Robert (Rob) J. Franzese, Jr.
Professor Franzese’s research interests center on the comparative and international political economy (C&IPE) of developed democracies and aspects of empirical methodology that arise prominently in those contexts. In C&IPE, his work has focused on how political and economic institutions, structure, and circumstances/events affect macroeconomic policymaking: its character and its efficacy. His approach is interdisciplinary (with economics), positive (i.e., as opposed to normative), and empirically minded. This research agenda has produced numerous journal articles, chapters, and a book on the economic-policy effects of, for example, voter participation, representation, veto actors, delegation, central bank independence, wage bargaining institutions, and international context and institutions. Professor Franzese’s research and teaching in empirical methodology have produced several books and articles and chapters on empirical methodology for comparative politics broadly, on interactions and modeling strategies for complex context-conditionality, on heterogeneity and multilevel modeling, on model-based estimation for positive social-science theory (EITM), and, currently most extensively, on spatial-econometric models of interdependence, that is of contexts where the outcomes in some observational units influence those in others.
Ph.D., Government, Harvard University, 1996
A.M., Economics, Harvard University, 1995
A.M., Government, Harvard University, 1992
B.A. (with distinction and Phi Beta Kappa), Economics, Government, Cornell University, 1990
Professor & Associate Chair, Department of Political Science
Edie N. Goldenberg Director, Michigan in Washington Program
Director, Program in International & Comparative Studies, International Institute
Research Professor, Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research
15th (former) President, Society for Political Methodology