"Formal Modeling for Substantive Social Research: The Place of Narratives  in Linking Theory to Models" abstract This talk grows out of Mershon's book manuscript, _Formal Modeling for Substantive Research_, co-authored with Olga Shvetsova. The talk and the book focus on the methodology of using formal models as a systematic component in research design in political…

"Falling back into Gender? Men's Narratives and Practices around First-time Fatherhood"

"Explaining variation of EU effectiveness in international development negotiations" abstract This article analyses the role played by the European Union in the changing development architecture, focusing on the negotiation and conclusion of four high-level forums on aid effectiveness, held in Rome (2003), Paris (2005), Accra (2008) and Busan (2011). Drawing on published and unpublished material and…

"The Greek euro-crisis: between government failure and failed government" abstract The presentation seeks to provide an analytical account of the Greek crisis that goes beyond simple and partial explanations of the crisis, which typically focus selectively either on domestic problems and weaknesses (fiscal laxity, corruption, weak administrative capacities, reform resistance) or on external and systemic…

"Feedback in international migration: Brazilian and Ukrainian migration to Portugal" abstract After the remarkable migration inflows that occurred during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Brazilians and Ukrainians became the two largest foreign nationalities present in Portugal. Since then, there has been a stabilisation and a recent decline of the flow. While the economic crisis…

"Strategies for Diversifying Academe: Redressing Bias against Women and Minority Scholars in the Social Science Professions"

"European Cities and their Migrant Integration Policies"

"The end of the experiment? From competition to the foundational economy"

"The Superiority of Economists" AbstractIn this essay, we investigate the dominant position of economics within the network of the social sciences in the United States. We begin by documenting the relative insularity of economics, using bibliometric data. Next we analyze the tight management of the field from the top down, which gives economics its characteristic hierarchical structure. Economists also…

"Tax Evasion in Italy: A God-given right?"

"Increasingly unequal. The economic crisis, trust in institutions and social inequalities in six peripheral European countries" abstract The 2008-09 economic crisis has been identified as an important element contributing to declining trust in institutions in Europe and other countries. However, it is unclear whether the decline in trust is distributed homogenously among citizens, or whether…

"Fathers Unequal: U.S. Men as Partners and Parents in an Era of Rapid Family Change" Abstract While major changes in U.S. family demography—and their growing divergence by socioeconomic status—have received notable attention, less well understood is the extent to which the nature and implications of family change may differ between men and women, mothers and…

"Revisiting cross-national variations in preference for redistribution. Attitudes to inequalities, social beliefs, and welfare systems" abstract There are significant differences across countries in terms of redistribution by the government and they may correspond to underlying dissimilarities in preference for redistribution across the population of these countries. In particular, previous literature has compared the US and…

"Lobbying the EU"

"Journey to the centre of the EU: Does Europe have a core, and does it matter?" abstract What kind of ‘core’, if any, does Europe have? This question has gained new urgency in light of the EU’s ongoing crises, which are reshaping the integration project and leading to a renewal of political discourses around the…

"Choosing the Path of Austerity: How Policy Coalitions ShapeWelfare-policy Choices in Periods of Fiscal Consolidation" Abstract This paper focuses on the effect of fiscal adjustment programs on public social expenditures.We show that budget consolidations are generally associated with welfare state retrenchment.But do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which…

 "Why is youth employment falling? A comparative analysis of skill matching and labor demand in Europe" abstract Youth employment has fallen in many countries in recent decades. How can this development be explained? Potentially important causes include economic recessions, long-term losses of labor demand, upgrading of job structures, educational expansion, and changes in skill matching…

"Do “Institutional Complementaries” Foster Female Labour Force Participation?" Abstract I analyse the response of female labour force participation to policies supporting the work-life balance, with country-level data from the early 1980s for 18 OECD countries. It includes an original analysis of interactions and complementarity between different policy measures, as well as of potential variations in…