1. September 4: Introduction
Econometric tools.

2. September 11: Explaining and Predicting Voting Behavior--1
Fair, Ray C., Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things, Chapters 1-4.
Fair, Ray C., The Effect of Economic Events on Votes for President: 2004 Update, November 1, 2006.
Review STATA.
STATA assignment (due October 2).

3. September 18: Explaining and Predicting Voting Behavior--2, Predictive Uncertainty and Polls
Fair, Ray C., Presidential and Congressional Vote-Share Equations, February 2007. (Skim Section 2 and skip the appendices.)
Real Clear Politics: Real Clear Politics
Intrade: Intrade
Fair, Ray C., Interpreting the Predictive Uncertainty of Elections, May 2007.

PART II

4. September 25: Political Betting Markets--1
Wolfers, Justin, and Eric Zitzewitz, "Prediction Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2004, 107-126.
Rhode, Paul W., and Koleman S. Strumpf, "Historical Presidential Betting Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2004, 127-142.
Latest Intrade Rankings

5. October 2: Announcement Effects on Stock and Bond Markets
Fair, Ray C., Shock Effects on Stock, Bonds, and Exchange Rates, Journal of International Money and Finance, 2003, 207-341.
Knight, Brian, "Are Policy Platforms Capitalized into Equity Prices? Evidence from the Bush/Gore 2000 Presidential Election," Journal of Public Economics, 2006, 751-773.
Pick an event assignment (due October 23).
STATA assigment due.

6. October 9: Political Betting Markets--2
Snowberg, Erik, Justin Wolfers, and Eric Zitzewitz, "Partisan Impacts on the Economy: Evidence from Prediction Markets and Close Elections," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2007, 807-829.
Snowberg, Erik, Justin Wolfers, and Eric Zitzewitz, Party Influence in Congress and the Economy, November 30, 2006.
Shon, John J., Do Stock Returns Vary With Campaign Contributions? The Bush versus Gore 2000 Presidential Elections, 2006.

7. October 16:
Fisman, Raymond, "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," The American Economic Review, September 2001, 1095-1102.
Fisman, David, Ray Fisman, Julia Galef, and Rakesh Khurana, Estimating the Value of Connections to Vice-President Cheney," May 24, 2006.

8. October 23: Student Presentations of Event Assignments
Event assigments due.

PART III

9. October 30: Natural Experiments
Begin thinking about a paper topic.
Gentzkow, Matthew, and Jesse M. Shapiro, Preschool Television Viewing and Adolescent Test Scores Historical Evidence From the Coleman Study, May 2007.
Jensen, Robert, and Emily Oster, The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India, September 23, 2008.

10. November 6 : More Econometric Techniques
Post mortem on election.
Any student questions about possible paper topics.
More on fixed effects and instrumental variables.
Fair, Ray C., and John F. Oster, College Football Rankings and Market Efficiency.

11. November 13: Random Experiments
Karlan, Dean, and Jonathan Zinman, Expanding Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts.

12. November 20: Surveys, Student Presentations of Paper Topics
Bertrand, Marianne, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence F. Katz, Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors.

13. December 4: Student Presentations of Paper Topics

Papers due Friday, December 12, at 4:00pm.

GENERAL REMARKS

Improve econometric skills.
Read a few articles carefully---what publishable papers are like.
Do original data collection.
Practice verbal skills in class.