APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2014/2015

GRA 5917 Public Opinion and Input Politics - RE-SIT EXAMINATION

Responsible for the course
Rune Sørensen

Department
Department of Economics

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
This is one of the School’s three courses dedicated to advanced selected topics in political economy, in this case public opinion and the input side of politics. It requires no previous knowledge, but is primarily designed for students taking the MSc in Political Economy and therefore assumes some knowledge of political processes and policy making.
The central aim is to apply statistical techniques to analyze political-economy hypotheses.

Learning outcome
The purpose of GRA 5917 is to develop the students skills in quantitative analyses of politico-economic topics. The course builds and GRA 5916 Core concepts in political economy, and it has been designed to complement to GRA 6020 Multivariate Data Analysis and GRA 5920 Political Economy of Government: Public Policy and Reform.

The first part of the course shall familiarize the students with large databases of politico-economic statistics, and prepare the participants so they can perform their own analysis of these data. Several datasets will be made available through It's learning. Teaching will consist of “hands-on” instruction in a PC laboratory using the SPSS statistical software package.

The second part of the course will be organized as a research conference. Students will present draft papers for discussion in class. All students are expected to prepare comments and suggestions as they may be assigned as paper discussants. The statistical analysis will be the core of a research paper, which must be finalized by the end of the course.

Prerequisites
Bachelor degree qualifying for admission to the MSc Programme

Compulsory reading
Books:
Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. 2013. Introductory econometrics : a modern approach. 5th ed. South-Western Cengage Learning. Selected chapters

Collection of articles:
Compendium of Recent journal Articles

Other:
A list of recommended readings will be provided on It's learning or in class.
During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination.


Recommended reading
Books:
Persson, Torsten and Guido Tabellini. 2005. The economic effects of constitutions. MIT Press
Powell, G. Bingham. 2000. Elections as instruments of democracy : majoritan and proportional visions. Yale University Press. Selected chapters

Course outline
1. Lectures and exercises in SPSS related to analysis of large politico-economic datasets.
2. Student presentations of draft for term-papers, and discussions of the papers.

Computer-based tools
It's learning

Learning process and workload
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.


Examination
The course grade will be based on the following activities and weights:
50% term paper.
50% final written exam, two hours.
To get a final grade in the course, students need to complete and achieve a passing grade in all parts of the evaluation.

Specific information regarding student evaluation beyond the information given in the course description will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.

Examination code(s)
GRA 59172 for the termpaper (50%)
GRA 59173 for the final written exam of two hours (50%)

Examination support materials
A bilingual dictionary. Examination support materials at written examiniations are explained under examination information in the student portal @bi. Please note use of calculator and dictionary in the section on support materials.

Re-sit examination
The assessment in some courses is based on more than one exam code.
Where this is the case, you may retake only the assessed components of one of these exam codes.
Where this is not the case, all of the assessed components of the course must be retaken.
All retaken examinations will incur an additional fee.

Additional information
Honor Code
Academic honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals, and represent values that are encouraged and promoted by the honor code system. This is a most significant university tradition. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the ideals of the honor code system, to which the faculty are also deeply committed.

Any violation of the honor code will be dealt with in accordance with BI’s procedures for cheating. These issues are a serious matter to everyone associated with the programs at BI and are at the heart of the honor code and academic integrity. If you have any questions about your responsibilities under the honor code, please ask.