Government 7035: Political Economy Prof. Jonathan Kirshner Fall 2013 323 White Hall Mon 10:10-12:05 255-4120/(jdk5) McGraw 365 This course reviews some of the extensive literature on political economy, both classical and modern. Among the material covered will be the work of major theorists and the literature on applied topics. This course only addresses parts of an enormous and diverse field. The principal written requirement of this course is a long review essay of two or three recent books in the field of Political Economy. Students will choose these books in consultation with me. This will count for sixty percent of the final grade. The remaining forty percent will be allocated according to the amount and quality of individual contributions to class discussion. Students are expected to have done all of the readings before each class. Most of the assigned journal articles are available on-line; there are also hard copies of the major journals in the Olin Library Graduate Reading Room. Many of the readings will be placed on reserve in Olin Library as well. Some readings will also be available on the course blackboard site. Week One (Monday, September 9): General Introduction. Recommended reading: Frank Stilwell, Political Economy: The Contest of Economic Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) Week Two (Monday, September 16): Exchange, Information, and Externalities. Robert Heilbroner, Teachings from the Worldly Philosophers (New York: Norton, 1996), pp. 55-105, 199-244. D.N. McClosky, The Economics of Choice: Neoclassical Supply and Demand, in Thomas Rawski, et al., Economics and the Historian (California, 1996), 122-158. Robert Frank, Microeconomics and Behavior (4 th ed. 2000) pp. 3-29, 34-58. A.C. Pigou, The Economics of Welfare, fourth edition (Macmillan, 1932), pp. 127-130, 142-143, 172-204. R.H. Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, Journal of Law and Economics 3 (Oct. 1960), reprinted in The Firm, the Market and the Law (Chicago, 1990), 95-119, 153-6. R.H. Coase, The Nature of the Firm, Economica, n.s., 4 (1937), pp. 386-405, reprinted in The Firm, the Market and the Law, pp. 33-55. D. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton 1981), pp. 3-68, 187-209.
Week Three (Monday, September 23): Hayek and the Consequences of Individual Choice. Friedrich von Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society, American Economic Review 35:4 (September 1945), pp. 519-530. Friedrich von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago, 1944), author's introduction and chapters 1-9 (pp. 1-133 in 1944 edition). Friedrich von Hayek, The Denationalization of Money: The Argument Refined (London, 1978), pp. 23-134 (also reprinted in Good Money Part II). Friedrich von Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (Chicago, 1988), pp. 6-10, 29-105. Friedrich von Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty (Chicago, 1979), Volume III: 153-76. Friedrich von Hayek, The Pretence of Knowledge, (1974), reprinted in American Economic Review 79:6 (December 1989), pp. 3-7. Week Four (Monday, September 30): Marx, Malthus, and Dissent Michael Evans, Karl Marx (Indiana, 1975), pp. 15-52. Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), pp. 64-148. Karl Marx, Wages, Price and Profit (1865), pp. 1-79. Robert Heilbroner, Teachings from the Worldly Philosophers, pp. 161-195. Rudolph Hilferding, Finance Capital (1910), pp. 301-336 Samuel Hollander, The Economics of Thomas Robert Malthus (Toronto, 1997) 514-39. Max Weber, Essays in Economic Sociology, edited by Richard Swedberg (Princeton 1999), pp. 3-31, 83-119. Week Five (Monday, October 7): Keynes and the Mixed Economy. Robert Skidelsky, Keynes (Oxford, 1996), pp. 1-128. John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), Collected Writings (CW) version, Volume II, pp. 143-59. John Maynard Keynes, The End of Laissez Faire, originally a 1925 essay, Collected Writings version, vol. IX, pp. 272-294. John Maynard Keynes, Am I a Liberal? originally a 1926 essay, Collected Writings version, vol. IX, pp. 295-306. John Maynard Keynes, How to Avoid a Slump, originally published in the London
Times, January 12-14, 1937, Collected Writings version, vol. XXI, pp. 383-395. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), CW VII, pp. 313-84. John Maynard Keynes, Post War Currency Policy, (memo, 8 September 1941). CW XXV, pp. 21-33. John Maynard Keynes, My Early Beliefs, originally from Two Memoirs, Collected Writings version, vol. X, pp. 433-450. Week Six (Monday, October 21): Money and Macroeconomics Nigel Dodd, The Sociology of Money (Continuum 1994), pp. 3-40. Benjamin J. Cohen, The Geography of Money (Cornell 1998), pp. 8-46. Brian Snowden, et al., A Modern Guide to Macroeconomics (Edward Elgar, 1994), pp. 1-41, 70-88, 124-146, 157-235, 268-78, 286-92, 331-50, 408-19 Karl Brunner and Allan H. Meltzer, Money in the Economy: Issues in Monetary Analysis (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 5-51. Alan Blinder, The Fall and Rise of Keynesian Economics, The Economic Record 64 (1988), pp. 278-94. Olivier Blanchard, The State of Macro, Annual Review of Economics 1 (2009), 209-28. Week Seven (Monday, October 28): Group Conflict. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 1-65. Gary Becker, A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence, Quarterly Journal of Economics 98 (1983), pp. 371-400. Wolfgang Stolper and Paul Samuelson, Protection and Real Wages, Review of Economic Statistics, IX:1 (November 1941), pp. 58-73. Hugh Rockoff, The Wizard of Oz as a Monetary Allegory, Journal of Political Economy, 98:4 (August 1990), pp. 739-760. John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, (1925) Collected Writings version, vol. IX, pp. 207-230. Jonathan Kirshner, The Political Economy of Low Inflation Journal of Economic Surveys 15:1 (2001), pp. 1-30. Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (Oxford, 2013), pp. 51-93. Week Eight (Monday, November 4): The International Economy.
Kenneth A. Oye, Economic Discrimination and Political Exchange: World Political Economy in the 1930s and 1980s (Princeton, 1992), pp. 3-133. E.H. Carr, The Twenty Year s Crisis, 1919-1939, (2 nd ed) (London, 1946), pp. 41-94. Rawi Abdelal, National Purpose in the World Economy (Cornell, 2001), pp. 1-44. Barry Eichengreen, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939 (Oxford, 1992), pp. 3-28. Jeff Frieden/Ronald Rogowski, The Impact of the International Economy on National Policies: An Overview, in Robert Keohane/Helen Milner (eds) Internationalization and Domestic Politics (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 25-47. David M. Andrews, Monetary Power and Monetary Statecraft, in Andrews (ed.) International Monetary Power (Cornell, 2006), pp. 7-28. Week Nine (Monday, November 11): The Politics of Global Money. Kathleen McNamara, The Currency of Ideas (Cornell, 1998), pp. 1-71. Ilene Grabel, Ideology, Power and the Rise of Independent Monetary Institutions in Emerging Economies, in Kirshner (ed.) Monetary Orders, pp. 25-52. Jonathan Kirshner, Explaining Choices about Money: Disentangling Power, Ideas and Conflict, in Kirshner (ed.) Monetary Orders (Cornell, 2003), pp. 260-80. Rawi Abdelal, Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 1-42, 54-85, 162-223. Eric Helleiner and Jonathan Kirshner (eds.), The Future of the Dollar (Cornell 2009), pp. 116-141, 216-27. Daniel Drezner, Bad Debts Assessing China s Financial Influence in Great Power Politics, International Security 34:2 (Fall 2009), pp. 7 45. Week Ten (Monday, November 18): Financial Crises Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes (Basic Books, 1996 (3 rd ed.)), pp. 11-20, 83-99, 146-89. Reinhart and Rogoff, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, (Princeton, 2009), pp. xxv-xxxv, xxxix-xlv, 3-20, 277-292. Mark Blyth, The Political Power of Financial Ideas: Transparency, Risk, and Distribution in Global Finance, in Kirshner (ed.) Monetary Orders, pp. 239-59. Roman Frydman and Michael D. Goldberg, Imperfect Knowledge Economics (Princeton, 2007), pp. xiii-xx, 3-40. Raghuram Rajan, Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier? in The Greenspan Era: Lessons for the Future (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City,
2005), pp. 313-64 and pp. 387-97 (the discussion that follows the paper). Paul Volcker, Rethinking the Bright New World of Global Finance, International Finance 11:1 (2008), pp. 101 107. Week Eleven (Monday, November 25): The Global Financial Crisis Olivier Blanchard, Giovanni Dell Aricca, and Paolo Mauro, Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy, IMF Staff Position Note, February 12, 2010. David Colander (et al.), The Financial Crisis and the Systemic Failure of the Economics Profession, Critical Review 21:2-3 (2009), pp. 249-67. Robert Skidelsky, The Relevance of Keynes, Cambridge Journal of Economics 35:1 (2011), pp. 1-13. Eric Helleiner. Understanding the 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis: Lessons for Scholars of International Political Economy? Annual Review of Political Science 14 (2011), pp. 67-87. Michael Bordo and Harold James, The Great Depression Analogy, Financial History Review 17:2 (2010), pp. 127-40. Ilene Grabel, Not Your Grandfather s IMF: Global Crisis, Productive Incoherence and Developmental Policy Space, Cambridge Journal of Economics 35:5 (2011), pp. 805-30. Harold James, International Order After the Financial Crisis, International Affairs 87:3 (2011), pp. 525-537. Week Twelve (Monday, December 3): Continuity, Change, and Historical Economics. D.N. McClosky, Does the Past Have Useful Economics? Journal of Economic Literature 14:2 (June 1976), pp. 434-461. Charles P. Kindleberger, Historical Economics: Art or Science? (California, 1990) pp. 3-31, 349-55. Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (Oxford, 1994), pp. 3-24, 800-824. Claudia Goldin, Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (Oxford, 1990), pp. vii-xi, 3-9, 83-118, 159-184, 211-17. Jonathan Kirshner, Appeasing Bankers: Financial Caution on the Road to War (Princeton, 2007), pp. 1-30, 58-121. Bernd Widdig, Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany (California, 2001), pp. 3-30, 53-75, 113-133, 196-220.