Developments in theoretical models of political and social processes have created many challenges to empirical analysis. Both the derivation of testable hypotheses and design of appropriate methods for testing hypotheses have proven challenging. Many of the problems are common to testing all theories but a few are new or particularly important in the testing of formal theories that account for strategic interactions and long-term processes.
The investigators present four summer institutes on Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM - 2007-2010) to be offered on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. Their goal is to advance the study of methods and models and to expand the research community with cutting-edge expertise in this area.
Each of the EITM Summer Institutes is composed of four or five seminars ?an introductory seminar and several advanced seminars. The instructors and the subjects addressed in the advanced seminars rotate over the four-year period of the program.Each advanced seminar concerns the relationship between formal models of politics and empirical research methods in a substantive field of political science or political economy. The formal models addressed span game theory, spatial theory, social and public choice theories, and general equilibrium models. Empirical methods include basic and advanced econometric techniques, spatial models, and experimental techniques.
The faculty for the seminars is drawn from Washington University faculty and from faculty from several other universities. The Washington University faculty participating in the EITM Summer Institute include Randall Calvert, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Lee Epstein, Andrew Martin, Gary Miller, Norman Schofield, Itai Sened, and Steven Smith. Additional faculty instructors include Charles Cameron, Keith Krehbiel, Kevin Quinn, Thomas Palfrey, Curtis Signorino, and Rick Wilson. Seminar guests include Eric Brown, Simon Jackman, Rebecca Morton, Keith Poole, and Pablo Spiller.
This award continues the program with 25 student participants each year as we have in the past. Students are offered on-campus housing and provided travel and lodging subsidies. An EITM committee composed of Washington University faculty continues to administer the program.
Broader Impacts: The institutes provide cutting edge research and teaching to graduate students in a way that has a potentially transformative impact on the discipline of Political Science.
