IPEC-310 Political Economy: A Survey of Issues

IPEC-310 Political Economy: A Survey of Issues

Faculty:

Olofsgard, Anders

This course offers a brief introduction to a number of different applications of “new” political economy to important economic questions. The purpose of the course is twofold. The first purpose is to give you an understanding of the importance of politics for economic policy making in general, and to confirm this by offering a brief oversight of political economy applications across the spectrum of economic issues. The second purpose is to wet your appetite for the study of political economy, and encourage you to identify questions you find particularly interesting. You can then learn more about these questions in other more focused courses, since this course by construction and purpose only offers a brief oversight of each question. The notion of “new” political economy (by some referred to as “political economics”) refers to a literature that uses formalized models based on game theory and neo-classical economic theory to theoretically analyze the questions in mind, and econometrics to empirically test whether the predictions of the models are consistent with the available data. Hence, some of the material we will cover in this course will be in the style of formalized models, and applied econometric studies, so the intention is that you should also walk out of this class with a somewhat better understanding of these important tools for economic analysis.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: ECON 101 and ECONSTAT are required

Other academic years
There is information about this course number in other academic years:

• 2006-2007
• 2007-2008
• 2008-2009

More information
Look for this course in the schedule of classes.

The academic department web site for this program may provide other details about this course.