Political Economics: Part I
Spring 2012
Professors:
Konstantin Sonin, office 922 (2), email: ksonin(at)nes.ru
Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, office 922 (3), email: ezhuravskaya(at)cefir.ru
The course will consist of two separate parts. The first one, Positive Political Economics, will consist of 7 lectures and will be taught by Konstantin Sonin; the grade for the part will count toward 50% of the final grade for the whole class. The second one, Empirical Political Economics, will be taught by Ekatherina Zhuravskaya and will consist of 7 lectures as well; the grade will be 50% of the final grade.
In the first part of the class, we will cover basics of political economics such as models of Downsian political competition, parliamentary decision making, special interests and informative lobbying, and discuss their usefulness in understanding political processes such as recent presidential and parliamentary elections around the World. A less conventional part includes material on political economy of non-democratic regimes.
The course requirements for Part 1 include 2 home assignments essays, with each assignment requiring some reading, some internet search and some model-building, and a mid-term exam, where the task will be to develop a theory to explain a certain empirical pattern. Essays’ weight is 60% of Part 1’s grade, mid-term is 30%, and the balance is for class participation.
Office hours by appointment.
Asterisks denote required reading. Papers without asterisks are supplementary and should be read by those interested in political economics. KS denote lectures by Konstantin Sonin and EZ denote lectures by Ekaterina Zhuravskaya.
We will rely extensively on two textbooks:
Persson, Torsten, and Guido Tabellini (2000) "Political Economics", MIT Press.
Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson. (2005) “Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy”, Cambridge U.Press.
Papers from the reading list can be downloaded at the course web-page.
There will be 2-3 seminars to learn how to work with formal models.
Part 1. Positive Political Economics
Introduction: What Is Political Economics?
Myerson, Roger (2000) "Economic Analysis of Constitutions," Chicago Law Review 67:925-940
Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson (2005), "Chapter 2: Democracy Around the World and Over Time".
* Persson, Torsten, and Guido Tabellini (2000) "Chapter 1”
*Egorov, Georgiy, Sergei Guriev, and Konstantin Sonin (2009) “Why Resource-Poor Dictators Allow Media Freedom: Theory and Evidence from Panel Data”, American Political Science Review, 103 (4), 645-668.
Elections: Downsian Competition
Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson (2005), "Chapter 6: Democratization."
Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson (2005), "Chapter 8: The Role of the Middle Class."
* Persson, Torsten, and Guido Tabellini (2000) "Political Economics", MIT Press, Ch. 2-3
Persson, Torsten, Gerard Roland, and Guido Tabellini (1997) "Separation of Power and Political Accountability," Quarterly Journal of Economics 4:1163-1202
Myerson, Roger (1999) "Theoretical Comparisons of Electoral Systems," European Economic Review 43:671-697.
Grossman, Gene, and Elhanan Helpman "Electoral competition and special interest politics," Review of Economic Studies 63:265-286
La Porta, Rafael, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny (1999) "The Quality of Government," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 15:222-279
Inefficient Institutions
* Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson (2000) "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," Quarterly Journal of Economics 115:1167-1199
*Murphy, Kevin, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny (1993) "Why Is Rent-Seeking So Costly to Growth?" American Economic Review, 83:409-14
Hellman, Joel (1998) "Winners Take All: the Politics of Partial Reform", World Politics, 50:203-234
Polishchuk, Leonid, and Alexey Savvateev (2000) "Spontaneous (Non-) Emergence of Property Rights", mimeo.
* Shleifer, Andrei, and DAniel Treisman. (2000) Chapter 1 in the "Without a Map: Political Tactics and Economic Reform in Russia".
Sonin, Konstantin (2003) "Why the Rich May Favor Poor Protection of Property Rights", Journal of Comparative Economics, 31 (4), 715-731.
Glaeser, Edward, Jose Sheinkman, and Andrei Shleifer, A. (2003) "The Injustice of Inequality", Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming
Commitment Problem and Development Traps
*Acemoglu, Daron (2003) "Why Not A Political Coase Theorem? Social Conflict, Commitment and Politics", Journal of Comparative Economics, 31-4.
Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson (2005), "Chapter 6: Democratization."
Dixit, Avinash, Gene Grossman, and Faruk Gul (2000) "The Dynamics of Political Compromise," Journal of Political Economy 108:531-568
*North, Douglass, and Barry Weingast (1989) "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England", Journal of Economic History, 49(4):803-832
Schwarz, Michael, and Konstantin Sonin (2003) "A Theory of Brinkmanship, Conflicts, and Commitments", Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, forthcoming
Political Economics of Non-democracies
Acemoglu, Daron, James Robinson, and Thierry Verdier (2004) “Kleptocracy and Divide-and-Rule: A Model of Personal Rule,” Journal of the European Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, April—May 2004, Vol. 2, 162—192.
Acemoglu, Daron (2007) “Oligarchic Versus Democratic Societies.” Journal of European Economic Association, forthcoming.
*Besley, Timothy, and Masayuki Kudamatsu (2007) “Making Autocracy Work”, mimeo.
Egorov, Georgy, and Konstantin Sonin (2005) “The Killing Game: A Dynamic Theory of Non-democratic Succession”, mimeo.
* Egorov, Georgy, and Konstantin Sonin (2011) “Dictators and their Viziers: Endogenizing the Loyalty-Competence Trade-off”, Journal of the European Economic Association
Myerson, Roger (2007) “The Autocrat’s Credibility Problem and the Foundations of the Constitutional State”, mimeo.
Myerson, Roger (2007) “Leadership, Trust, and Power: Dynamic Moral Hazard in High Office”, mimeo.
Padro i Miquel, Gerard (2006) "The Control of Politicians in Divided Societies: The Politics of Fear" NBER Working Paper No. W12573
Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson (2005), "Chapter 5: Non-democratic politics."