Online Text and Notes in Political Economy

Economic Growth and Government Policy seminar collates papers on economic growth, and its links to education and other aspects of government policy, presented to a HM Treasury seminar in October 2000 and downloadable as PDF files. Subjects include 'What does modern growth analysis say about government policy towards growth?' (Richard Freeman), 'Public policies and aggregate economic performance' (Tim Besley), 'Supply side policy and British relative economic decline' (Nick Crafts), 'The benefits of education' (Jon Temple). Papers are relatively short, avoid technical presentation, and summarise the state of the art of 'new' growth theory circa 2000.

European School on New Institutional Economics (ESNIE) website includes 'Archives' and 'Workshops' sections with downloadable papers and slides from presentations made to ESNIE institutional economics conferences and other events; authors include Oliver Williamson, Sidney Winter, Richard Langlois. 'Reading' section contains summaries of recent books written / edited by prominent ESNIE, including Douglass North, Masahiko Aoki and Claude Menard. 'The Project' section outlines ESNIE's purposes in promoting new institutional economics education and research.

Extensive notes on Acemoglu and Robinson's lectures on institutional political economy as applied to development, which form a proptotype for their recent book on 'Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.' Makes extensive use of economic models, but text should also be of interest to economic historians, political economists and political scientists.

The Transformaton of macroeconomic policy and research is Prescott's 2004 Nobel Prize lecture. It sets out the method and significance of micro-founded, forward-looking, dynamic-equilibrium models as originated by Kydland, Prescott, Lucas and others, and widely adopted as cheap computing power becomes available. Assess the impact on use of macro models for policymaking, with particular attention to time consistency and credible commitment. It is complemented by the shorter, more empirical 'Quantitative Aggregate Theory' by co-laureate Finn Kydland, available from the same site. Both in video as well as text form.