Prof Torsten Persson TBA and Prof Gilat Levy SAL.4.31

This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Economics, MRes/PhD in Economics and Management and MRes/PhD in Political Science. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

MRes Economics first year core courses for Economics students, EC400 and adviser’s approval for Government students. EC400, EC411 (or equivalent) and course convener’s approval for all other students.

The course provides students with the economic methodology and tools for the analysis of political decision making and its effect on public policy. The course will focus on analytical models, their testable implications, and on empirical work relying on micro data across a range of topics at the frontier of the literature. For example, how institutions such as elections, legislative bargaining, political parties or non-democratic regimes shape redistributive policies, fiscal policies, and the size of government. We will also consider different aspects of selection in politics: who is selected to be a politician or a political leader, and how those selected use their political power.  In addition, we will study how political attitudes, beliefs, and norms shape policies. 

Additional topics in this field are also explored in the half unit Political Economy for Research Students II in the WT. The two half units are designed to complement each other.

30 hours of lectures in the AT.

The course is delivered through lectures totalling a minimum of 30 hours across Autumn Term. Attendance is compulsory.

Students will discuss papers in lectures.

Political Economics by T. Persson and G. Tabellini, MIT Press 2002; Special Interest Politics by G. Grossman and E. Helpman, MIT Press 2001;Positive Political Theory 1, Collective Preference, by D. Austen-Smith and J. Banks , Michigan, 2000; Positive Political Theory 2, Strategy and Structure , by D. Austen-Smith and J. Banks , Michigan, 2005; Who Becomes a Politician?,  by E. Dal Bo, F. Finan, O. Folke, and J. Rickne, QJE 2017; Gender Quotas and the Mediocre Man, by T. Besley, O. Folke, T. Persson, and J. Rickne, AER 2017

Coursework (100%) in the WT.