Public Lectures in Summer Semester 2023

The MPIfG’s Public Lectures program has five events lined up for the 2023 summer semester. On April 26, Isabella M. Weber (University of Massachusetts Amhurst) will explain in The Specter of Inflation: Price Stability in Times of Transitions how her research on China has led her to an alternative analysis of inflation today. André Bächtiger (University of Stuttgart) joins us on May 3 for Good and Ideal Democracy: How to Design It, when he will report from “Designing Democracy on Mars and Earth,” an ongoing research project on democratic preferences in Germany, the USA, and India. In Digital Payments: New Relations in Embedded Finance on May 24, Sophie Mützel (University of Lucerne) will show how digital payment methods are reshaping relations between consumers, retailers, payment providers, marketing agencies, and app providers. On May 31, Biao Xiang (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) will explore in The Privatization of Ambition in China: A History how individual ambition and the desire to improve one’s life chances has long driven China’s growth and has ultimately engendered a sense of powerlessness, especially among the country’s young people. Simone Dietrich (University of Geneva) will speak on July 5 about States, Markets, and Foreign Aid and what lies behind different approaches to international development policy among donor countries. More information on the speakers, topics, and schedule is available on the events page of the MPIfG website. To register for any of the lectures, please email info@mpifg.de.