POLISCI 446: Political Development Economics
There is a growing awareness that many of the key challenges in fostering development in poor societies are political challenges. What can we do to encourage trade, cooperation and peace in environments riven with social and ethnic divisions? How do we foster broadly beneficial political reforms and good governance when the potential losers to reforms are able to mobilise to prevent them? How do we detect and mitigate the effects of corruption? What role may modern finance play in creating or mitigating political economy challenges in developing countries?These problems are modern and endemic, but many are also old problems, and economic theory and the practical experiences of different countries have much to tell us both about what has worked in the past, and what policy experiments we may try in new environments. Rather than a survey, the objective of this course is to selectively discuss new and open research areas in political development economics and the theoretical and empirical
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There is a growing awareness that many of the key challenges in fostering development in poor societies are political challenges. What can we do to encourage trade, cooperation and peace in environments riven with social and ethnic divisions? How do we foster broadly beneficial political reforms and good governance when the potential losers to reforms are able to mobilise to prevent them? How do we detect and mitigate the effects of corruption? What role may modern finance play in creating or mitigating political economy challenges in developing countries?These problems are modern and endemic, but many are also old problems, and economic theory and the practical experiences of different countries have much to tell us both about what has worked in the past, and what policy experiments we may try in new environments. Rather than a survey, the objective of this course is to selectively discuss new and open research areas in political development economics and the theoretical and empirical tools necessary to contribute to them, with the topics chosen to complement other Stanford courses in applied microeconomics, development, political economics and economic history. By the end of the course, the student will have analysed a theoretical or historical solution to a key political development challenge and proposed a natural or field experiment to test it empirically. Graduate level proficiency in microeconomics and empirical methods will be required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
Instructors:
Jha, S. (PI)
POLISCI 446A: Paths to the Modern World: The West in Comparative Perspective (POLISCI 246A)
How and why did Europe develop political institutions that encouraged economic growth and industrialization? And why have many other regions lagged in the creation of growth-promoting institutions? This course uses a comparative approach to understanding routes to the modern world - the historical experiences of Christian Europe, the Islamic world, and others. We will explore questions including: When do parliaments emerge? How do cities promote growth? What is the role of religion?
Last offered: Winter 2020
POLISCI 446E: Seminar on Political Economy Experiments
This seminar introduces recent experimental work in political economy and comparative politics. Instead of surveying research in this area broadly, we will work through a number of recent working papers. Each week we will have a guest speaker in the class whose work will be discussed by a team of students. The students will replicate, extend, and comment on the weekly paper. The first objective of the seminar is to develop an understanding of different elements of a field experiment. To this end, we will untangle project parts related to implementation, data collection, analysis, and writing. A typical weekly meeting will include the following: discussion on framing and contribution to literature, replication of the study material, and potential extensions of the analysis. We will also go through survey instruments and any other material made available by authors. A second objective is to introduce students to writing pre-analysis plans for their own research. Each student will be expected to prepare a detailed pre-analysis plan for a proposed experiment or quasi-experiment, and will have the opportunity to workshop this plan with the class towards the end of the quarter.
Last offered: Spring 2019
| Repeatable
for credit
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