Political Economy
IDEA 2009-2010
Enriqueta Aragones and Andrea Mattozzi


COURSE DESCRIPTION

 

This course is an introduction to current research in political economics. The emphasis is on game-theoretic models that can be used to study the effects of different constitutional structures on the competitive behavior of politicians and the welfare-relevant performance of government.




CLASS SCHEDULE

Monday and Wednesday
From 11.40 am to 1.40 pm
IAE's Seminar Room



PROGRAM

1. Rational Choice in Political Science
Riker, William H. 1982. Liberalism against Populism. A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice, Waveland Press.

2. The decision to vote
Riker, William and Peter Ordeshook. 1968. “The calculus of voting” APSR 62:25-42.
Quattrone, George and Amos Tversky. 1988. “Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice” APSR 82:719-36.


3. Spatial Model of Elections
Enelow, James and Melvin Hinich. 1984. The spatial theory of voting: an introduction, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Enelow, James and Melvin Hinich. 1984. Advances in the spatial theory of voting, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


4. Bargaining in Legislatures
Baron, David and John Ferejohn. 1989. “Bargaining in legislatures” APSR 83: 1181-1206.
Krehbiel, Keith. 1988. “Spatial Models of Legislative Choice” Legislative Studies Quarterly 13(3): 259-319.

5. Government Formation
Aragones, Enriqueta. 2007. “Government Formation in a Two Dimensional Policy Space” IJGT 35(2):151-184.
Laver, Michael and Norman Schofield (1990). Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe, Oxford University Press.

6. Participatory Democracy
Aragones, Enriqueta and Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2009 “A model of participatory democracy: understanding the case of Porto Alegre” European Economic Review, 53: 56-72.
Aragones, Enriqueta and Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2009 “The disadvantages of winning an election” mimeo.

7. Strategic Voting and Agenda Control
Ordeshook, Peter. 1986. Game Theory and Political Theory, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shepsle, Kenneth and Barry Weingast. 1984. “Uncovered sets and sophisticated voting outcomes with implications for agenda institutions” AJPS 28:49-74.


8. Participation and Information Aggregation
Feddersen, Timothy and Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1996. “The swing voter’s curse”, AER, 86: 408-424.


 9. Citizen-candidates’ models
Besley, Tim and Stephen Coate 1997, “An economic model of representative democracy” QJE, 112: 85-114.
Osborne, Martin and Al Slivinsky 1996, “A model of political competition with citizen-candidates” QJE, 111: 65-96.


10. Dynamic Models
Ferejohn, John. 1986. “Incumbent performance and electoral control” Public Choice 50:5-25.
Banks, Jeff and R. Sundaram 1998, “Optimal retention in agency problems” JET, 82: 293-323.


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