Political Economy
Political Economy is a growing and interdisciplinary field at Yale, bridging the Departments of Economics and Political Science. Faculty include leading scholars who study the intersection of economic and political behavior, institutions, and outcomes using theoretical and empirical methods.
The Political Economy group at Yale conducts theoretical and empirical research on a variety of topics, including voting and elections, lobbying and bargaining, democratic and non-democratic political institutions, conflict, the political economy of development, international agreements, and the interaction of public policy with political and economic power.
The Cowles Program in Political Economy supports a vibrant intellectual hub that encourages foundational, applied, and policy-relevant research. Program activities include hosting visiting faculty and post-doctoral fellows, supporting graduate students from Yale and beyond, and organizing workshops, mini-courses and conferences. The Program fosters collaborative research across traditional fields and disciplines. It naturally benefits from connections with other Cowles research programs and with broader Yale initiatives such as the Economic Growth Center and the Leitner Program in International and Comparative Political Economy.
Seminars and Conferences
The main weekly seminar is the Leitner Political Economy Seminar, hosted by the MacMillan Center on Thursdays in Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Avenue). The first annual Conference on Political Economy will be held in June 2026 as part of the Cowles Summer Conferences at Yale SOM.
For more information about the summer conferences, see the Cowles Conferences and Workshops page.
Graduate Teaching and Research
Political Economy is one of the 2nd year fields in the Economics department. Current PhD course offerings include Econ 734, “Political Economy of Development”, which studies empirically and theoretically the political, institutional, and social underpinnings of economic development. Students are also encouraged to take classes in other foundational areas such as Economic Theory, Macroeconomics, and Econometrics, and in other applied fields such Development, Industrial Organization, and Labor and Public Economics.
For detailed field descriptions, please see the Department’s PhD Program Page.