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Department of Politics / Faculty of Social Sciences
National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Spring 2015
Michael Rochlitz
Email:
michael.rochlitz@gmail.com
Website:
https://sites.google.com/site/michaelrochlitz/teaching
Office:
Ilyinka 13, 6
thfloor, Office No. 613
1. Course Description
Title of the course: Advanced Research Methods in Institutional Analysis
Pre-requisites: The course is designed for postgraduate and PhD students who already have a good grasp of various quantitative and qualitative research methods, and who have now started to undertake their own research.
2. Abstract, Learning Objective and Course Organization
The course consists of 6 seminars. In each seminar, we will discuss in detail one paper that is representative for one specific research method, with a focus on the strengths and weaknesses of each specific method and its suitability to solve the research question at hand. We will then also look at a range of additional papers that use similar methods.
The objective of the course is to provide students with an overview of advanced research methods as used at the frontier of empirical research in institutional economics and comparative political economy today.
As preparation for each seminar, students will have to carefully read the paper that is indicated as the main reading for the seminar, and be familiar with (i.e. having read at least the abstract, introduction and conclusion) of the additional suggested papers.
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3. Course Plan
Seminar 1 (Friday January 30
th, 18:00): Information Control and Political
Outcomes I: Media Accessibility
Method:
Using the variation in radio / TV reception (by exploiting e.g. specific topographic features that randomly block signals) to identify causal effects.
Paper to read:
Yanagizawa-Drott D. (2014) ‘Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan
Genocide’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming
Additional papers:
Adena, M., Enikolopov R., Petrova M., Santarosa V., Zhuravskaya, E. (2013), ‘Radio and the rise of Nazis in pre-war Germany,” Paris School of Economics Working Paper, 2013–32
Crabtree C., Darmofal D., Kern H. (2014) ‘A Spatial Analysis of the Impact of West German Television on Protest Mobilization During the East German Revolution’, working paper
Della Vigna S., Enikolopov R., Mironova V., Petrova M., Zhuravskaya E. (2014) ‘Cross-Border Media and Nationalism: Evidence from Serbian Radio in Croatia’, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 6(3): 103-132
Enikolopov R., Petrova M., Zhuravskaya E. (2011) ‘Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence
from Russia’, American Economic Review, 101: 3253-3285
Kern H., Hainmueller J. (2009) ‘Opium for the Masses: How Foreign Media Can Stabilize Authoritarian Regimes’, Political Analysis, 17(4): 377-399
Olken, B., “Do Television and Radio Destroy Social Capital? Evidence from Indonesian Villages,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(4) (2009):1–33
Seminar 2 (Friday February 6
th, 18:00): Information Control and Political
Outcomes II: Censorship
Method: Use of computer-assisted text analytic methods to locate, download and analyse the content of social media posts before and after they are censored, to determine how internet censorship works in a specific context.
Paper to read:
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Additional papers:
Ang Y. (2014) ‘Authoritarian Restraints on Online Activism Revisited: Why “I-Paid-A-Bribe” Worked in India but Failed in China’, Comparative Politics, 47(1): 21-40
King G., Pan J., Roberts M. (2014) ‘Reverse-engineering censorship in China: Randomized experimentation and participant observation’, Science, 345(6199): 1-10
Seminar 3 (Friday February 20
th, 18:00): Measuring Bureaucratic Incentives -
China and Russia
Method:
Regressing various performance measures on the probability for regional officials to be promoted, to identify the incentives faced by regional officials in large federal or quasi-federal states.
Paper to read:
Li H., Zhou L. (2005) ‘Political Turnover and Economic Performance: The Incentive Role of Personnel Control in China’, Journal of Public Economics, 89: 1743-1762
Additional papers:
Choi E. (2012) ‘Patronage and Performance: Factors in the Political Mobility of Provincial Leaders in Post-Deng China’, The China Quarterly, 212: 965-981
Chen T., Kung J. (2014) ‘Political Resource Curse under Authoritarianism: Evidence from China, working paper
Jia R., Kudamatsu M., Seim D. (2014) ‘Political Selection in China: Complementary Roles of Connections and Performance’, Journal of the European Economic Association, forthcoming
Reuter, Robertson (2012) ‘Subnational Appointments in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from Russian Gubernatorial Appointments’, The Journal of Politics, 74(4): 1023-1037
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Seminar 4 (Friday February 27th, 18:00): Randomized Experiments Method:
Randomized controlled experiments: random assignment of a treatment and control group in a real-world setting makes it possible to vary one factor at a time, and thus to identify causal effects.
Paper to read:
Banerjee A., Duflo E., Glennerster R., Khotari D. (2010) ‘Improving immunisation coverage in rural India: clustered randomised controlled evaluation of immunisation campaigns with and without incentives’, British Medical Journal
Additional papers:
Banerjee A., Duflo E. (2009) ‘The Experimental Approach to Development Economics’,
Annual Review of Economics, 1: 151-178
Banerjee A., Duflo E., Glennerster R., Kinnan C. (2014) ‘The miracle of microfinance? Evidence from a randomized evaluation’, working paper
Duflo E., P. Dupas, Kremer M. (2012) ‘School Governance, Teacher Incentives, and Pupil-Teacher Ratios: Experimental Evidence from Kenyan Primary Schools’, NBER Working Paper No. 17939
Seminar 5 (Friday March 13th, 18:00): Measuring Institutions I - Property Rights Method:
Text-analysis of newspaper articles to document variation in threats to property rights in sub-national settings, with the aim of identifying the institutional determinants of property-rights security.
Paper to read:
Rochlitz M. (2014) ‘Corporate Raiding and the Role of the State in Russia’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 30(2-3): 89-114
Additional papers:
Belokurova G. (2014) ‘When Does Business Turn Violent? Elections and Business-Related
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Seminar 6 (Friday March 20th, 18:00): Measuring Institutions 2 - Corruption Method:
Different approaches to measure corruption
Paper to read:
Olken B., Barron P. (2009) ‘The Simple Economics of Extortion: Evidence from Trucking in Aceh’, Journal of Political Economy, 117(3): 417-452
Additional papers:
Cai H., Fang H., Xu C. (2011) ‘Eat, Drink, Firms, Government: An Investigation of Corruption from the Entertainment and Travel Costs of Chinese Firms’, Journal of Law and Economics’,
54(1):55-78
Enikolopov R., Petrova M., Sonin K. (2014) ‘Social Media And Corruption’, working paper
Gong L., Xiao J., Zhang Q. (2013) ‘Political Budget Cycles in China: Corruption，Incentive Role and Time Inconsistency’, working paper
Schulze G., Bambang S., Zakharov N. (2013) ‘Corruption in Russia’, working paper
