Development of research ideas in political economy and culture. Offered jointly with Alberto Alesina and Nathan Nunn. Informally known as political economy tea.
Questions related to morality pervade the economic and political discourse. However, traditionally, economists have paid little attention to the structure and consequences of people’s moral concerns. This course introduces students to research in an emerging field that studies the determinants and consequences of heterogeneity in moral reasoning through the lens of economics. The main objective of the class is to highlight (i) how moral reasoning matters for economic and political outcomes, and (ii) how economic needs in turn generate particular moral systems....
This course provides an introduction to experimental methods and their applications in economics. We will focus on (i) the use of lab and internet experiments in establishing causal effects, testing models, and illuminating mechanisms; (ii) field experiments in behavioral economics; (iii) the measurement of preference parameters and behavioral traits in lab-in-the-field settings; and (iv) survey design. Topics include bounded rationality, wishful thinking, morality and social image concerns, gender, the measurement of preferences in lab and large-scale survey...
