Political Economy Courses

ECON 754: Topics in Political Economy I
Topics include general study of elections and electoral politics; voting, voting rules, strategic voting and voter participation; opportunistic versus policy-motivated politicians and political budget cycles; special interest groups and distributive politics; politics of economic reform; modeling weak political states.

ECON 757: Topics in Political Economy II
Continuation of ECON 754. Topics covered include campaign finance, redistribution, fairness, electoral systems, parliamentary systems, and media.

Field Requirements in Political Economy

Major field: ECON 754, 757 and one other course chosen in consultation with political economy faculty. The third course could be a course offered by the department in empirical, theoretical or computational methods, or could be a graduate level course in Government and Politics, as approved by the political economy faculty.

A field exam is required for the major field. For students wishing to write a dissertation in the field, a field paper is also strongly recommended. The due date for field papers is February 1 of the year after completing field courses. Papers that do not pass can be revised and resubmitted no later than June 1.

Minor field: ECON 754 and 757. Average grade of B+ or better in courses.

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