What happens when political parties use gender quotas for drawing up their lists of candidates? This question addressed Torsten Persson (University of Stockholm) at the Second WZB Distinguished Lecture in Social Sciences on May, 23. Persson showed that gender quotas not only create a better balance between men and women, but may also reduce the number of incompetent candidates. His talk is now available on video. more

As one of the first institutions in Germany, the WZB has endorsed the "European Charter for Researchers". This Charter and the related "Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers" are key elements in the European Union's policy to make research an attractive career. Code and charter are vital features of the Union's strategy to stimulate economic and employment growth. more

With his analysis of the spread of worldwide financial crisis, Professor Neil Fligstein (UC Berkeley) kicked off the newly established WZB Distinguished Lectures in Social Sciences. In his talk he concluded that European banks went down because they were pursuing the exact same profit-making strategies as American banks, in the exact same markets. This in turn caused the effect of the subprime market collapse to resonate globally. The video of his lecture is now available. more

Over the last few decades, the composition of the EU Commission has greatly changed. Today, there are more liberal and left-wing oriented Commissioners, many of whom held high ranking party positions at the national level before. The number of Commissioners with no party affiliation, in turn, is declining. For the first time, a new data base sheds light on the link between personal characteristics of high ranking EU representatives (party political affiliation, professional and national background), internal competencies and responsibilities as well as policy decisions of the different portfolios. Information covers Commissioners, Directors-General and the administrative structure of the European Commission from 1958 to 2010. It has been compiled and developed by the independent junior research group Position Formation in the EU Commission at the WZB. more