Statistics Out on a Limb Project
(Curtis S. Signorino)

• Strategic interaction and the statistical analysis of international conflict
• Strategic misspecification in discrete choice models
• Theoretical sources of uncertainty in statistical strategic models
• A statistical strategic model of extended deterrence
• Pooled games and the Historian's Hypothesis
• Strategy and selection in International Relations
• An iterated method for estimating recursive strategic models
• Semiparametric estimation of strategic models

The IMF and Post-Communist Transition
(Randall W. Stone)

Critics and proponents of the International Monetary Fund attribute to it a great deal of influence over the economic strategies of post-Communist countries; yet both qualitative and quantitative studies of the role of the Fund in the developing world suggest that its influence is actually quite limited. Is the IMF capable of filling the role of manager of the post-Communist transition, a sort of central bank of last resort that lends credibility to economic reform policies, or is this role too ambitious to assign to a politicized international organization? The objective of this project is to address this question by advancing the theoretical and empirical frontiers of our understanding of the politics of adjustment lending. This project provides a unique combination of research methods: formal, game-theoretic modeling, quantitative empirical analysis, and four detailed case studies of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Bulgaria.

The Watson Seminar Series

The seminar series provide a forum for faculty and advanced graduate students to present their research at various stages of completion. The series are intended as a setting where researchers can share ideas and comment on each other's work. In addition, there will be several research reading weeks where participants read and discuss topics of general interest.