ECO-5109 : Political economy
This course provides a graduate-level introduction to political economy, with a focus on the functioning of institutions and their impact on economic development and politics. It discusses a heterogeneous field in terms of methodology with an effort to combine economic theory and data.
The course is divided in four parts. Part I provides an introduction to the course with a focus on the econometric tools that will be used in the rest of the course. Part II covers topics in democratic politics such as voting, electoral competition, electoral control and accountability. Part III deals with the interlacing of historical context, geography, culture and institutions’ quality to explain cross-country differences in income per capita. Part IV focuses on bureaucracy, corruption, and the interplay between institutions, politics and gender.
- Introduction to political economy
- Political economy and economic growth
- Under the thumb of history?
- Empirics: toolkit
- Democratic politics
- Voting in theory and in practice
- Accountability
- Who holds the actual power? Departure from democracy
- Institutional quality, history, geography and culture
- Historical and geographic determinants of institutions
- Institutional quality and economic development
- Interplay between institutions/policies and culture
- Topics in political economy: gender
- How institutions and political regimes affect attitudes towards gender roles
- Women participation in politics
Goal, Approach, and Learning Outcomes
The questions discussed in this course constitute an increasingly important subfield of economics. Both recent theoretical advances and cutting-edge empirical approaches will be covered. An objective of the course is to provide students with adequate technical background and knowledge of existing literature to critically think about the link between development, institutions and politics, as well as to produce original research work on these topics.
Lectures of this course are inspired from those taught by D. Acemogly, N. Berman, H. Muller, B. Olken, and M. Sangnier.
