Dr Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey CON6.05

This course is available on the MPA in European Public and Economic Policy, MPA in International Development, MPA in Public Policy and Management, MPA in Public and Economic Policy, MPA in Public and Social Policy, MSc in Political Science and Political Economy, MSc in Politics and Government in the European Union, MSc in Public Administration and Government (LSE and Peking University) and MSc in Public Policy and Administration. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

It is capped at 2 groups. The deadline for receipt of applications is Friday, 10 October 2014.

This course provides an advanced policy-oriented analysis of the politics of economic policymaking in advanced industrialized countries and selected developing countries drawing on both contemporary, historical and comparative introduction into the politics of economic policy. It applies explicitly the frameworks of interests-based, ideational and institutional approaches to the study of economic policies. It seeks to explore both the independent and interactive effects of interests, ideas and institutions on economic policies. These policies include macroeconomic policy areas such as EMU, financial stability and financial crises, independent central banking, as well as trade policy (contemporary and classic case studies), and agricultural policy. Thus, the course examines some of the economic policies of the European Union, other advanced industrialized countries and developing countries.

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the MT. 3 hours of seminars in the ST.

Early weeks present the theoretical frameworks of interests, ideas and institutions, as applied to the politics of economic policymaking more generally. The remaining weeks focus on specific economic policies, including independent central banking, EMU financial stability and financial crises, trade, agricultural policy. Three of the course lectures will be given jointly with the undergraduate course, Politics of Money and Finance in Comparative Perspective (GV309).

Students will be required to submit one formative essay in week 6.

C. Reinhart & K. Rogoff, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press, 2009; Charles Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, 1978, 2005; C. Schonhardt-Bailey, From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas and Institutions in Historical Perspective, MIT Press, 2006; C. Schonhardt-Bailey & A. Bailey, Deliberating American Monetary Policy: A Textual Analysis, MIT Press, 2013; F McGillivray, Privileging Industry: The Comparative Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy, Princeton, 2004; Alan S Blinder, Central Banking in Theory and Practice, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1998; Kathleeen R McNamara, Currency of Ideas: Monetary Politics in the European Union, Cornell University, 1998; A D Sheingate, The Rise of the Agricultural Welfare State: Institutions and Interest Group Power in the United States, France, and Japan, Princeton University Press, 2001; A. S. Blinder, After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead (Penguin 2013).

Exam (67%, duration: 2 hours) in the main exam period.
Essay (33%, 4000 words) in the LT.

Two parts: (1) a two-hour unseen written examination in June, accounting for 67% of the mark (consisting of short reply and essay questions); and (2) a long essay of 4,000 words on one of the topics, which must apply the theoretical issues to empirical data, to be submitted at the end of Week 1 of LT, accounting for the other 33 % of the mark. (The long essay must be on a topic different from the formative essay.)