Courses

This course examines comparative political behavior from a political economy perspective, focusing on how incentives drive the micro-level behavior of voters and politicians. Students will rigorously examine contemporary debates, both theoretically and empirically. Student will also combine formal models and modern research designs to generate hypotheses, identify causal effects, and ultimately seek to interpret them. The course draws from evidence from across the democratic world. The goals of this course are twofold. The substantive goal is to familiarize students with theoretical arguments and frontier empirical evidence pertaining to central questions in comparative political economy. The methodological goal is to help students think critically and conduct cutting edge research. Specifically, the course aims to empower students to read and even write formal models, implement modern causal inference techniques in their research, and combine the two approaches to interpret the evidence.