Political Economy

Catalog description

Introduces the emerging field of formal political economy. The variety of ways in which economists and political scientists think about political science and the interplay of political science and economics are analyzed. The first part of the course focuses on the formal modeling of political behavior and political institutions; the theory of social choice (how groups of rational individuals make decisions) and collective action (how groups of rational individuals take action) are analyzed. The second part of the course discusses the connection between politics and economics and investigates the effect of political variables on the determination of economic outcomes. Some questions that are answered: How can special groups of individuals enhance their well being by political action? What is lobbying? What is the effect of contributions on political outcomes?