The Institutions, Organizations, and Growth Program (IOG), in partnership with the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkely, invites leading scholars and IOG members to convene for a research conference and academic exchange. The IOG Program aims to move beyond the limits of traditional economic approaches and provide new frameworks for understanding why some nations succeed economically while others continually fail; why institutions that foster wealth and well-being in one culture, location, or historical period may be less effective in another; and what policies will create the greatest potential for progress. The IOG Program has a long tradition of fruitful interdisciplinary interactions among scholars from a wide range of analytical perspectives in the social sciences.
Scholars who study topics related to institutions, organizations, and growth across a wide variety of disciplines were invited. If you have any questions, please email bfi-events@uchicago.edu.
The next IOG-BFI conferences will be held on October 3-5, 2025 (Chicago), March 20-22, 2026 (Chicago), June 5-7, 2026 (Stanford), and October 2-4, 2026 (Chicago).
All times are listed in PST
PHOTOS
Agenda
Registration and Breakfast
Do Elections Moderate or Polarize Political Rhetoric?
Guido Tabellini, Bocconi University
Break
Psychedelics in the Wild: An Experiment in Brazil
Patrick Francois, University of British Columbia
Matt Lowe, University of British Columbia
Lunch
Political Economy of Subsidy-Giving
Cailin Slattery, University of California, Berkeley
Panel: Gerard Roland’s Scholarship Through the Eyes of Coauthors
Patrick Bolton, Imperial College London
Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley
Torsten Persson, Stockholm University
Tim Besley, London School of Economics (Moderator)
Reception
Breakfast
Closing Gender Gaps Through Workplace Diversity: The Intergenerational Effects of World War I
Guo Xu, University of California, Berekeley
Break
Jensen and Meckling at 50
Patrick Bolton, Imperial College London
Lunch
Explaining Persistent Duopolies of Violence: How the State Gets Drug Gangs to Govern for It
Benjamin Lessing, University of Chicago
Break
Discussion and Conclusions
Conference Dinner
Breakfast
IOG Business Meeting
Program Members and BFI Senior Staff
When Democracy Refuses to Die: Evaluating a Training Program for New Politicians
Ernesto Dal Bo, University of California, Berkeley
Break
The Increasing Cost of Buying American
Matilde Bombardini, University of California, Berkeley
Conference Adjourns
Boxed lunches provided