press, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR. Riana is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Law and Whitman College.

Complete list of publications and recent blog posts here.

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Andrew Grotto

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Stanford University
Encina Hall, C428

Stanford, CA 94305-6165

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Andrew Grotto

Andrew J. Grotto is a research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Grotto’s research interests center on the national security and international economic dimensions of America’s global leadership in information technology innovation, and its growing reliance on this innovation for its economic and social life. He is particularly interested in the allocation of responsibility between the government and the private sector for defending against cyber threats, especially as it pertains to critical infrastructure; cyber-enabled information operations as both a threat to, and a tool of statecraft for, liberal democracies; opportunities and constraints facing offensive cyber operations as a tool of statecraft, especially those relating to norms of sovereignty in a digitally connected world; and governance of global trade in information technologies.

Before coming to Stanford, Grotto was the Senior Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the White House in both the Obama and Trump Administrations. His portfolio spanned a range of cyber policy issues, including defense of the financial services, energy, communications, transportation, health care, electoral infrastructure, and other vital critical infrastructure sectors; cybersecurity risk management policies for federal networks; consumer cybersecurity; and cyber incident response policy and incident management. He also coordinated development and execution of technology policy topics with a nexus to cyber policy, such as encryption, surveillance, privacy, and the national security dimensions of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

At the White House, he played a key role in shaping President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan and driving its implementation. He was also the principal architect of President Trump’s cybersecurity executive order, “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure.”

Grotto joined the White House after serving as Senior Advisor for Technology Policy to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, advising Pritzker on all aspects of technology policy, including Internet of Things, net neutrality, privacy, national security reviews of foreign investment in the U.S. technology sector, and international developments affecting the competitiveness of the U.S. technology sector.

Grotto worked on Capitol Hill prior to the Executive Branch, as a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He served as then-Chairman Dianne Feinstein’s lead staff overseeing cyber-related activities of the intelligence community and all aspects of NSA’s mission. He led the negotiation and drafting of the information sharing title of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which later served as the foundation for the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that President Obama signed in 2015. He also served as committee designee first for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and later for Senator Kent Conrad, advising the senators on oversight of the intelligence community, including of covert action programs, and was a contributing author of the “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program.”

Before his time on Capitol Hill, Grotto was a Senior National Security Analyst at the Center for American Progress, where his research and writing focused on U.S. policy towards nuclear weapons - how to prevent their spread, and their role in U.S. national security strategy.

Grotto received his JD from the University of California at Berkeley, his MPA from Harvard University, and his BA from the University of Kentucky.

Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation
Former Director, Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance
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Leslie Saul Garvin
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Japan’s Top Envoy to the U.S. Discusses the State of Japan Studies in Higher Education with Stanford and UC Berkeley Experts

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Michael Breger
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On March 22, 2022, APARC's Japan Program welcomed a delegation from the Embassy of Japan in the United States and the Consulate-General of Japan in San Francisco, including Ambassador Koji Tomita and Consul-General Hiroshi Kawamura, who met with a joint panel of scholars and administrators from Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley for a discussion about fostering a greater understanding of Japan studies in the United States.

APARC Deputy Director and Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui presented data on enrollment and employment statistics for Japanese studies in higher education. According to the report, Japanese studies have been in a slow state of decline since the late 1980s, when many in the United States viewed Japan as an economic threat and the country was not as well-understood as it is today. Despite this decline, students today are still very interested in studying Japan and are eager to visit the country.

Naomi Funahashi, Manager of the Reischauer Scholars Program and Teacher Professional Development at the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), presented outcomes from SPICE's outreach efforts and promotion of Japanese studies in the K-14 context. Funahashi indicated strong interest in and engagement with SPICE curricular units focused on Japan and with its local student programs in six regions, one university, and two high schools in Japan.

Sign up for APARC newsletters to receive our experts' analysis and commentary. 

Ambassador Tomita
Ambassador Tomita
Professor Kiyoteru Tsutsui
Kiyoteru Tsutsui
Consul-General Kawamura
Consul-General Kawamura
Junko Habu
Junko Habu
The delegation discusses Japan studies in the U.S.
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Professor Junko Habu, Chair of the Center for Japanese Studies (CJS) and Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, along with Kumi Sawada Hadler, Program Director of CJS, described logistical challenges Japan scholars have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the inability to access the country under lockdown, and indicated that, across the board, universities are not providing as much support for Japanese studies as they used to, especially in terms of endowed faculty positions and departmental "slots" specifically for Japan specialists.

Ambassador Tomita and Consul-General Kawamura agreed that more support was needed to bolster scholarships of Japan. Ambassador Tomita stated that over his long career, he has seen the theoretical focus of Japan studies in the United States shift away from bilateral relations between the two countries toward the region at large. He noted that the public discussion is increasingly directed at Japan as part of a broader complex of nations in East Asia. Consul-General Kawamura indicated that the pandemic has posed a host of challenges for his office but that Japan will continue to open its doors to scholars in the future. 

The meeting concluded with a reaffirmation of the longstanding and crucial relationship between the two nations and of the importance of Japan studies in the United States in fostering fruitful collaboration between the two nations. 

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Protesters hold signs and chant slogans during a Black Lives Matter peaceful march in Tokyo.
Q&As

New Book by Stanford Sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui Probes the Decoupling of Policy and Practice in Global Human Rights

In his new book, Shorenstein APARC’s Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui explores the paradox underlying the global expansion of human rights and Japan’s engagement with human rights ideas and instruments. Japan, he says, has an opportunity to become a leader in human rights in Asia and in the world.
New Book by Stanford Sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui Probes the Decoupling of Policy and Practice in Global Human Rights
A man cycles past a security fence outside the New National Stadium, the main stadium for the Tokyo Olympics, on June 23, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan
Q&As

The Long and Winding Road to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics

While public support in Japan has been lackluster for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the mood may change once the games start – provided no major public health incidents and other unfortunate accidents occur, says Stanford sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui.
The Long and Winding Road to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics
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News

Charles Crabtree Appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor with the Japan Program at APARC

Crabtree, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, researches discrimination in politics, particularly in Japan.
Charles Crabtree Appointed as a Visiting Assistant Professor with the Japan Program at APARC
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At an in-person meeting of a joint delegation from Japan's Embassy to the United States and Consulate-General of Japan in San Francisco with a panel of experts from Stanford and UC Berkeley, Japanese Ambassador Koji Tomita stressed the importance of bilateral academic collaboration in the continual development of the U.S.-Japan partnership.

2022 CDDRL Fisher Family Honors Program Award Winner Presentations

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CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. For our final Spring 2022 seminar, please join us to hear our Honors Program award winners present their research.

Adrian Scheibler, Firestone Medal winner
 

Adrian Scheibler
Major: International Relations
Thesis Advisor: Christophe Crombez

Thesis Title: Challenging the State: Western European Regionalism in the Era of Financial Crisis

Abstract: The Global Financial Crisis and its aftershocks have substantially altered the Western European political landscape. But while the literature has extensively focused on the impacts of the economic hardship on traditional party competition, it has often failed to consider the center-periphery dimension. My thesis addresses both the demand for and supply of regionalist ideologies during the crisis. Using an original dataset containing 8 countries, 35 regions, and 128 regionalist parties, it finds that voters did not increase their support for regionalist parties during the crisis and may have even turned their backs on these political actors. In addition, I consider the reactions of regionalist parties in three Spanish autonomous communities - Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia - to the crisis. I find evidence of regionalist mobilization on the issue and even some indications of radicalization of regionalist demands. Taken together, these findings raise interesting implications for the impacts of the financial crisis and the interaction between economic indicators, party competition, and voting patterns.

 

Michal Skreta, CDDRL Outstanding Thesis winner
 

Michal Skreta
Major: Economics and Political Science
Thesis Advisor: Larry Diamond

Thesis Title: Babies, Money, and Power: Estimating Causal Effects of the “Family 500+” Child Benefit Program in Poland using the Synthetic Control Method

Abstract: The ‘Family 500+” child benefit program introduced in April 2016 by the government of Poland has become the single most expensive component of Polish social policy expenditure, yet past studies have rarely estimated the effects of the program through causal methods. In a novel application within this context, I propose using the synthetic control method as a causal identification strategy to empirically estimate country-level treatment effects of the program on fertility, poverty, and inequality. Treating 500+ as a natural experiment, I compare observational data from actual Poland with a synthetic counterfactual of Poland constructed from a weighted donor pool of other European countries through a data-driven selection procedure. My findings on fertility metrics are consistent with prior studies, being ambiguous and insignificant, indicating that the main short-term objective of the program has not been achieved. Meanwhile, I find that the program causally reduced the rate of people at risk of poverty in Poland by over 16%, including by more than 23% among children. I also find that the child benefit has led to a significant reduction in income inequality, being causally responsible for a decline of 5.9% in the Gini index and of 8.0% in the income quintile share ratio. While significant, the results on poverty and inequality are weaker than initially anticipated. My results are robust under in-space treatment reassignment placebo studies. The findings contribute to a growing literature on the causal effects of child benefit policy interventions applied on an aggregate unit level.

 

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Stephen J. Stedman
Didi Kuo

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Adrian Scheibler

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CDDRL Honors Student, 2021-22
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Major: International Relations / Coterm Public Policy   
Minor: Economics
Hometown: Augst, Switzerland
Thesis Advisor: Christophe Crombez 

Tentative Thesis Title: Separatism in Western Europe: Ideologies and the European Union

Future aspirations post-Stanford: Continue with studies either in law or political science/economics.

A fun fact about yourself: I spent the coronavirus lockdown in Belgium.

Michal Skreta

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CDDRL Honors Student, 2021-22
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Major: Economics and Political Science   
Hometown: Warsaw, Poland
Thesis Advisor: Larry Diamond

Tentative Thesis Title: Babies, Money, and Power: Estimating Causal Effects of the “Family 500+” Child Benefit Program in Poland using the Synthetic Control Method

Future aspirations post-Stanford: I hope to ultimately pursue a career at the intersection of private and public sectors with a strong international focus as well as to continue my interdisciplinary education in graduate school.

A fun fact about yourself: I once got lost on a volcano in Guatemala.

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