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William R. Clark

Associate Professor
Faculty Associate, Center for Political Studies
Ph.D., Rutgers

4202 ISR
(734) 763-9715
wrclark@umich.edu
Personal web site

Research Interests:

William Clark’s research explores how political and social institutions can simultaneously be the product of human choice and an important determinant of human behavior. Much of his work has focused on the political control of the macroeconomy in an open economy setting. Specifically, he has examined a) the effect of central bank independence, capital mobility, and fixed exchange rates on monetary and fiscal policy choices made by survival-maximizing incumbents; b) the effect of elections and partisanship on macroeconomic outcomes; and the choice of monetary institutions in a world of mobile capital. He has also done some work on the politics of international trade.

He is currently engaged in work on the effect of electoral laws on the choice of the exchange rate regime, the measurement of international capital mobility, the effect of social heterogeneity and electoral laws on legislative fractionalization, the welfare consequences of democracy and the statistical analysis of asymmetric causal claims. In addition he is in the planning stage of a project on the industrial organization of religious “firms”.

Selected Publications

  • "Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses," with Thomas Brambor & Matt Golder (2005), Political Analysis 13. [download] [webpage]
  • "Rehabilitating Duverger's Theory: Testing the Mechanical and Strategic Modifying Effects of Electoral Laws," with Matt Golder (forthcoming, 2006), Comparative Political Studies 39. [download]
  • "Fiscal Policy and the Democratic Process in the European Union," with Matt Golder & Sona Golder (2002), European Union Politics 3: 205-230. [download]
  • Capitalism, Not Globalism: Capital Mobility, Central Bank Independence, and the Political Control of the Economy. University of Michigan Press. 2003. [purchase]
  • The Political Economy of Monetary Institutions, edited with William Bernhard and Lawrence Broz. MIT Press, 2003. [purchase]
  • "Partisan and Electoral Motivations and the Choice of Monetary Institutions," International Organization, 56: 4 (Fall 2002): 725-749.
  • “Mobile Capital, Domestic Institutions, and Electorally-Induced Monetary and Fiscal Policy,” with Mark Hallerberg, (2000), American Political Science Review. 94,2 (June 2000): 323-346.
  • "Agents and Structures: Two Views of Preferences, Two Views of Institutions," International Studies Quarterly 42:2 (June 1998) 245-270.
  • "International and Domestic Constraints on Political Business Cycle Behavior in OECD Economies," International Organization, 52, 1:87-120 (Winter 1998).

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