Undergraduate Course: Political Economy (ECNM10118)
Course Outline
| School | School of Economics |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course is primarily an applied theory one, and it aims at uncovering how political mechanisms and institutions affect economic outcomes. It uses a combination of game theoretic and empirical methods from previously studied economics courses and beyond to explore the incentives of the major political actors (voters and politicians, as well as special interest groups, bureaucrats, media), factors that affect their behaviour, and how their behaviours shape the policy making and institutions. The topics may include (but are not limited to) a subset of the following: voting, electoral competition, lobbying, role of media, autocratic politics.
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| Course description |
The course is organised as weekly two-hour lectures and weekly one-hour tutorials (9 tutorials in total). The majority of lectures span theoretical models in political economy together with discussing them in the context of empirical evidence, while a few may be primarily focused on empirical findings. The topics include social choice (including sincere vs strategic voting), different views of elections (electoral competition based on prospective voting, retrospective voting, political accountability), media, special interest groups (lobbying), and autocratic politics.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students must have an equivalent of at least 4 semester-long Economics courses at grade B or above for entry to this course. This MUST INCLUDE courses in Intermediate Macroeconomics (with calculus); Intermediate Microeconomics (with calculus); Probability and Statistics; and Introductory Econometrics. If macroeconomics and microeconomics courses are not calculus-based, then, in addition, Calculus (or Mathematics for Economics) is required. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 60 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 8,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
168 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
70 %,
Coursework
30 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework: 30%
Degree Exam: 70% |
| Feedback |
Feedback on coursework will be provided to students according to School of Economics guidelines. For exam-type assessments that is usually a mark complemented with a solution sketch and aggregate written feedback on how the class performed. For essay-type assessments it is usually a mark and short written individual feedback on strengths and weaknesses of the work. |
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Minutes |
|
| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | | 00 | |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Knowledge and critical thinking: Develop a knowledge of the core theoretical models used in political economy and the recent empirical developments in the field, as well as an ability to critically assess both.
- Research and independent thinking skills: Structure and analyse the interactions between political actors with the means of game theory and use these theoretical models to develop empirical approaches for working with data; and vice versa, incorporate the facts learnt from empirical works to improve theoretical analysis.
- Develop and demonstrate communication skills in order to critique, create and communicate understanding.
- Develop and demonstrate personal effectiveness through task-management, time-management, dealing with uncertainty and adapting to new situations, personal and intellectual autonomy through independent learning.
- Develop and demonstrate practical/technical/mathematical skills, modelling skills (abstraction, logic, succinctness), qualitative and quantitative analysis and general IT literacy.
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Reading List
While reading is very much encouraged, lectures are mostly self-contained, so no reading is required prior to each lecture. The reading list (consisting of academic papers covered in the lectures) will be provided before the start of the semester ¿ it is for students who want to explore some topics more in depth. Students may also consult the following textbooks as a supplementary reading (note that there is unfortunately no single textbook that covers the course content):
K.A. Shepsle and M.S. Bonchek, Analyzing Politics, Rationality, Behavior and Institutions, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, London
T. Besley, Principled Agents? Selection and Incentives in Politics, Oxford University Press, 2005
T. Persson and G. Tabellini, Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy, MIT Press, 2000 (more advanced)
M.J. Osborne, An Introduction to Game Theory, Oxford University Press, 2004 (as a game theory refresher)
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | political economy,voting |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Evgeniya Kudinova
Tel:
Email: e.kudinova@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Laura Gasull Lopez
Tel:
Email: lgasull@ed.ac.uk |
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