Inequality of income, wealth, and health, with a focus on the United States. Topics include measurement of inequality, mobility, and poverty; the mapping from individual characteristics to income and wealth; transmission of economic status between generations; the division of national income between capital and labor; factors causing the rise in inequality in the United States since 1980, including technological change and globalization; differential trends in life expectancy, morbidity, and health behaviors among income groups; government policies that impact inequality, including progressive taxation, the minimum wage, support of unionization, public education, and immigration policy; and the political economy of redistributive policies.

Will examine relationships and interactions among institutions, criminal actors, and violence. State-based institutions play an important role in explaining the level of disorganized or organized crime. Organized crime groups, in turn, influence both state-based institutions (for example, through corrupting officials) and other criminal activity, often by creating the “rules of the game” by which other criminals can act. Finally, both state-based and criminal actors and institutions influence the level of violence in society. Each of these three influences, and is influenced by, the others. This course offers the opportunity to better understand how these three factors relate to each other.

This interdisciplinary course provides an overview of some of the core conceptual tools used to analyze issues at the intersection of philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE). A range of theoretical topics are covered, including: game theory, property, markets, distributive justice, public choice theory, voting, and more. We will read classical and contemporary sources on these topics as well as explore their applications to contemporary social problems (including: climate change, healthcare rationing, price gouging, universal basic income, pharmaceutical regulations, and others).

Why are some societies rich and others poor? While typical answers emphasize proximate causes like factor accumulation, technological progress, and demographic change, weighing the shadow of history on contemporary economic performance occupies an increasing part of the agenda among growth and development economists. This course will critically survey the recent empirical literature highlighting the role of historical events and geographic endowments in shaping social, political, and cultural factors and the process of development.

Weighing the shadow of history on contemporary economic performance occupies an increasing part of the agenda among growth and development economists. This course will focus on recent contributions in the literature of the historical determinants of comparative development paying particular attention on how to integrate the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the research inquiry. The goal is to get you thinking about the big historical processes that have shaped the modern world. We will go over background concepts, critically review recent works and talk about new research designs, like that of spatial regression discontinuity.

This course is designed to provide students with an overview of major theories and empirical approaches to the study of identity politics. Throughout the semester we will read a combination of the classics and cutting-edge research in political science, economics, psychology, exploring a range of topics with implications for politics and societies around the world. These topics include: how identity should be conceptualized and measured; why some forms of identity are activated, mobilized, and contested; how identities are represented politically; how racial and ethnic identities intersect with other salient identities; how social diversity and civil society are interrelated; what factors affect the integration of immigrants; and which varieties of democracy enable the flourishing of plural identities. Readings for these topics will focus on the United States and the other parts of the world, including Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

A theoretical and empirical examination of economic growth and income differences among countries. Focuses on both the historical experience of countries that are currently rich and the process of catch-up among poor countries. Topics include population growth, accumulation of physical and human capital, technological change, natural resources, income distribution, geography, government, and culture.

This course introduces the statistical methods used to analyze economic data. Economists often need to test the validity of competing theories and to analyze government and business policies. Econometrics provide them with the necessary tools. The course starts with an exposition of essential probability concepts. Then, students will be introduced to statistical inference, estimation and hypothesis testing. The third part of the course will be devoted to regression analysis. Theory is illustrated with examples, and emphasis will be placed on the connection between the theory and application. This practice will be reinforced by computer lectures using Stata, a computer software commonly used by economists for data analysis. This course is a prerequisite for many applied economics courses at Brown and for higher level econometrics.

This first course in political economy provides theoretical and empirical coverage of the application of economic analysis to political behavior and institutions. This course is designed for students wishing to specialize in political economy but may also be useful for students specializing in related areas, such as development economics and macroeconomics. After starting with a basic overview of candidates and voters, we then turn to specific topics in the areas of electoral systems, legislatures and legislative bargaining, the role of the media, local public finance, and fiscal federalism.

This course explores the causes and consequences of democratic erosion in comparative and historical perspective. The course will provide an opportunity for students to engage, critically and carefully, with the claims they have doubtlessly already heard about the state of democracy in the US and Europe; to evaluate whether those claims are valid; and, if they are, to consider strategies for combating democratic erosion here and abroad. The course will be taught simultaneously at roughly two dozen universities, with a number of cross-campus collaborative assignments. Interested students should attend the first day of class to apply for admission.