Alexandre Afonso

Alexandre Afonso

Leiden University

Category: Uncategorized

  • Human capital and tourist scams

    A few days ago I arrived at Lisbon airport, took a cab (registry nr 283) for a journey I’ve done countless times and which usually costs a bit less than 10 Euros. I chat in Portuguese with the cab driver, give him directions, signalling that I know my way around. The meter indicates 9 Euros Read.

  • Welfare States and Migration Policy Regimes in Europe: How More Welfare Reduces Immigration Flows

    I gave a talk on the relationship between welfare and immigration at the ISCTE-University of Lisbon last week. The talk can be listened to below and the slides are here. Read.

  • The irrelevant British median voter

    When you watch the campaign for the next general elections in the United Kingdom, you may get the impression that the two biggest contenders, Ed Milliband and David Cameron are competing for the same voters. They promise this, they promise that in multiple attempts to convince what in political science jargon we call the “median Read.

  • The Political Economy of the British General Election

    The real campaign for the British general election is now in full swing and there’s a new poll every hour predicting a lead of one or the other party. Now polls change all the time, and most of the time they are wrong. I don’t care that much about how many votes Labour gets today Read.

  • Syriza shows the failure of ‘cartel politics’

    As expected, the radical left party Syriza was the big winner of the Greek elections, coming only two seats short of an absolute majority in parliament. But it’s unclear if new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will be able to effectively pursue his anti-austerity agenda and renegotiate the terms of the Greek bailout with creditors — and he will Read.

  • On the top-down governance structure of British universities

    My university has decided to rebrand itself as “King’s London”, abandoning the name it has sported since 1828/. According to an email sent by the principal Ed Byrne, market research “revealed that our current name was causing considerable confusion: is King’s a residential college, is it an academic college akin to the colleges of Oxbridge, Read.

  • What the Piketty-Financial Times Affair says about journalism and academia

    Thomas Piketty has issued a response to the FT’s criticism claiming that bad computations and flawed estimates undermined the overall thesis of his book, namely that wealth concentration had increased. I have read the 10-page letter by Piketty and found it extremely convincing. Basically, he doesn’t give an inch, explaining each and every point that Read.

  • The man who is wrong about everything, and especially the EU

    Reading the columns by Conservative eurosceptic MEP Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph is a somewhat masochistic pleasure: I suppose the reason why I do it is that I have become fascinated by the degree to which I systematically disagree with absolutely everything he says and advocates. Daniel Hannan is a champion of British free-market conservative chauvinism, which is Read.

  • The far right vote in the European elections: It’s not the economy, stupid

    In the European elections yesterday, the far right has done extremely well in the UK, in France, Austria and Denmark (four fairly affluent Northern countries) while – Greece set aside – it has stayed non-existent in the countries most severely hit by the crisis, Portugal and Spain. Golden Dawn in Greece is the exception, but Read.

  • A succinct political economy of the UEFA Champions’ League

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    The final of the UEFA Champions that will take place in Lisbon on May 24th is remarkable for a number of reasons: it will oppose two teams not only from the same country, but from the same city (Real and Atletico Madrid), none of which actually won the Spanish Liga last year (FC Barcelona did). Read.