The course provides an overview of the field of empirical political economy. While students will be expected to familiarize themselves with the most prevalent theoretical models in the field, the emphasis in this course will be on applied work. The goal is for students to attain a working knowledge of the literature, to learn to critically evaluate that literature and most importantly to develop the skills to come up with interesting, workable and theoretically grounded research questions that will push that literature forward.

(For second year Economics PhD students)

Discrimination is the differential treatment of people based on identity or perceived identity (race, gender, ethnicity, LGBTQ+ status, age, religion, ability, immigration status etc.). Such behavior violates some legal, social and moral norms and has a negative impact on those discriminated against. For these and other reasons, it is important to be able to formally identify discrimination from data. But how do we know that A’s treatment of B is because of B’s identity as opposed to some other characteristic of B or A that we may not even have a variable for? In this class we will explore economists’ methodologies for answering this question. We will survey the economic literature on discrimination against a variety of types of people in a variety of markets and across countries. Students are encouraged to explore discrimination in contexts not covered in the reading in their final projects.

(For Masters students at the School of International Public Affairs)