Course List

Implicit in all research designs are (traditionally under-appreciated) strategic interactions relevant to the interpretation and validity of empirical work. Recently, social scientists across several sub-disciplines, and especially political scientists, have begun to analyze these theoretical implications of empirical models (TIEM). This course surveys the work being done in this nascent field of scholarship and, necessarily, the dominant empirical methodologies employed in political science and economics. For context and guidance, we will also draw upon work from adjacent lines of research, such as the decision-theoretic underpinnings of empirical models, the rationalization of behavioral regularities, and the evolutionary grounding of preferences, as well as upon philosophical perspectives on the interplay between theory and empirics.

Implicit in all research designs are (traditionally under-appreciated) strategic interactions relevant to the interpretation and validity of empirical work. Recently, social scientists across several sub-disciplines, and especially political scientists, have begun to analyze these theoretical implications of empirical models (TIEM). This course surveys the work being done in this nascent field of scholarship and, necessarily, the dominant empirical methodologies employed in political science and economics. For context and guidance, we will also draw upon work from adjacent lines of research, such as the decision-theoretic underpinnings of empirical models, the rationalization of behavioral regularities, and the evolutionary grounding of preferences, as well as upon philosophical perspectives on the interplay between theory and empirics.