Sean Gailmard: Teaching


Teaching Interests: game theory and formal political theory; American political institutions; US presidency, bureaucracy, and executive branch politics; Congress and politics of separation of powers; empirical and quantitative methods

UC Berkeley Courses:
  • PS 3: Intro. to Empirical Methods and Quantitative Analysis (undergraduate): Basic introductions to game theory, statistics, causal inference, and their use in quantitative research in political science (PS3 syllabus)
  • PS 135: Game Theory in the Social Sciences (undergraduate): Mathematical models of strategic interaction and decision making in groups; types of games and equilibrium concepts used frequently in social science; examples from across social science to emphasize major insights delivered by game theory (PS135 syllabus)

  • PS 231A: Quantitative Analysis in Political Research (Ph.D.): Introductory statistics -- probability & distribution theory; statistical inference; estimation; linear models and generalized linear models; the book Statistical Modeling and Inference for Social Science was written largely around this course (PS 231A syllabus)
  • PS 232A: Formal Models in Political Science I (Ph.D.): Introduction to noncooperative game theory and applications in political science. Emphasis on properties of equilibria and their identification in canonical types of games, development of proof strategies, and strategic intuition; examples drawn from across subfields of political science (PS 232A syllabus)
  • PS 232B: Formal Models in Political Science II (Ph.D.): Advanced noncooperative game theory and applications in political science. Covers advanced issues and models: equilibrium existence and properties; markov perfect equilibrium; models of information transmission; belief refinements in games of incomplete information; mechanism design. Emphasis on formal proofs. (PS 232B syllabus)
  • PS 239: Formal Models of Political Development (Ph.D.) : Game theoretic analysis of design, stability, and change in political institutions. (PS 239 syllabus)
  • PS 239: Formal Models in American Politics (Ph.D.) : Game theoretic analysis of political institutions and behavior in U.S. politics. Emphasis on recent formal literature on Congress, the bureaucracy, separation-of-powers issues, and electoral accountability. (PS 239 syllabus)
  • PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics (Ph.D.) : Analysis of the structure and behavior of executive branch bureaucracies in the U.S. Emphasis on interaction of bureaucracies with external stakeholders -- Congress, the president, courts, and interest groups. (PS 279 syllabus)


Northwestern University (Political Science and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences) courses:
  • Methods of Political Inference (undergraduate): a course on making arguments and inferences (statistical and causal) about policy and politics based on data
  • Probability and Statistics (Ph.D.): first of a three-course sequence on quantitative methods and statistical modeling in political science
  • Advanced Quantitative Methods (Ph.D.): third of a three-course quant methods sequence
  • Political Science II for MMSS (undergraduate, Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences program): applications of game theory and econometrics to the study of political institutions and public policy-making
University of Chicago (Harris School of Public Policy Studies) courses:
  • Organization Theory and Public Management (M.P.P.): Rational choice and behavioral decision theory; contract theory and principal-agent models used to evaluate organizational forms and human management practices such as incentive pay; administrative law and political control of bureaucracy.
  • Formal models of the politics of policy making (Ph.D.): Noncooperative game theory and its application to the study of the political process in which public policy is made.
  • Political Economy of Institutions (Ph.D.): Seminar on models and empirical applications in the formal analysis of political institutions and behavior, drawing especially on applied game theory and transaction cost analysis. Focus on externalities, common pool problems, and information asymmetries in institutional design for environmental policy problems.
  • Economic Incentives in Environmental Policy (M.P.P.): Elementary environmental economics; economic and political analysis of instruments to meet environmental policy goals. Emphasis on the benefits and limitations of decentralized, incentive-based policy instruments such as pollution permit markets. Detailed evaluation of sulfur dioxide permit trading program under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.



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