Exam 2 study guide

Institutions, power, and inequality

You should understand…

  • …why institutions matter for public administration, policy, and governance
  • …the strengths and weaknesses of and the and general differences between three main theoretical approaches to institutions: institutions as rational behavior, institutions as constraints, and institutions as temporary equilibria
  • …the difference between informal and formal institutions
  • …why informal institutions exert influence over our actions even if they’re not officially codified
  • …the difference between self-enforcing, self-reinforcing, and self-undermining institutions
  • …the role of path dependency in the emergence of institutions

 

Market and government failures

You should understand…

  • …the difference between private goods, club goods, common pool resources, and public goods (and how they can be classified as (non)rivalrous and (non)excludable)
  • …what a market failure is
  • …what a government failure is
  • …what public goods are and how governments, the private sector, and informal institutions can address them
  • …what common pool resources (CPRs) are and how governments, the private sector, and informal institutions can address them
  • …the difference between social and private marginal cost (supply) and marginal benefit (demand)
  • …what externalities are and how governments, the private sector, and informal institutions can address them
  • …what Coasian bargaining is, when it is advantageous, and why it sometimes fails
  • …how cap and trade systems can fix externalities (and when they can’t)
  • …how Pigouvian taxes can fix externalities (and when they can’t)
  • …how regulation can fix externalities (and when and why it can’t)
  • …the difference between income and assets
  • …why shared national identity and strong horizontal networks of institutions are important for a country’s social and economic wellbeing
  • …how inequitable public policies lead to decreased public goods provision, unequal institutional access, and increased ethnofractionalization
  • …why slavery and white supremacy have had lasting institutional impacts on the economic system of today and how government policies have contributed to these consequences (specifically in housing and education)