4.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course looks into what kinds of factors and policies can bring about good governance, understood as features of the politico-institutional environment—accountability, responsiveness, low corruption, effective management—that help us achieve development outcomes we care about—health, education, economic growth. There are many different perspectives on this issue, of course, but ours will be one based on data: how can we look at evidence to provide answers to our key question? The aim is that, by the end of the course, students will be capable of consuming, in an informed and critical way, the evidence provided by policy-relevant social science studies, as well as judging, as policy makers, what kinds of evidence are required to properly inform decisions. Throughout the course, we will be assessing the evidence by applying statistical concepts of internal validity and external validity: Is there compelling evidence of a causal effect? Does this evidence teach us something beyond its specific context? The course will be structured around a set of topics that illustrate potential drivers of good (or bad) governance: political representation, mass media, natural resources, ethnic diversity, social capital, corruption, and external interventions (foreign aid). Each topic will in turn be organized around one or two more specific questions, the evidence on which we will discuss. We will start our discussion of each question with a lecture discussing different pieces of evidence, and how to critically evaluate them. Prerequisites: IE I, IE II, Econometrics (all MIEF are eligible). Economic Development and/or Impact Evaluation in Development is also recommended by not required.