Workshop on Institutional Theories and Empirical Tests in Political Economy

Catalog description

POLECON 682 is the third course in the graduate political economics core sequence, intended for PhD students in political economics, political science, and economics. The focus of the course is on taking concepts and predictions from abstract formal models of politics to concrete empirical settings. Initial sessions investigate the relationship between theory and empirical work, with specific focus on the role of theory amid the 'credibility revolution' of empirical economics and political science. Later sessions work through a toolkit for empirical research, with in-depth analysis of leading examples of each. The general focus will be on the measurement of latent variables that are important in formal theories of politics - such as ideological preferences, party pressure, and valence or competence - from observable data, and on the estimation of "deep" parameters that appear in formal models. Students should have taken at least POLECON 680 and preferably also POLECON 681. POLECON 682 is also listed as POLISCI 351C.