Political Economy

(DU PSME) Lecturer Dr Elvire Guillaud Centre dEconomie de la Sorbonne, Universit Paris I Panthon-Sorbonne elvire.guillaud@univ-paris1.fr http://sites.google.com/site/elvireguillaud/ Office hours: after the lecture, or by appointment Time and location LECTURE: Thursday 2-5pm, MSE room 114 SEMINAR (once a month): Tuesday 4.30-6pm, MSE or PSE Jourdan Spring semester 2013-2014 Course description The course proposes an overview of the recent contributions in the field of modern political economy. Political economy starts with the political nature of decision making and is concerned with how politics will affect economic choices in a society. Political economy thus begins with the observation that actual policies are often quite different from optimal policies: a more complete picture should include political constraints, which find their roots in the conflicts of interests. Specifically, the course will provide an introduction to the problems tackled by political economics, present the most important models, and review the empirical evidence. During the course, youll be asked to expose a real world issue using political economy reasoning/tools seen in class. Also, to keep you informed about ongoing research in political economy you are expected to attend at least 2 sessions of the "Political Economy of Institutional Change" seminar to be held once a month at Paris 1-MSE or PSE-Jourdan. Assessment Final exam: 4-5 questions. Students should be able to accurately answer the question, while making use of the political economy reasoning/tools seen in class. Students are expected to expose the main assumptions and the mechanism of the appropriate model, to mention the empirical evidence reviewed in the literature if any, and to provide a real-life example that has or has not yet been tested. The ability to have a critical view of the model, including a discussion of the hypotheses, will be valued. Make-up exam: oral Seminar The complete program of the seminar "political economy of institutional change" can be found on my website.

Course syllabus 1. General introduction: politics and political economy 2. Economic and political development: dictatorship and democracy 3. Social choice 4. Economic approaches to political choice: public choice 5. Political business cycle 6. Median voter 7. Probabilistic voting 8. Partisan politics 9. Political economy of the welfare state 10. Patterns of redistributive preferences 11. Varieties of capitalism approach 12. Electoral systems and economic policy Textbooks No textbook is officially required. However, you may find the following as good references: Drazen, A. (2000), Political Economy in Macroeconomics. Princeton University Press: Princeton Persson, T. and G. Tabellini (2000), Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy. MIT Press: Cambridge

Additional references Acemoglu, D. and J. Robinson (2006), Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge University Press: New York Amable, B. (2003), The Diversity of Modern Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press Gaertner, W. (2006), A Primer in Social Choice Theory. Oxford University Press: Oxford Lijphart, A. (1999), Patterns of Democracy: Government forms and performance in thirty-six countries. Yale University Press: New Haven Roemer, J.E. (2001), Political Competition: Theory and Applications. Harvard University Press: Cambridge Udehn, L. (1996), The Limits of Public Choice. Routledge: London Weber, M. (1919), Le savant et le politique. Translation of Science as a Vocation and Politics as a Vocation. La Dcouverte: Paris 2003. Originally edited in 1919.