During the fall semester of this year-long course we provide a brief overview of the literature focusing on the analysis of individual behavior within various types of institutional arrangements. Many of the topics covered here in one week could well be the topic for a full semester's work. Thus, once you have completed the semester, you will have been introduced to a diversity of work, but you will not yet have gained mastery and will need substantial additional study to gain that mastery. For some subjects, we have listed additional readings that you may wish to pursue either, during this semester on those topics of particular interest and importance to you, or over the coming years.
Graduate students taking the course for credit have three types of assignments.
These memos are not individually graded, but part of the final grade will be based on class participation, and the faithfulness and quality of the memos will be reflected in this part of the grade. Second, there will be an exam given toward the end of the semester. This is an excellent opportunity to do a research design for a dissertation that applies institutional analysis to a particular problem. Students may wish to do the first draft of a paper that eventually will be submitted for publication. All papers will be presented at a mini-conference in December.