PhD Political Economy Courses
POLECON 664. Politics and Organization
A foundation for under-standing organized activity as it reflects the organization of political life. Coverage of theories is eclectic and interdisciplinary. Emphasis is on political institutions and formal organizations generally, and the norms,expectation, and routines characteristic of informal political structure.
POLECON 680. Foundations of Political Economy
This course provides an introduction to political economy with an emphasis on formal models of collective choice, public institutions, and political competition. Topics considered include voting theory, social choice, institutional equilibria, agenda setting, interest group politics, bureaucratic behavior, and electoral competition. Also listed as Political Science 201A.
POLECON 681. Economic Analysis of Political Institutions
This course extends the foundations developed in P680 by applying techniques of microeconomic analysis and game theory to the study of political behavior and institutions. The techniques include information economics, games of incomplete information, sequential bargaining theory, repeated games, and rational expectations. The applications considered include agenda formation in legislatures, government formation in parliamentary systems, the implications of legislative structure, elections and information aggregation, lobbying, electoral competition and interest groups, the control of bureaucracies, interest group competition, and collective choice rules. Also listed as Political Science 351B.
POLECON 682. Testing Models of Governmental Decision-Making
This course focuses on applications of formal models to several stages of decision making in the U.S. national government, with an emphasis on the legislative branch. Topics include strategies of committees, roll call voting, the budget process, policy formation, effects of special rules, congressional-presidential relations, and congressional-agency relations. Students should have taken P680 and P681. Also listed as Political Science 201C.
POLECON 686. Political Macroeconomics
This course covers research in positive political economy with special emphasis on macroeconomic aspects. First, the course surveys topics in business cycles theory such as political business cycles, monetary policy delegation and central bank independence, and optimal fiscal policy. Second, the course covers topics in the political economy of economic growth, such as the interplay of political instability, income inequality, human capital accumulation and income growth. Third, the course surveys new issues in international political macroeconomics, with specific focus on the political economy of trade protection, the economics of country formation and international policy coordination. (not offered in 2007-08)
