Summing up 4346B
15/12 2008
Carl Henrik Knutsen
From lecture 1
Economic structures
and processes
Political institutions and
processes
”Z-variables”:
Geography, culture etc
Some important topics
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Allocation of resources: states and markets
Bureaucratic structures and implications for development
Politics, institutions and path dependency. Implications for development
Modernization theory
Inequality and democratization
Democracy and economic growth
Democracy, dictatorship and property rights
Political accountability, institutions and voting
Capitalism and politics in rich countries
Inequality and development
Industrial policy
Corruption
Neo-patrimonialism
The reading list
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Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson (2001). “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical
Investigation”. The American Economic Review 91: 1369-1401.Link
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson (2002). “An African Success Story: Botswana”. London: CEPR. Discussion
Paper No 3219.Link
Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2000). “Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in
Historical Perspective”. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 115(4): 1167-1199.Link
Boix, Carles (2003). Democracy and Redistribution. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1 and 6. 72 pages
Boix, Carles and Susan C. Stokes (2003). “Endogenous Democratization”. World Politics 55 (4): 517-549.Link
Caporaso, James A. and David P. Levine (1992). Theories of Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 4,
6 and 8. 87 pages K
Datta-Chaudhuri, Mrinal (1990). “Market Failure and Government Failure”. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 4 (3): 25-39.Link
Engerman, Stanley L. and Kenneth L. Sokoloff (2002). “Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New
World Economies”. NBER Working Paper No 9259 Link
Evans, Peter (1995). Embedded Autonomy. States & Industrial Transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapters 2
and 3. 52 pages K
Fukuyama, Francis (2005). State Building – Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century. London: Profile Books.
Selected parts of Chapters 1&2. Approx 100 (short) pages
Hall, Peter A. and David Soskice (2001). “An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism” in Peter A. Hall and David Soskice [eds.]
Varieties of Capitalism – The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 68 pages
Kay, Cristobál (2001). "Asia’s and Latin America’s Development in Comparative Perspective: Landlords, Peasants and
Industrialization". The Hague: ISS Working Paper No 336.Link
Knutsen, Carl Henrik (2008a). “A short note on concepts in microeconomic theory”. Link
Knutsen, Carl Henrik (2008b). “Beyond OLS: A non-technical guide to econometric methods”. Link
Knutsen (2008c). “From James Monroe and the Quing Dynasty to George W. Bush and the Communist Party: The historical
evidence on how democracy and dictatorship affect economic growth”. Oslo: Department of Political Science, University of Oslo.
Working Paper. Approx 30p.
The reading list cont’d
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Lipset, Seymor Martin (1959). “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy”. The
American Political Science Review: 69-105.Link
Médard, Jean-Francois (1996). “Patrimonialism, Neo-Patrimonialism and the Study of the Post-colonial State in Subsaharian
Africa” in Henrik Secher Marcussen [ed.] Improved Natural Resource Management – the Role of Formal Organizations and
Informal Networks and Institutions.
Médard, Jean-Francois (2002). “Corruption in the Neo-Patrimonial States of Sub-Saharan Africa" in Arnold J. Heidenheimer, and
Michael Johnston [Eds.] Political Corruption – Concepts and Contexts (3rd ed). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. K
North, Douglass C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chapters 1-8 and 12-13. 92 pages
Olson, Mancur (1993). “Dictatorship, Democracy and Development” The American Political Science Review 87(3): 567-576. Link
Persson, Torsten and Guido Tabellini (2004). “Constitutions and Economic Policy”. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 18 (1):
75-98.Link
Pierson, Paul (2000). “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics”. The American Political Science Review 94
(2): 251-267.Link
Powell, G. Bingham and Guy D. Whitten (1993). “A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political
Context”. American Journal of Political Science 37(2): 391-414Link
Przeworski, Adam (2003). States and Markets – A Primer in Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Selected
parts of Chapters 1-3 and 5-8. Approx 100 pages
Przeworski, Adam and Fernando Limongi (1993). “Political Regimes and Economic Growth”. The Journal of Economic
Perspectives 7 (3): 51-69.Link
Przeworski, Adam and Fernando Limongi (1997). “Modernization: Theories and Facts”. World Politics 49 (2). 155-183.Link
Rauch, James E and Peter B. Evans (2000). “Bureaucratic structure and bureaucratic performance in less developed countries”.
Journal of Public Economics 75 (1): 49-71.Link
Rodrik, Dani (2004). “Industrial Policy for the Twenty-First Century”. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Paper (prepared for
UNIDO).Link
Scruggs, Lyle (2001). “The Politics of Growth Revisited”. The Journal of Politics 63 (1): 120-140.Link
Shleifer, Andrei and Robert W. Vishny (1993). “Corruption”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 108: 599-617.Link
Welzel, Christian, Ronald Inglehart and Hans-Dieter Klingeman (2003). “The Theory of Human Development: A cross-cultural
analysis". European Journal of Political Research 42: 341-379.link
For the exam
• Answer all questions that are required: As
concrete answers as you possibly can. The essays
will incorporate several different questions.
• Follow the guidelines regarding time structure.
You should not use less than 50% of the exam on
the short questions and medium essay.
• Often asked to give brief explanations..follow that
guideline
• The 25% medium essay will probably be most
troublesome in terms of finishing in due time. Be
sharp here and don’t beat around the bush.
Advice
• More is better, but don’t discuss all points at once! Make sure you give a
logically coherent and stringent answer to the question. Then if you have
time left, you can add on extra points, counterarguments, empirical
examples etc. You can for example leave some space, and go back to the
question after having finished the others
• Separate theoretical arguments and empirical evidence when discussing.
• You are free to draw diagrams, tables etc to make points, but comment
with text. You are not required to reproduce mathematical models on the
exam, but you are allowed to use such models if you like and if it is helpful
for explaining a point (not just for showing off modeling skills..)
• Use relevant results from different articles on the reading list when
discussing a topic, if possible. You can of course also refer to additional
literature outside the curriculum, but this should compliment rather than
substitute the curriculum.
• Sometimes, you can illustrate your points by referring to particular cases
(most often countries)
A hypothetical exam
1. Short questions (25%). Answer 6 of the following 7 questions briefly:
• 1.1 Define the term “institutional complementarity”
• 1.2 What is the main finding from Evans and Rauch’s article on how
Weberian bureaucratic structures affect economic growth?
• 1.3 Give a very brief and intuitive account of Acemoglu and Robinson’s
explanation of the Kuznets’ curve.
• 1.4 Name and discuss very briefly two types of externalities that lead to
the need for industrial policies, particularly in developing countries,
according to Rodrik
• 1.5 What is the relationship between economic development and the
relative size of the transaction cost sector in the economy, according to
North?
• 1.6 Briefly explain the term “neo-patrimonialism”, as used by Medard
• 1.7 Which dictators will expropriate less property from their citizens
according to Olson’s (1993) model framework?
2. Short essay (25%)
• Present the debate between Przeworski and
Limongi (1997) and Boix and Stokes (2003) on
the relationship between GDP per capita and
democracy, with a particular focus on the
empirical relationships estimated in the two
articles.
3. Long essay (50%) Answer 1 of the 2 following questions. The
more you are able to link your discussion to concrete
contributions from the curriculum, the better.
• 3.1 What is political accountability? Focus now only on democratic
regimes: Name some institutional aspects that affect the degree of
political accountability. What is the expected effect from political
accountability on corrupt behavior, and how do electoral rules
affect corruption empirically, according to Persson and Tabellini? At
last, how does political accountability affect economic voting
empirically, according to Powell and Whitten?
• 3.2 Name and discuss three theoretical arguments related to how
and why democracy should affect economic growth differently than
dictatorship. Present some empirical results on the average effect
from democracy on economic growth from at least one of the
articles on the reading list. Discuss some methodological problems
related to estimating the effect of democracy on economic growth
statistically.
Finally…
• Thank you for some intense and productive
weeks!!
• Good luck!!