Stanford University

Business

Siegfried Fina

Stanford Law School
Transatlantic Technology Law Forum
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

(650) 723-8532
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Distinguished Austrian Chair Professor (2010)
Visiting Professor, Stanford Law School
fina_kl_245x331.jpg JD, J.S.D

Siegfried Fina is co-director of the Stanford-Vienna Transatlantic Technology Law Forum (a joint venture of Stanford Law School and the University of Vienna School of Law) and an associate professor of European Union Law and Technology Law at the University of Vienna School of Law in Austria. His work focuses on the business-related and the technology-related law and policy of the European Union as well as on the legal aspects of the EU-U.S. trade and the economic governance issues of the transatlantic marketplace.

Until 2002, Fina was an associate professor of law at the Vienna University of Technology. He also is an adjunct associate professor of law at Danube University Krems in Austria. He is a member of the board of directors of the International Federation for European Law (FIDE) and a member of the European Union Studies Association of the U.S. and Austria. Fina received a JD and JSD from the University of Vienna School of Law. In addition, he received a Diploma in Business Administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, a Diploma in Political Science from the University of Vienna Department of Government and Political Science, and a post-graduate Diploma in International Studies from the University of Vienna.

Co-Director, Stanford-Vienna Transatlantic Technology Law Forum
Europe Center Research Affiliate
Associate Professor of Law, University of Vienna, Austria

Program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region

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The Forum on Contemporary Europe is pleased to announce the inauguration of its research and public dissemination program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region. With generous support from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, the Forum's Program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region is able to act on long term plans to launch research and public programs on Sweden and the pressing issues of the Scandinavian and Baltic region. Special emphasis will be placed on developments in Sweden and the region's trans-Atlantic relations, and on the evolution of domestic and international policy, culture, science, trade, and law in emerging global relations.

The Forum on Contemporary Europe is pleased to announce the inauguration of its research and public dissemination program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region. With generous support from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, the Forum is able to act on long term plans to launch research and public programs on Sweden and the pressing issues of the Scandinavian and Baltic region. Special emphasis will be placed on developments in Sweden and the region's trans-Atlantic relations, and on the evolution of domestic and international policy, culture, science, trade, and law in emerging global relations.

The Forum's Program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region is comprised of several components, which together are designed to make the Forum, and the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies, a crucial nexus for new thinking and influential public programming on Sweden and the region. The program's components include:

Keynote lecture series

The Forum invites leading public figures from Sweden, and from Scandinavian and Baltic region policy centers and governments to deliver major addresses to the Stanford faculty and surrounding community.

Research and public seminar series

The Forum invites senior affiliated research faculty to design and conduct seminars, open to the public, on new research on Sweden and the region, across the full range of fields supported by all seven of Stanford's schools.

FCE Anna Lindh Fellowship

The Forum on Contemporary Europe is pleased to announce the inauguration of the Anna Lindh Fellowship for the study of Sweden, Scandinavia, the Baltic region and trans-Atlantic relations. The fellowships are part of the Forum's new Sweden, Scandinavia, and Baltic region program promoting research and public dissemination lectures, seminars, and conferences on contemporary Sweden and trans-Atlantic relations, as well as scholarly exchange between Stanford and Swedish peer institutions. The Anna Lindh Fellowship is designed to bring fellows from Sweden to Stanford University for periods of research, library and archive consultation, and collaboration with Stanford faculty and community.

The Forum on Contemporary Europe is now accepting applications for the Anna Lindh Fellowship for the 2007-2008 academic year. These fellowships are intended to support scholars from Sweden conducting research in any field of social, natural, or technical sciences, as well as law, business, and the humanities. This span of fields is supported by the wide range of research conducted in all of Stanford's seven schools. The fellowship is intended to support either short research visits (two to four weeks) or for a longer period of research work at Stanford (up to an academic year) to work with faculty and libraries and archives. Research projects could, in addition, address issues and thus involve travel to other U.S. institutions of higher learning and affiliated scholarly libraries and archives in the United States.

Stanford-Sweden-Regional peer university exchange

The Forum is planning to develop scholarly exchange programs, in addition to the Anna Lindh Fellowship, with leading peer universities and research centers in Sweden and the Scandinavian and Baltic regions. The aim of the affiliation with peer institutions is to build a community of senior and emerging scholars and policy figures, centered at the Forum on Contemporary Europe, and contributing to the advancement of knowledge on and policies concerning Sweden and the region's development and integration in trans-Atlantic and global relations.

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Ukraine and the European Union: Current Prospects and Concerns for Ukraine Membership in the European Union

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Steven Pifer is a Senior Adviser with the Center for Strategic & International Studies. A retired Foreign Service Officer, his more than 25 years with the State Department focused on U.S. relations with the former Soviet Union and Europe, as well as arms control and security issues. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, with responsibility for Russia and Ukraine (2001-2004), U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia on the National Security Council (1996-1997). He also served at the U.S. Embassies in Warsaw, Moscow, and London, and is advisor on the U.S. delegation to the negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear forces in Geneva.

Richard L. Morningstar served as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, appointed under President Bill Clinton in April 1999. His diplomatic career has included service as Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State for Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy (1998), and special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Assistance to the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union (1995-1998). Presently, he is teaching both at the Kennedy School at Harvard and the Stanford Law School. In addition, he is the senior director at Stonebridge International LLC, a global business strategy firm, and is senior council at the law firm of Nixon Peabody.

CISAC Conference Room

Steven Pifer Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Speaker
Richard L. Morningstar Former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Speaker
Seminars

Democratic Politics in the European Parliament

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Professor Roland examines party politics, particularly in the context of the European parliament. Using key research throughout, he examines where loyalties lie, what affects these loyalties, and what the makeup is of the European parliament. Prof. Roland also takes a brief look at how this compares to national politics in different countries.

Synopsis

Prof. Roland explains that roll call analysis has long been an obsolete method of estimating politicians’ true values. This is mainly due to party politics. Legislative behavior, which is what Prof. Roland explores primarily in this talk, is offered a very rich platform for study in the European parliament, which consists of representative parties from 27 countries which also form into European parties. Prof. Roland explains that loyalties can lie with one’s national party, European party, and country. However, there is no reason for them to overlap. Because the European parliament plays very little role in elections in the nations of Europe, Prof. Roland argues that parties vote almost purely for legislative decision-making purposes. Prof. Roland also cites that voting for the EU parliament is not like a parliamentary democracy because nobody is put into power. In addition, he notes that the European Parliament has had a shifting role as time has passed, going from a consultative position to a probable vetoing power, as Prof. Roland predicts.

These numerous aspects of the European parliament raise several questions for Prof. Roland. He explores the strength of party cohesion within the parliament and methods used to enhance it such as disciplining those who vote against the party of contentious issues or giving signals of unification. Prof. Roland also examines what he explains as the ‘agreement index’ to investigate where members vote; for their national party, their European party, or their country. This rating, which has continually lowered, indicates that more vote for their national parties than member states or European parties. Prof. Roland is also interested in whether members’ votes are influenced more by their personal values or the party discipline effect.

Prof. Roland comes to a variety of interesting conclusions. He sees that there is overlap when members of the European parliament place themselves on the left-right scale. However, no such overlap is present in their voting patterns, showing clear evidence of the effect of party discipline. Prof. Roland finds that bigger parties, because they are more pivotal, are more cohesive as there is more at stake in their unity. On the other hand, national fractionalization has a negative effect of cohesion while ideological diversity plays almost no role in determining the extent of party cohesiveness in the European parliament. Employing a variety of statistics, Prof. Roland shows that the increase in the parliament’s power has also increased party cohesiveness. Therefore, Prof. Roland believes that while disagreement has increased in the European parliament, party cohesion has increased but not for ideological reasons. He ends by explaining that the role of ideology is in forming party coalitions in a parliament whose dimensions consist mainly of left and right.

About the Speaker

Gerard Roland is professor of economics and political science at University of California, Berkeley. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Universite Libre de Bruxelles in 1988. He is the author of five books, including Transition and Economics: Politics, Markets and Firms, published by MIT Press in 2000.

Sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Graduate School of Business.

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Gerard Roland Professor of Economics and Political Science Speaker UC Berkeley
Seminars

Technology and Labor Regulations

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Alberto Alesina is the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economics and the Taussig Research Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He is a leader in the field of economics and has published extensively in all major academic journals in economics. His work has covered a variety of topics, including political business cycles, integration, stabilization policies in high inflation countries, and differences in the welfare state in the U.S. and Europe.

Professor Alesina is associate editor of the Journal of Economic Growth. His most recent books are The Future of Europe: Reform and Decline, published by MIT Press in 2006, and Fighting Poverty in the U.S. and Europe: A World of Difference, published by Oxford University Press in 2004.

Abstract of Alberto Alesina's "Technology and Labor Regulations":

Many low skilled jobs have been substituted away for machines in Europe, or eliminated, much more so than in the U.S., while technological progress at the "top," i.e. at the high-tech sector, is faster in the U.S. than in Europe. This paper suggests that the main difference between Europe and the U.S. in this respect is their different labor market policies. European countries reduce wage flexibility and inequality through a host of labor market regulations, like binding minimum wage laws, permanent unemployment subsidies, firing costs, etc. Such policies create incentives to develop and adopt labor saving capital intensive technologies at the low end of the skill distribution. At the same time technical progress in the U.S. is more skill biased than in Europe, since American skilled wages are higher.

Sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Political Economics group at the Graduate School of Business.

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Alberto Alesina Professor of Political Economics Speaker Harvard University
Seminars

The Services Directive and the Internal Market for Services in the European Union

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Professor Piet Jan Slot is a Professor of European and Economic Law at the University of Leiden. He is also the Director of the Europa Institute and Editor of Common Market Law Review. Professor Slot has held many teaching positions including Visiting Jean Monnet Professor at the Reinische Friedrich Wilhelms University of Bonn, Visiting Professor at Paris II, Pantheon-Assas, and Visiting Professor at Stanford University Law School (2000-2001). He is also a Fellow of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies in London. Professor Slot's teaching is focused on the law of the European communities, advanced international competition law, and the legal environment of doing business in the European community. He has been a legal advisor for the U.N. Commission for Southeast Asia and the Pacific on issues pertaining to maritime law, and advisor on maritime legislation for several governments in Southeast Asia.

CISAC Conference Room

Piet Jan Slot Professor of European and Economic Law and Director of the Europa Institute Speaker Leiden University
Seminars

Israel Has Voted: A Post-Election Analysis

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Co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel, San Francisco and the Jewish Community Relations Council

Yaron Deckel is considered by many to be one of Israel's top political reporters and commentators. Mr. Deckel has covered the trials and tribulations of Israeli politics since 1985, including five general election campaigns. He is a seasoned radio and television journalist, having unprecedented access to all the major players in Israeli politics during the last 17 years. Since September of 2002, Mr. Deckel has been reporting from Washington as the IBA's Bureau Chief. Of special note is Mr. Deckel's recent interview with President Bush at his Texas ranch - the first exclusive interview granted to an Israeli journalist. Mr. Deckel has also served as guest expert on Israeli politics to NPR, ABC News Radio, CBC TV and others. Additionally, he has briefed U.S. administration officials, congressmen, ambassadorial staff at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, U.S. and European policymakers and business people about the state of Israeli politics. Mr. Deckel holds a Bachelor's degree in Criminology and a Master's degree in Political Science from Bar-Ilan University. His Master's degree focus was on the intersection of politics and the media in Israel.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Yaron Deckel Senior News Analyst Speaker Israeli Broadcasting Service
Seminars

Romain Wacziarg

UCLA Anderson School of Management
110 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles CA 90095-1481

(310) 825-4507
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Associate Professor of Economics, UCLA Anderson School of Management
wacziarg.jpg MA, PhD

Romain Wacziarg is an associate professor of economics at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Previously, he was associate professor of economics at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. An expert on international political economy, he has focused mainly on international trade and its relationship with economic development. Most recently, he has published research on the relationship between openness to trade and economic growth, as well as on the effect of an open world-trade regime on incentives for geographic regions to secede. His other areas of recent focus include a study linking ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity with economic variables; a study evaluating the economic costs and benefits of political borders; and two studies evaluating the relationship between international trade and the rise and fall of industries.

Wacziarg is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a faculty fellow at the Stanford Center for International Development, and he was a national fellow at the Hoover Institution in 2002-2003. He grew up in India and France and has worked as a consultant to the World Bank. He received his undergraduate degree from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, an MA from the University of Paris-Dauphine and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University.

Europe Center Research Affiliate
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