Seminar on Governance, Institutions and Public Policies

Year
1
Academic year
2018-2019
Code
03017703
Subject Area
Economics
Language of Instruction
Portuguese
Other Languages of Instruction
English
Mode of Delivery
Face-to-face
Duration
SEMESTRIAL
ECTS Credits
10.0
Type
Compulsory
Level
3rd Cycle Studies

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

The methodologies adopted are those that characterize the work of a seminar. The set of skills that students already possess are assumed and, in particular, those that have been consolidated in the first semester. Relevant work topics are selected. The professor presents their framework and promotes the work of each student and his/her participation in the collective dynamics of the seminar.

Learning Outcomes

After students have furthered their knowledge about the institutionalist discussion in Economics and on some of its fundamental authors and concepts through essentially expository sessions, we must then strengthen their own autonomous work. This is the main purpose of this seminar. The point is, thus, to develop their research capabilities.

To achieve this, in each session of the seminar an approach is presented and those authors who best represent it. The work is previously distributed among the students; the professor makes a very brief initial presentation, and then actively intervenes in the discussion. Additionally, every student is supposed to point out potential contributions that each subject studied here may offer for his/her own research. This is therefore the first moment in which students start to deal with their future work.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Themes for presentation and debate of at least two texts, previously assigned to students.

1. Is economics a “positive science”?

2. May there be a "normative science"?

3. Public policies and institutional change

4. Multiform governance: the contributions of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson

5. Markets and public policies: Pigou vs. Coase

6. Social costs: environment and health

7. "Variegated" capitalism and neoliberalism

8. Competition state.

Head Lecturer(s)

José Joaquim Dinis Reis

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Other: 25.0%
Synthesis work: 75.0%

Bibliography

Grant, R. W. (2006) “Ethics and Incentives: A Political Approach”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 100(1): 29-39.

Bowles, S. (2008) “Policies Designed for Self-Interested Citizens May Undermine "The Moral Sentiments": Evidence from Economic Experiments”, Science, 20: 1605-1609.

Ostrom, E. (2007), “Challenges and growth: the development of the interdisciplinary field of institutional analysis” Journal of Institutional Economics, 3(3): 239–264

Williamson, O. (2002), “The Theory of the Firm as Governance Structure: From Choice to Contract”

Swaney, J. (2006), Policy for Social Costs: Kapp v. Neoclassical Economics, in Wolfram Elsner et al. (2006), Social Costs and Public Action in Modern Capitalism: Essays inspired by Karl William Kapp's Theory of Social Costs

Peck, J. e N. Theodore (2007), “Variegated capitalism”, Progress in Human Geography 31(6): 731–772

Cerny, P. (2010), “The competition state today: from raison d’État to raison du Monde”, Policy Studies, Vol. 31(1): 5-21.