Political economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems and their governance by political systems. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour markets and financial markets,as well as phenomena such as growth,distribution,inequality,and trade,and how these are shaped by institutions,laws,and government policy. Originating in the 16th century,it is the precursor to the modern discipline of economics. Political economy in its modern form is considered an interdisciplinary field,drawing on theory from both political science and modern economics.
In the economics study of the public sector,economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation,region,local community,or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and objectives.
Development economics is a branch of economics that deals with economic aspects of the development process in low- and middle- income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development,economic growth and structural change but also on improving the potential for the mass of the population,for example,through health,education and workplace conditions,whether through public or private channels.
Fabrizio Zilibotti is an Italian economist. He is the Tuntex Professor of International and Development Economics at Yale University. Zilibotti was previously professor of economics at University College London,the University of Zürich,and at the Institute for International Economic Studies in Stockholm.
Elhanan Helpman is an Israeli economist who is currently the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard University. He is also a Professor Emeritus at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. Helpman is among the thirty most cited economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc.
Cultural economics is the branch of economics that studies the relation of culture to economic outcomes. Here,'culture' is defined by shared beliefs and preferences of respective groups. Programmatic issues include whether and how much culture matters as to economic outcomes and what its relation is to institutions. As a growing field in behavioral economics,the role of culture in economic behavior is increasingly being demonstrated to cause significant differentials in decision-making and the management and valuation of assets.
Alberto Francesco Alesina was an Italian economist who served as the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University from 2003 until his death in 2020. He was known principally as an economist of politics and culture,and was famed for his usage of economic tools to study social and political issues. He was described as having “almost single-handedly”established the modern field of political economy,and as a likely contender for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Shlomo Weber is an economics professor and president,New Economic School in Moscow,Russia;Academic Director of the Center for Study of Diversity and Social Interactions at NES;Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Trustee Professor of Economics Department of Economics,Southern Methodist University.
Sebastián Edwards is a Chilean-American economist who has served as the Henry Ford II Distinguished Professor of International Economics at the UCLA Anderson School of Management since 2003.
Matthew E. Kahn is a leading American educator in the field of environmental economics. He is the Provost Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California. Between 2019 and 2021,he served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Economics and Business,with appointments at both Carey Business School and Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
Deepak Nayyar is an Indian economist and academician. He is a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University,New Delhi and Chairperson of the Board of Governors of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) New Delhi. He has taught at the University of Oxford,the University of Sussex,the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C),and the New School for Social Research,New York City. He was Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 2000 to 2005.
Eswar Shanker Prasad is an Indian-American economist. He is the Tolani Senior Professor of International Trade Policy at Cornell University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution,where he holds the New Century Chair in Economics.
In social sciences,a cross-cutting cleavage exists when groups on one cleavage overlap among groups on another cleavage. "Cleavages" may include racial,political,and religious divisions in society. Formally,members of a group j on a given cleavage x belong to groups on a second cleavage y with members of other groups k,l,m,etc. from the first cleavage x. For example,if a society contained two ethnic groups that had equal proportions of rich and poor it would be cross-cutting. While the concept may have been around since antiquity the formalizing of it originated with James Madison in The Federalist,Number 10. Robert A. Dahl built a theory of Pluralist democracy which is a direct descendant of Madison's cross-cutting cleavages. The term's antonym is reinforcing cleavages",which would be the case of one of the ethnic groups being all rich and the other all poor.The term originates from Simmel (1908) in his work Soziologie.
Robin Burgess is a British economist who is Professor of Economics,Co-founder and Director of the International Growth Centre,as well as Co-Founder and Director of the Economics of Energy and the Environment (EEE) program at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Nina Pavcnik is the Niehaus Family Professor in International Studies for the Economics Department at Dartmouth College.
María Silvana Tenreyro is a British-Argentine economist who is professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and served as an external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from July 2017 to July 2023. She served as the president of the European Economic Association for 2021.
Eliana La Ferrara is an Italian economist and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Before receiving tenure at Harvard in 2022,she held the Fondazione Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics at Bocconi University,where she also acted as Scientific Director of the Laboratory for Effective Anti-poverty Programs (LEAP). Previously,she was also the president of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) as well as the president of the European Economic Association. In terms of research,her fields of interest include development economics,political economy,and public economics.
Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln is a German economist and currently holds the Chair for Macroeconomics and Development at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research has been awarded the Gossen Prize in 2016 and the Leibniz Prize in 2018. The Leibniz award is considered to be one of the highest scientific awards in all of Germany.
Paola Giuliano is an economist and currently the Chauncey J. Medberry Chair in Management at the University of California,Los Angeles.
Anna Strutt is a New Zealand academic,and is a full professor of economics at the University of Waikato,specialising in international policy analysis.
