Courses Offered

Offered Fall 2025. 

Mondays and Wednesdays 10:00 - 11:20 and Friday sections.

Can pirates teach us anything about the economic and political organization of democracies? Are pirates even democratic?! Why would a justice system wherein judges administer poison be an efficient for determining guilt or innocence? Can anybody own the sunshine? Was the Wild, Wild West (circa 1860-1900) really as violent as westerns portrayed it? Why doesn't anybody ever eat the last donut at a faculty meeting? Are birthday presents a deadweight loss on our economy, and should we forgo the wrapping paper and just give cash to one another? And, finally, why would anybody leave a tip at a restaurant they know they would never return to? These, and many more, puzzles will be answered over the course of eleven weeks in Autumn 2025. If you are the curious type, you need to enroll in this class pronto!

POL S 270 introduces students to the basic concepts and theories of political economy including trade-offs, incentives, transaction costs, prisoners' dilemmas, collective action, public goods, externalities, principal-agent problems, property rights, tragedy of the commons, rational choice theory, and systems of government and governance. As a pedagogical framing mechanism, students are asked to imagine that they are stranded on a deserted island and must think about building a functioning economy and system of governance. To do this, they will need to gain knowledge of how humans (themselves and others) make choices that affect the production and distribution of resources in society.

Unlike your typical Econ 101 course that is filled with equations and graphs that students must memorize (and rarely understand), we seek to build an intuitive understanding of how an economy operates and the role that governance plays in creating prosperity. This is achieved by reading about pirates, cowboys, conflicts over sunshine, prisoner of war camps, poisonous justice systems, tipping at restaurants, gift-giving, why communal refrigerators stink, and why no one ever finishes the last morsel of donuts at business meetings. 

My teaching style is inspired by Prof. Paul Heyne who lead one of the most popular economic courses at the UW until his death in 2000. I aspire to carry on that tradition with dynamic lectures that draw upon the economic style of Steven Landsburg, Peter Leeson, Michael Munger, and others. My lectures are known for high energy, humor, and awesome bumper music. 

Textbooks include Harold Winter's Trade-Offs (Vol. 3), Peter Leeson's The Invisible Hook, Anderson & Hill's The Not So Wild, Wild West, and Michael Munger's Tomorrow 3.0. There are also a number of articles assigned including Peter Leeson's "Sassywood," F.A. Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society," R.A. Radford's "The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp," and Gill & Thomas's "The Dynamic Efficiency of Gifting." There will be roughly 90 pages of reading per week assigned and students are expected to stay on top of those readings. Students will be strongly encouraged to purchase physical copies of the textbooks instead of online versions. 

Grading for the course will consist of three in-class essay exams, an online syllabus quiz, weekly assignments that probe the course readings, and discussion section participation. While I am known to be a difficult grader according to online reviews, this class is easy to pass and do well in if one actually does the readings, attends lectures, and participates actively in section. Seriously. My grading system that converts percentages into the 4.0 GPA scale is more forgiving than most other UW social science classes making it more difficult to fail (i.e., the floor for passing is lower), but students expecting to receive an A will need to do the readings, possibly rereading difficult passages, and attend lectures. This seems like a simple task (and it is), but many students often take shortcuts thinking they will do well only to find out that this is a poor strategy. It has been my experience that students either do very well in this course or completely fail. 

Each year, and for every course I teach, I create some general theme that tangentially fits the course content but helps to create a stylistic framework. This frequently includes a class poster. (View past posters here.) The theme for Fall 2025 will be the classic British television program The Prisoner, one of my favorite television series. Known for its quirky themes, mysterious plot lines, and completely confusing ending, this show generates a fun scaffolding for thinking about being stranded on an island and having to think your way through problems and puzzles.

Offered Fall 2025. 

Mondays 1:30 - 4:20 pm.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to some of the basic logic and foundational writings within the “new economics of politics” (which is now starting to get “old”). Not surprisingly, given that we are more than a half-century beyond the advent of this approach, and given the explosion in social scientific publishing, we cannot cover everything of major importance. Indeed, we can barely scratch the surface in a ten-week course. As such, we will dabble our toes into the water of rational choice, public (social) choice, collective action theory, and some of the contending views of the state that have grown from this economic approach. And we will finish off with some “odd applications” of economic theory to demonstrate that while rationality might be bounded, the use of economic logic is really only constrained by a scholar’s imagination. Creativity is a skill that is almost as important as knowing how to write everything in LaTeX (or NiTriLE for those allergic). Hopefully this will inspire some of you to think beyond the unimaginative confines of what our discipline tends to discipline its young scholars to think about. Prof. Gill is big on looking around everyday life to find interesting social puzzles to explore. And you will be given the opportunity to do this as well. 

One of the great benefits of an economic approach to politics is that it relies upon mathematical logic to uncover interesting equilibrium (or lack thereof) and counter-intuitive assertions. One of the great drawbacks of an economic approach to politics is that it relies upon mathematical logic to uncover interesting equilibrium (or lack thereof) and counter-intuitive assertions. Let’s face it. While a small handful of political science grad students may be intrigued by the abstractions of math, most of us ended up here because math was pretty scary and we were kicked out of the astrophysics department but still longed for the title of “scientist.” And while some of us may have rediscovered the joys of formal modeling and simultaneous equations, such technical tools can only be useful when combined with a playful sense of the qualitative language of the common person. This includes Prof. Gill who thought he would never have to look at another derivative function once he chose political science, but then ended up with formal theory and statistics as one of his major fields in grad school. Like any language that has not been used over time, knowledge rusts and the professor will admit to being a bit foggy on the math. However, he does acknowledge that such formalized training did help him tighten his theoretical and empirical focus even though he doesn’t use the math. The mathy stuff we will encounter in this class is important and the more you can understand and work with it, the better scholar you will be. However, Prof. Gill will teach this class with empathy to the mathy-challenged and seek to develop the intuitions behind the mathy. Indeed, throughout the years he has become skeptical of over-formalization (probably a result of the “sour grapes” phenomenon of having so much of the field pass him by). So, if those formulae scare you, fear ye not … we will huddle together (metaphorically, not literally because of social distancing) to get through those storms.  

We will include readings from Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, Ronald Coase, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Anne Krueger, Margaret Levi, Michael Munger, Yoram Barzel, Mario Rizzo, Glen Whitman, Israel Kirzner, F.A. Hayek, Adam Martin, Peter Boettke, Vincent Geloso, and many, many more. 

Offered Winter 2026.

On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence. But that was not the only momentous event that occurred in 1776. On March 9 of that year, the most foundational text in modern political economy was published - Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. This 950-page (give or take) tome not only set the agenda for modern economics but also addressed some very basic questions of government in a world of growing commercial trade. Moreover, Smith's thinking in Wealth of Nations and his other major work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, had a profound impact on a number of the U.S. Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Benjamin Rush, and others. 

This course will focus on reading several crucial sections in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (WoN) along with a few selections from Theory of Moral Sentiments (ToMS), pairing them with the writings of various Founding Fathers who were critical in building the governing framework of the new nation. Attention will be devoted to the functions of government, the importance of trade policy, and church-state relations as well as more philosophical issues such as justice and equality. 

Students will be required to purchase physical paper (hard copies) of both WoN and ToMS, and possibly a few additional collections of the writings of the Founding Fathers. Working with the physical book (as compared to e-versions) is an important skill that will be emphasized. Fortunately, these texts are available at a ridiculously low price at Liberty Fund. Class participation will be stressed heavily, thus students should be prepared to actively contribute with substantive comments each and every class meeting. Students will also be required to write two essays during the academic term. Prof. Gill has very high standards when it comes to in-class participation, written work, and meeting deadlines. Only students who are absolutely committed to giving full effort to this course should consider enrolling.

Offered Winter 2026.

While religion has marginalized as a topic of inquiry in the social sciences for several decades thanks to the prominence of secularization theory that viewed religious belief and practice as anachronistic in a modernizing world, it is interesting to note that the five largest religious traditions existing today have historically outlasted every single secular governing regime or social movement in human history. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have been around for at least a millennium, if not several additional millennia more. There is not a single empire, dynasty, or nation with a secular government that has even come close to that record. More importantly, religions such as Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam command the loyalty of billions (with a "b") of adherents across racial, ethnic, and national boundaries.

There just might be something interesting to be found in the study of religion that informs us about human social organization and governance.

Unlike many typical classes in religion and politics that focus on how religious beliefs shape political preferences and voting behavior, this course will take an economic and institutional approach to religion. Religion will be examined as a fundamental system of human governance, creating a set of rules and methods of monitoring behavior that help humans coordinate their social interactions. The political economy of religion perspective is a rather new approach in academia, dating back to the mid-1980s even though none other than the father of modern economics, Adam Smith, had something to say about it. Substantively, this course will look at how economic theories explain religious behaviors and institutional organization, why religious organizations are uniquely primed to solve collective action problems, the logic of church-state relations including the rise of religious liberty, and how religion shapes economic development. While about 3/4 of the class will be devoted to the Christian world, we will also examine Islam and its role in the political economy of the Muslim world. 

Readings will include Larry Witham's Marketplace of the Gods, Anthony Gill's The Political Origins of Religious Liberty, Karrie Koesel's Religion and Authoritarianism, Eli Berman's Radical, Religious, and Violent, and Timur Kuran's Islam and Mammon, as well as several articles.

Coming Fall 2026 or Winter 2027.

If you think this course will be about people in hoodies running around causing chaos in Portland, think again. That is not what anarchy is; that is what chaos is. Rather, true anarchy is about how human societies govern themselves without recourse to a formal government with centralized coercion. We explore themes related to the use of cultural norms and rituals to coordinate human behavior, the importance of community relations, and generalized reciprocity. In addition to examining whether anarchy can be a stand-alone system of social organization, we also consider whether anarchist forms of governance can exist alongside established states.

Readings include selections from "anarcho-communists" (e.g., Kropotkin, Taylor, Scott), as well as "anarcho-capitalists" (e.g., Leeson, Stringham, Hasnas).* Student evaluation will be weighted heavily towards class discussion, thus this is not a class for shy people. Shy individuals are welcomed to take the course as a way of developing their public speaking skills, but if you do not participate, you will not receive a passing grade. There will also be two take-home essays that will be graded like you've probably never been graded before. If you are not paralyzed by criticism and truly seek to become a better reader, writer, and thinker, this is the class for you. 

*It should be noted that I consider the terms "communism" and "capitalism" (or any other word with an -ism) to be utterly worthless in understanding human society. Instead of broad-based, vague concepts, I prefer micro-level understandings of how humans behave and respond to incentives under a variety of different legal and non-legal constraints.