Introduction to Political Economy
MIT OpenCourseWare presents this graduate-level introduction to political economy, the first half of a two-part sequence paired with 14.773 Political Economy: Institutions and Development. The course surveys frontier research topics and the analytical tools economists use to study how political institutions shape economic outcomes, covering models of voting, collective choice, government behavior, and the interaction between political incentives and policy. Materials include lecture notes, readings drawn from academic papers, and problem sets typical of MIT's graduate economics curriculum. The course is aimed at advanced students already comfortable with microeconomic theory and game theory, and it functions as preparation for original research in the field rather than a general survey. As with other MIT OpenCourseWare offerings, all materials are free to access and there is no certificate offered.