Political Institutions and Economic Policy (PIEP Fall 2013)

December 7, 2013

This conference is closed to the public.

This is a multiyear attempt to bring together scholars of political economy from the two broad traditions that make up that enterprise—the analysis of the impact of political institutions on political behavior and political outcomes, and the analysis of the making of economic policy.

Despite the richness of both kinds of scholarship, and the general similarity in spirit and method, connections between work in the political-institutional and economic-policy traditions are inadequate. Students of political institutions often examine the operating characteristics and equilibrium properties of political institutions in a world with no economy. Students of economic policymaking, on the other hand, often study their subject in a world with only rudimentary political institutions. In short, too many scholars employ reduced-form (at best) conceptualizations of something that all would acknowledge to be central to phenomena of interest. The Research Group wants to generate interaction among scholars from these two research traditions in order to produce a better synthesis.

Chairs

Jeffry Frieden

Acting Center Director (fall 2013); Executive Committee; Faculty Associate (on leave spring 2014). Stanfield Professor of International Peace, Department of Government, Harvard University.

Ken Shepsle

Faculty Associate (on leave 2013–2014). George D. Markham Professor of Government, Department of Government, Harvard University.

Tom Romer

Professor of Politics and Public Affairs; Director, Research Program in Political Economy, Princeton University.

Helen Milner

B. C. Forbes Professor of Politics and International Affairs; Director, Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.

See also: Conferences, 2013