Last updated: January 2, 2026


COURSE TITLE: 

Economic Approach to Southeast Asia II PhD sequence

Year/Semester: 2026-2027/Fall and Winter 

Class time: Monday 13:15-14:45 

Room: Inamori 3rd Floor Small Meeting Room I (R330)

Format: Lecture and discussion

Target year: 1-5 

Credits: 2 

Course ID: G-AAA01 81323 LE31 


INSTRUCTOR:

Instructor: Tomohiro Machikita

Affiliation: Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University

Office: Inamori 221

Office hours: Tuesdays 15:00-17:00 and by appointment


OVERVIEW AND PURPOSE:  

This course offers development microeconomics for area studies, interdisciplinary studies, and comparative institutional analysis. This course studies the use of data and economic theory on workers and firms in research on market integration, productivity differences, long-term relationship, productivity spillovers, and other areas of development economics. A key goal is to help students develop the capability to identify interesting research questions/research strategies for area studies,  interdisciplinary studies, and comparative institutional analysis from the viewpoints of organizational economics: incentives; agency; leadership; transaction costs. Topics cover management, entrepreneurship, relational contracts, and macroeconomic growth. Lectures has a mix of important previous contributions and new papers that seek to advance the frontier. Homework assignments and final papers aim to build proficiency in the use of data and economic theory to address issues of area studies (or interdisciplinary studies,  or comparative institutional analysis) and give them first-hand experience in considering research questions and strategies. There will be lectures, presentations by class participants, and discussion.  


COURSE OBJECTIVES: 

Through active participation in discussions and presentations of assigned papers, students will absorb the research designs of the most up-to-date study results, and each student will be involved in their own research thesis. Students will study the basic mechanisms of industrial development and prior empirical research, acquiring the basic knowledge that is needed to independently understand the latest research results.


COURSE REQUIREMENTS:  

Participants will be expected to be prepared to join in discussion based on the reading assignments. Depending on the class size, they will be assigned a presentation of the major points of the reading and will be expected to lead the discussion, once or twice depending on the size of the class. The final paper will ask the participants to review the themes in relation to their own research interests. Without imposing a strict requirement, I assume familiarity with the concepts taught in basic undergraduate-level Statistics, Econometrics (Cunningham's Causal Inference: The Mixtape; Hernan and Robins' Causal Inference: What If; Angrist and Pischke's Mostly Harmless Econometrics), and Microeconomics (Varian's Microeconomic Analysis; Gibbons' Game Theory for Applied Economists). 


EVALUATION METHODS AND POLICY: 

Grades will be based on attendance/participation and final paper. Participation in class discussion (30%), homework and class presentation (30%), and final paper (40%). Active and constructive participation during the class discussions will influence your grade as well. 


TEXTBOOKS:

Texts will be distributed before each cluster. All of the required readings are available on electronic reserve via Panda. Supplementary to course content, students are also encouraged to pursue self-study on statistical methods, qualitative research methods, and microeconomics in order to better understand related academic papers. 


OFFICE HOURS:

Tuesdays 15:00-17:00, and by appointment.


TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE AND CONTENTS: 

Each class meeting will open with a presentation by the instructor, followed by discussion of the assigned textbook. Active class participation will thus form a major component of one’s overall grade for the course. Students submit a term paper on a topic of interest by the end of the semester.