Richard W. Carney

Assistant Professor

Teaching:

Varieties of Capitalism

Capitalist systems are often stylized as Liberal Market Economies, as in the United States and Great Britain, or as Coordinated Market Economies, as in Germany and Japan. There are a wide range of political, legal, social, and economic dimensions that differentiate LMEs from CMEs. For example, LMEs tend to have larger capital markets, a British common law tradition (as opposed to a civil law tradition as found in Continental Europe), and fewer social welfare services. How these dimensions differ leads countries to develop a comparative advantage in different types of goods and services. For example, the United States excels at creating radical innovations, such as biotechnology and the internet, whereas Germany and Japan tend to excel at producing goods that require highly skilled labor and build upon innovations in existing technologies, such as automobiles. The implications that emerge from this perspective are far-reaching, with potential consequences for fiscal policy, monetary policy, education and training, the nature of innovation, trade, the structure of the global financial system, and other areas.

 

This course will first examine why and how countries’ capitalist institutions differ from one another. We will then examine the origins of these institutions among high-income countries. By understanding how these processes have worked among wealthy countries in the twentieth century, we will consider the implications for developing/Asian countries (e.g., China, India, etc.) in this century.

Quantitative Methods

The class offers an introduction to quantitative methods commonly used in many scholarly journals of international studies so that students will become educated readers and practitioners of these techniques. The course focuses on quantitative methods commonly used for constructing theories and for empirical testing. With regard to theory construction, students will receive an introduction to mathematical methods such as maximization, optimization, and game theory. The material is presented in the context of applications and examples that illustrate the relevance of the methods for understanding and analyzing social phenomena. The empirical testing portion – the main emphasis of the class -- will introduce students to the use of statistical techniques for testing their theories. Students will become familiar with SPSS, a commonly used, and easy to use, statistical software program.

International Political Economy

This course introduces the subject area of international political economy. It is intended for students who have had no previous background in the subject. It begins with a review of the principal theoretical approaches to the study of international political economy. It then examines the major issue areas in the postwar global economy: trade, international finance, changes in the organization of production, globalization and development, and globalization and the environment.