spring 2021
STV-3019 Comparative political economy - 10 ECTS
Course content
The aim of the course is to examine political causes behind the distribution of wealth among and within nations of the world. People across the world have put in an equal amount of their time at work, yet the fruits of their labor have been more or less wasted in some parts of the world, cultivated so as to offer a life in abundance in other parts of the world. Race, religion, culture, and natural resources are obviously irrelevant to explain this pattern of distribution. The key to the answer is the government: what kind of government is beneficial for economic growth and prosperity? This course is about political economy, addressing the competing approaches that claim to have the explanations to national and regional variations in growth. Note that the course does require some experience with quantitative methods.Objectives of the course
Objective of the course
Student who has successfully completed the course should have achieved the following learning outcomes:
Knowledge
- Introduce students to the main debates on the relationships between politics and economic development.
- Use theoretical knowledge to deduce testable hypotheses and apply them quantitatively
Analytical understanding
- Present examples of how different approaches claim to explain variations in national and regional economic growth
- Increase the ability to do critical examinations of general ideas and theories on economic growth, prosperity and poverty.
- Learned about the main debates on the relationships between politics and economic development
- Able to present critical evaluations of different approaches that claim to explain variations in national and regional economic growth
- Improve their skills as to understand how different systems of government influence and condition economic growth, prosperity and poverty.
Teaching methods
18 hours of lectures/seminars in March and April. The teaching consists of two parts. Part I goes through the theoretical framework around political economy. In part II, this theory is applied to test hypotheses. Students will be encouraged to bring their own data and experiences to classes. There will also be data easily available for the applied part.Assessment
There are two compulsory requirements for presenting to the final exam (pass/fail). Students will be given counselling and feedbacks on these requirements
- A theoretical paper (around 2000 words) where theoretical knowledge is used to derive hypotheses
- A script (in R or Stata) where theoretical knowledge is used to test hypotheses
The final exam is an academic paper (around 4000 words) on a given theme within the time-frame of two weeks. Students will be encouraged to use text and data from the compulsory requirement in this paper. Marking is made according to the scale from A to F, where F is fail. The course is open for re-submit in examination in the following semester.
- About the course
- Campus: Tromsø |
- ECTS: 10
- Course code: STV-3019
- Responsible unit
- Institutt for samfunnsvitenskap
- Tidligere år og semester for dette emnet