# Political Economy of Elections

> Vanderbilt University · ECON 4230 / PSCI 3400 · Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2026. Taught by [Maria Titova](https://maria-titova.com/index.md).

This course covers formal models of elections and political economy, with topics including social choice theory, the median voter theorem, game theory, and models of electoral competition.

## Course materials

- [Syllabus](https://maria-titova.com/teaching/syllabus-Econ4230.pdf)

## Lectures

1. [Course Overview and Decision Theory](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/01-course-overview-decision-theory.md)
2. [Social Choice Theory: Setup and Aggregation Rules](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/02-social-choice-setup.md)
3. [Arrow's Impossibility Theorem](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/03-arrows-impossibility-theorem.md)
4. [Median Voter Theorem](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/04-median-voter-theorem.md)
5. [Static Games and Nash Equilibrium](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/05-static-games-nash-equilibrium.md)
6. [Game Theory: Continued Examples and Algorithm](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/06-game-theory-continued.md)
7. [Electoral Competition: Office-Motivated Candidates](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/07-electoral-competition-downsian.md)
8. [Electoral Competition: Policy-Motivated Candidates](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/08-policy-motivated-candidates.md)
9. [Electoral Competition: Uncertainty and Polarization](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/09-uncertainty-polarization.md)
10. [Information Aggregation: Bayesian Updating](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/10-information-aggregation-bayesian-updating.md)
11. [Juror's Optimal Action and Following the Signal](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/11-juror-optimal-action.md)
12. [Probability of Correct Decision: Single Juror](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/12-probability-correct-decision.md)
13. [Condorcet Jury Theorem](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/13-condorcet-jury-theorem.md)
14. [From Juries to Elections: Voting Rules and Error Tradeoffs](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/14-juries-to-elections-voting-rules.md)
15. [Strategic Voting and the Swing Voter's Curse](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/15-strategic-voting-unanimity.md)
16. [Political Persuasion: Model Setup](https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/16-political-persuasion-setup.md)

Each lecture is also an HTML page at `https://maria-titova.com/courses/political-economy-elections/<slug>`. Math is written in LaTeX (`$...$`).