S2, 3 ects
Andrea Vindigni, Full Professor at University of Genova
1 Overview of the course
Les lundis (10, 17, 24, 31 Mars et 7, 14 Avril) de 16h30 à 18h30, salle R1-07, Campus Jourdan
Topic of the course
The course presents an overview of some of the most important, relatively recent research in formal comparative political economy. In particular, we shall be mainly interested in explaining the origins and the political and economic consequences of a relatively broad class of political institutions: political regimes, electoral systems, forms of government, and the state.
Sometime will also be spent, in the last part of course, explaining the origin and consequences of various types of politically relevant beliefs (e.g. religion, democratic political culture, faith in the virtues of markets vs. governments).
All through, we shall be especially interested in how institutions and beliefs affect, and are affected by, income distribution.
The emphasis will be both on models and their properties, and both on their connection with substantive problems and open issues in comparative political economy. We will mainly read theory papers, but also cover a few famous empirical contributions.
Basic Prerequisites and (Optional) Useful Background Readings
The requisite of the class is some elementary knowledge of micro and macroeconomics, and of game theory at the level of an advanced undergraduate textbook or, preferably, of a graduate introduction to game theory for political science.
Knowledge of calculus and probability theory is also assumed.
Furthermore, I will assume that students are familiar with basic elements of political economy and of comparative politics.
A standard introductory text to game theory for political science is
Morrow, James D. (1994); Game Theory for Political Scientists; Princeton.
An excellent and up to date graduate level introduction to political economy is
Gehlbach, Scott (2012) Formal Models of Domestic Politics; Cambridge University Press.
A standard, extremely-well done reference book on special interests politics is
Grossman, Gene and Elhanan Helpman (2001), Special Interests Politics;The MIT Press.
Excellent discussions of the comparative politics of democratic and non-democratic regimes are, respectively,
Lijphart, Arend (2012) Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries; Yale University Press.
Brooker, Paul (2013) Non-Democratic Regimes; Palgrave Macmillan.
Textbooks
There is no official textbook for this class but we will read portions of the following books (both of which can be regarded as classics of the field), that students are required to buy:
* Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2006); Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy; Cambridge University Press.
* Besley, Timothy and Torsten Persson (2011); Pillars of Prosperity, Princeton.
Acemoglu and Robinson’s book is widely regarded as a seminal contribution in formal comparative political economy, and is also an excellent reference textbook for this class.
Besley and Persson’s book focuses on the broad and important and timely issue of state formation.
Finally, a classic reference but now somewhat updated is
Drazen, Allan (2000), Political Economy in Macroeconomics; Princeton.
About 150 pages of readings will be assigned, on average, each week. Students are expected to do in advance the prescribed readings, and to participate actively in class discussion.
2 Reading List
Note: the most important readings are identified by a star (“*”). Time permitting, we will cover all such papers plus others listed below.
Additional readings will be suggested during the course.
Part I (4 HOURS). Introduction to the political economy of income redistribution in democracies (including populism).
* Meltzer, Allan and Scott Richard (1981) “A Rational Theory of the Size of Government,” Journal of Political Economy, 89 (5), pp. 914-927.
Perotti, Roberto (1996) “Growth, Income Distribution, and Democracy: What the Data Say,” Journal of Economic Growth, Vol. 1(2), pp 149-187.
* Bénabou, Roland (2000) “Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract,” American Economic Review, 90(1), pp. 96-129.
Alesina, Alberto, Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote (2001) “Why Doesn’t the US Have a European-Style Welfare System?,” Brookings Paper on Economics Activity, pp. 187-278.
Sheve, Kenneth and David Stasavage (2009) “Institutions, Partisanship, and Inequality in the Long Run,” World Politics, 61(2), pp. 215-253.
Acemoglu, Daron, Suresh Naidu, Pascual Restrepo and James A. Robinson (2014) “Democracy, Redistribution and Inequality,” Handbook of Income Distribution, Vol. 2, pp. 1885-1966.
*Acemoglu, Daron, Georgy Egorov, Konstantin Sonin (2013) “A Political Theory of Populism,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128(2), pp. 771-805.
Part II (2 HOURS). Institutions as commitment devices.
North, Douglas and Berry Weingast (1989) “Constitutions and Commitment: the Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England,” Journal of Economic History, 49, pp. 803-832.
Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2006) Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Ch. 2, pp. 15-47; Cambridge University Press.
Review of the theory of repeated games: subgame perfect and Markov perfect equilibria.
Part III (2 HOURS). The theory of political transitions and military politics.
Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2006) Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy; Cambridge University Press.
* Acemoglu, Daron, Davide Ticchi and Andrea Vindigni (2010) “A Theory of Military Dictatorships,” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, January, 2(1), pp. 1-42.
* Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2008) “Persistence of Power, Elites and Institutions,” American Economic Review, 98(1), pp. 267-93.
Part IV (2 HOURS). The political economy of state-building.
Bean, Richard (1973) “War and the Birth of the Nation State,” The Journal of Economic History, 33(1), pp 203-221.
North, Douglass and Robert Paul Thomas (1976) The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, Ch. 8, “Fiscal Policy and Property Rights,” pp. 91-101; Cambridge University Press.
Acemoglu, Daron, Davide Ticchi and Andrea Vindigni (2010) “Persistence of Civil Wars,” Journal of the European Economic Association, April-May, 8(2-3), pp. 664-676.
* Acemoglu, Daron (2011) “Institutions, Factor Prices and Taxation: Virtues of Strong States?,” American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings, 100(2), pp. 115-119.
* Acemoglu, Daron, Davide Ticchi, and Andrea Vindigni (2011) “Emergence and Persistence of Inefficient States,” Journal of European Economic Association, 9(2), pp. 177-208.
* Besley, Timothy and Torsten Persson (2011) Pillars of Prosperity, Ch. 1-3; Princeton University Press.
Pincus, Steven and James A. Robinson (2013) “Wars and State Making Reconsidered: The Rise of the Interventionist State,” Downloadable at: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-bgie/Documents/Pincus.pdf.
Gennaioli, Nicola and Hans-Joachim Voth (2015) “State Capacity and Military Conflict,” Review of Economic Studies, 82 (4), pp. 1409-1448.
Part V. The political economy of democratic constitutions
* Persson, Torsten and Guido Tabellini (2004) “Constitutions and Economic Policy,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(1), pp. 75-98.
* Acemoglu, Daron (2005) “Constitutions, Politics, and Economics: A Review Essay on Persson and Tabellini’s The Economic Effects of Constitutions,” Journal of Economic Literature, 43(4), pp. 1025-1048.
Ticchi, Davide and Andrea Vindigni (2007) “An Economic Theory of Constitutional Choice,” CESifo DICE Report, 5 (3), pp. 12-16.
* Ticchi, Davide and Andrea Vindigni (2010) “Endogenous Constitutions,” Economic Journal, 120(543), pp. 1-39.
Acemoglu, Daron, James A. Robinson and Ragnar Torvik (2013) “Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances?,” Review of Economic Studies, 80 (3), pp. 845-875.
Part VI. The political economy of beliefs, values and institutions
* Bisin, Alberto and Thierry Verdier (2000) “A Model of Cultural Transmission, Voting and Political Ideology,” European Journal of Political Economy, 16, pp. 5-29.
Dessi, Roberta (2008) “Collective Memory, Cultural Transmission, and Investments,” American Economic Review, 98(1), pp. 534-60.
* Bénabou, Roland, and Jean Tirole (2006) “Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(2), pp. 699-746.
* Saint-Paul, Gilles (2010) “Endogenous Indoctrination: Occupational Choices, the Evolution of Beliefs and the Political Economy of Reforms,” Economic Journal, Vol. 120(544), pp. 325-353.
Ticchi, Davide, Thierry Verdier and Andrea Vindigni (2013) “Democracy, Dictatorship and the Cultural Transmission of Political Values,” IZA Working Paper 7441.
* Bénabou, Roland (2015) “The Economics of Motivated Beliefs,” Jean-Jacques Laffont Lecture, Revue d’Economie Politique (2015), 125(5), pp. 665-685.
Bénabou, Roland, Davide Ticchi and Andrea Vindigni (2015) “Religion and Innovation,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 105(5), pp. 346-351.
Bénabou, Roland, and Jean Tirole (2016) “Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30(3), pp. 141-164.
Gorodnichenko, Yuriy and Gerard Roland (2016) “Culture, Institutions and the Wealth of Nations,” Review of Economics and Statistics.
* Bénabou, Davide Ticchi and Andrea Vindigni. “Forbidden Fruits: The Political Economy of Science, Religion, and Growth,” The Review of Economic Studies, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdab069.