UE296 - Political Economy II: Conflict, Institutions, Media and Governance. Part I: Institutions, Media, and Governance

Intervenant·e·s

• Ekaterina Zhuravskaya [référent·e]   directrice d'études, EHESS / Paris School of Economics (PJSE)

En français:

Political Economics 2 : Conflict, Institutions, Media and Governance (Part I Institutions, Media and Governance) examine l'interaction complexe entre les institutions politiques, la dynamique des médias, la gouvernance et leur impact sur les résultats économiques.

Thème I : Responsabilité politique. Institutions politiques au sein des pays : élections contre nominations et limitation des mandats. Ce thème explore le lien entre la responsabilité politique et les choix de politique économique par le biais de travaux universitaires sur les élections, les nominations et la limitation des mandats.

Thème II : Les médias en tant qu'institution de responsabilité politique. Les médias en tant qu'instrument de persuasion politique. Les étudiants seront initiés à l'état de l'art en matière d'économie politique des médias.

Thème III : Les étudiants étudieront l'impact politique d'Internet et des médias sociaux, en examinant leur influence sur la confiance dans le gouvernement, la participation aux manifestations et la diffusion de l'information à l'ère de la post-vérité.

Thème IV : La compréhension de la réglementation et de la corruption occupe le devant de la scène, les étudiants analysant les cadres réglementaires, la méfiance et le lien entre la corruption et les cycles politiques. À l'aide de données empiriques, les élèves explorent l'impact de la corruption sur divers résultats économiques et de développement, ainsi que l'efficacité des mesures de lutte contre la corruption.

Thème V : Les étudiants explorent les effets économiques des constitutions, en évaluant comment les règles électorales et les formes de démocratie façonnent les résultats politiques et le développement économique.

À la fin du cours, les étudiants auront une compréhension beaucoup plus approfondie de la dynamique complexe entre la politique, l'économie, les médias et la gouvernance.

In English:

Political Economics 2: Conflict, Institutions, Media and Governance (Part I Institutions, Media and Governance) examines the complex interplay between political institutions, media dynamics, governance and their impact on economic outcomes.

Theme I: Political accountability. Political institutions within countries: elections versus appointments and term limits. This theme explores the link between political accountability and economic policy choices through academic work on elections, appointments and term limits.

Theme II: The media as an institution of political accountability. The media as an instrument of political persuasion. Students will be introduced to the state of the art in the political economy of media.

Theme III: Students will explore the political impact of the Internet and social media, examining their influence on trust in government, protest participation and the dissemination of information in the post-truth era.

Theme IV: Understanding regulation and corruption takes center stage as students analyze regulatory frameworks, distrust and the link between corruption and political cycles. Using empirical evidence, students explore the impact of corruption on various economic and development outcomes and the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures.

Theme V: Students explore the economic effects of constitutions, assessing how electoral rules and forms of democracy shape policy outcomes and economic development.

By the end of the course, students will have a much deeper understanding of the complex dynamics between politics, economics, media and governance.

level: M2, 18 hours

sessions: 6 sessions, 3 hours each

grading: midterm and final exam

This is the first part of the course. The second part of the course is taught separately by Oliver Vanden Eynde

Readings:

1.     Political accountability. Political institutions within countries: elections vs. appointments and term limits

• Besley, T., Case, A., (1995) "Does Political Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence From Gubernatorial Limits," Quarterly Journal of Economics 110(3):769-98.
• Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, (2003). "Elected Versus Appointed Regulators: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1176-1206, 09.
• Besley, T., Case, A., (2003) "Political institutions and policy choices: Evidence from the United States", Journal of Economic Literature 41:7-73.
• Akhmedov, A., Zhuravskaya, E. (2004) "Opportunistic Political Cycles: Test in a Young Democracy Setting," Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(4):1301-1338.
• Besley, T. and Burgess, R. (2002), “The political economy of government responsiveness: Theory and evidence from India,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(4), 1415-1452.
• Alesina, Alberto and Tabellini, Guido (2007) "Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task" American Economic Review, Vol. 97, No. 1, 169-179.
• Alesina, Alberto and Tabellini, Guido (2008) “Bureaucrats or politicians? Part II: Multiple policy tasks” Journal of Public Economics, Volume 92, Issues 3–4, April 2008, Pages 426-447
• Enikolopov. R. (2014) "Politicians, bureaucrats and targeted redistribution." Journal of Public Economics 120, 74-83,2014.

2. Media as an institution of political accountability. Media as an instrument of political persuasion.

• Snyder, James M. and David Stromberg, “Press Coverage and Political Accountability,” Journal of Political Economy, 04 2010, 118 (2), 355–408.
• Adena, Maja, Ruben Enikolopov, Maria Petrova, Veronica Santarosa, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya ”Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany” Quarterly Journal of Economics (2015) 130 (4): 1885-1939.
• Martin, Gregory J. and Yurukoglu, Ali (2017) "Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization" AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW VOL. 107, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2017 (pp. 2565-99)
• DellaVigna, S., and M. Gentzkow (2010) “Persuasion: Empirical Evidence,” Annual Review of Economics.Vol. (2):643-669.
• DellaVigna, S. and E. Kaplan (2007). The Fox News effect: Media bias and voting. Quarterly Journal of Economics 122(3), 807-860.
• Enikolopov, Ruben, & Maria Petrova & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2011. "Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3253-85, December.
• Prat, Andrea and David Strömberg 2013 "The Political Economy of Mass Media"
• Advances in Economics and Econometrics. Cambridge University Press. 2013.
• DellaVigna, Stefano, Ruben Enikolopov, Vera Mironova, Maria Petrova and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya “Cross-Border Media and Nationalism: Evidence from Serbian Radio in Croatia” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics Vol. 6 No. 3 (July 2014) (pp. 103-32) 
• Reinikka, Ritva and Jakob Svensson 2011 “The power of information in public services: Evidece from education in Uganda” Journal of Public Economics, Volume 95, Issues 7–8, August 2011, pp. 956-966.
• Reinikka, Ritva and Jakob Svensson 2005 “Fighting Corruption To Improve Schooling: Evidence From A Newspaper Campaign In Uganda” Journal of the European Economic Association, 3: 259-267. 

3. Political effects of the internet and social media

• Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, Maria Petrova, and Ruben Enikolopov (2020). “Political Effects of the Internet and Social Media.” Annual Review of Economics. DOI/10.1146/annurev-economics-081919-050239. Vol. 12, pp. 415-438.
• Guriev, Sergei ® Nikita Melnikov ® Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (2021) “3G Internet and Confidence in Government,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics,  Volume 136, Issue 4, November 2021, Pages 2533–2613.
• Enikolopov, Ruben, Maria Petrova, Alexei Makarin. “Social Media and Protest Participation: Evidence from Russia” Econometrica, Vol. 88, No. 4 (July, 2020), 1479–1514.
• Manacorda, Marco and Andrea Tesei, “Liberation Technology: Mobile Phones and Political Mobilization in Africa”, Econometrica, Vol. 88, No. 2, p. 533-567.
• Oscar Barrera, Emeric Henry, Sergei Guriev, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (2020) “Facts, Alternative Facts, and Fact Checking in Times of Post-Truth Politics,” Journal of Public Economics, 182: 104123.
• Emeric Henry ® Ekaterina Zhuravskaya ® Sergei Guriev (2022) “Checking and sharing Alt-Facts,” Americal Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 14(3): 55–86.
• Vosoughi, Soroush, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral. 2018. “The spread of true and false news online.” Science, 359: 1146–1151.
• Grinberg, Nir, Kenneth Joseph, Lisa Friedland, Briony Swire-Thompson, and David Lazer. 2019. “Fake News on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” Science, 363(6425): 374–378.
• Guess, Andrew, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua Tucker. 2019. “Less than You Think: Prevalence and Predictors of Fake News Dissemination on Facebook.” Science Advances, 5(1): eaau4586.
• Martin, Gregory J. and Ali Yurukoglu (2017) "Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization," American Economic Review, 107 (9), pp. 2565-99.

4. Understanding regulation and corruption

• Aghion, Philippe & Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "Regulation and Distrust," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 125(3), pages 1015-1049, August.
• Shleifer, Andrei. 2005. “Understanding Regulation.” European Financial Management 11 (4): 439-451.
• Djankov, S., Glaeser, E., La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F. and Shleifer, A., ‘The new comparative economics’, Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 31, 2003b, pp. 595–619.
• Fisman, Raymond and Edward Miguel. (2007). “Corruption, Norms, and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets”, Journal of Political Economy, 115(6), 1020-1048.
• Mironov, Maxim and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya “Corruption in Procurement and the Political Cycle in Tunneling: Evidence from Financial Transactions Data” (2016) American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
• Do and Campante  (2014) “Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from US States”, American Economic Review, Vol 108, No. 8, pp. 2456-81.
• Ferraz, Claudio and Frederico Finan (2011). “Electoral accountability and corruption: Evidence from the audit if local governments.” American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1274-1311, June.
• Olken, Benjamin A. 2007. “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia.” Journal of Political Economy 115:200–249.
• Bertrand, Marianne, Simeon Djankov, Rema Hanna and Sendhil Mullainathan. 2007. “Obtaining a Driver’s License in India: An Experimental Approach to Studying Corruption.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 122(4):1639–1676.

5. Economic Effects of Constitutions

• Acemoglu, D. (2005) "Constitutions, politics and economic growth: A review essay on Persson and Tabellini's "The Economic Effects of Constitutions", Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIII (December 2005), pp. 1025-1048.
• Gagliarducci, Nannicini, Naticchioni (2011) "Electoral Rules and Politicians' Behavior: A Micro Test", American Economic Journal: Economic Policy: Vol. 3, No. 3, 2011 (pp. 144-74).
• Trebbi, Francesco, Philippe Aghion, Alberto Alesina, 2008. "Electoral Rules and Minority Representation in U.S. Cities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 123(1), pages 325-357, 02.
• Torsten Persson, 2005. "Forms of Democracy, Policy and Economic Development," NBER Working Papers 11171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
• Persson, T., Tabellini, G. (2003) "The Economic Effects of Constitutions: What Do the Data Say?" MIT Press, Ch. 3-9.
• Persson, T., Tabellini, G. (2004) "Constitutional rules and fiscal policy outcomes", American Economic Review 94:25-46.
• Persson, T., Tabellini, G. (2004) "Constitutions and economic policy", Journal of Economic Perspectives 18:75-98.
• Funk, P. and Gathmann, C. (2013), HOW DO ELECTORAL SYSTEMS AFFECT FISCAL POLICY? EVIDENCE FROM CANTONAL PARLIAMENTS, 1890–2000. Journal of the European Economic Association, 11: 1178-1203.
• Beath, Andrew, Fotini Christia, Georgy Egorov, Ruben Enikolopov “Electoral Rules and Political Selection: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan," The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 83, Issue 3, July 2016, Pages 932–968, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdw018.