Political economics is an interdisciplinary field focusing on the nonmarket, collective, and political activity of individuals and organizations.
The PhD Program in political economics prepares students for research and teaching positions by providing rigorous training in theoretical and empirical techniques. The intellectual foundation for the program is positive political economy, which includes formal models of rational choice, collective action, political institutions, political competition, and behavioral political economy. Development and extensions of theories are often combined with empirical analysis, including the identification of causal effects.
Students become involved in research early in the program. They begin their own research during the first year and are required to write research papers during the summers following the first and second years. The program is flexible and allows ample opportunity to tailor coursework and research to individual interests. The program is small by design to promote close interaction between students and faculty.
Fields of Inquiry
Specific fields of inquiry include:
- Bureaucratic politics
- Comparative institutions
- Constitutional choice
- Elections
- Government and business
- Interest groups
- Judicial institutions
- Law and economics
- Legislative behavior and organization
- Macro political economy
- Political economy of development
- Political behavior and public opinion
- Regulation
Cross-campus Collaboration
The program, embedded in the larger community of political economics scholars at Stanford University, combines the resources of Stanford GSB with opportunities to study in the departments of economics and political science.
Drawing on the offerings of all three units, students have a unique opportunity to combine the strengths of economic methods and analytical political science and to apply them to the study of political economy. The program involves coursework in economic theory, econometrics, game theory, political theory, and theories of institutions and organizations.
