小西研究室
早稲田大学政治経済学術院

Political Economy II(Graduate School), Political Economics (EDSSA)
First Half of Fall Semester, Tuesday and Wednesday, 1st period

This course teaches the advanced theory of political economics, a recently-growing area in the field of economics, in which economic theory and game theory are applied to understand political-economic phenomena. The lecture basically targets graduate students who are planning to write master theses on this topic, assuming the basic knowledge of microeconomics and game theory at the first-year graduate level. Of course, undergraduate students who are eager to study political economics are also welcome, though no time will be spent on reviewing the basics of microeconomics and game theory. The schedule of this course is closely linked to a new course, Public Choice, which will be taught in the Fall semester, and students are strongly recommended to take it together with this course. In fact, this course and Public Choice share many important topics, some of which will be lectured in the latter, such as voting theory, bargaining in legislature, electoral competition, etc.

Upon completing this course (and Public Choice), students will be able to have knowledge about what has been done until recently in the field of political economics,
understand how to apply microeconomics and game theory for understanding political-economic phenomena, and to get prepared for starting research for master theses in this field.

The following books will be useful for the study in this course.

  • Persson and Tabellini, Political Economics, MIT Press, 2000.
  • Grossman and Helpman, Special Interest Politics, MIT Press, 2001
  • Drazen, Political Economy in Macroeconomics, Princeton University Press, 2000
  • 小西秀樹,公共選択の経済分析,東京大学出版会(for Japanese students)

Old class materials (Note that these are pretty old and are not updated):

Past Exams

News & Information

Note: These materials were just for your reference. They do not necessarily match the lectures in this course.
Slide files

Assignments

Past slide files (in Japanese; prepared for lectures in Hokkaido university in 2008)