Current Announcements
TEXTBOOK
The main textbook for the course (which is worth buying ; I'll rely on it a fair bit) is "Political Economics : Explaining Economic Policy", by T. Persson and G. Tabellini (MIT Press, paperback, 2002).
There's also a workbook which accompanies this text, which is recommended, not required : "Workbook to Accompany Political Economics : Explaining Economic Policy", by I. Brocas, M. Castanheira, R. Razin and D. Stromberg (MIT Press, 2000).
Other useful supplementary texts are "Analyzing Politics (Second Edition)", by K. Shepsle (Norton, 2010), "A Primer on Social Choice Theory (Revised Edition)", by W. Gaertner (Oxford U.P., 2009), and "Public Choice III" by D. Mueller (Cambridge U.P., 2003 ).
I have a very tentative course outline (subject to some changes) posted here .
Another good indication of the topics covered, and the nature of the course, can be found from my website for last summer's version of the course : http://dept.econ.yorku.ca/~sam/4380_s11/index.html.
The evaluation for this years (summer 2012) version of the course will be the same as last year's : 1/3 midterm exam, 2/3 final exam.
And the course content will be similar (although not exactly the same) as last year's.