Keith Krehbiel

Research Statement

Keith Krehbiel’s research is on governmental processes (legislative, executive, and judicial) and political parties. He addresses these topics by developing and testing game-theoretic models of collective choice. Krehbiel has published over 50 research articles and two award-winning books: Information and Legislative Organization (Univ. of Michigan Press), and Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking (Univ. of Chicago Press). He is also cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science.

Research Interests

• Legislatures, political institutions, governmental processes, philosophy of science, political economy, ethics

Bio

Keith Krehbiel is Edward B. Rust Professor of Political Science at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he has taught courses on foundations of political economy, legislative politics, business-government relations, and ethics since 1986. He specializes in political institutions and has published two books and dozens of articles on U.S. politics and governmental processes.  Krehbiel’s first book, Information and Legislative Organization (University of Michigan Press, 1991) presents a comprehensive game-theoretic account of legislative behavior in the presence of uncertainty about the consequences of laws, and reports on a variety of novel empirical tests of the theory. The book received the American Political Science Association’s Richard F. Fenno Prize for best book on legislative studies.  Krehbiel’s second book, Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking (University of Chicago Press, 1998) studies the strategic interaction of U.S. Presidents with the Congress. This book received both the Fenno Prize (for best book on legislative politics) and the Neustadt Prize (for best book on the presidency) from the APSA.

In addition to serving several terms on editorial boards of leading political science journals, Krehbiel (with Nolan McCarty) co-founded and co-edits the Quarterly Journal of Political Science.  Krehbiel has been a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a Guest Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Congressional Fellow in the Senate Republican Leader’s Office, and twice a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994.  He received the Sloan Award for Teaching Excellence in 2000, the Distinguished Service Award from the GSB PhD Program in 2007, and the Robert T. Davis Award for Lifetime Achievement on the Stanford GSB Faculty in 2014. 

Academic Degrees

• PhD, University of Rochester, 1983
• MA, University of Rochester, 1981
• MA, University of Kansas, 1979
• BS, University of Kansas, 1977

Academic Appointments

• Professor, Stanford University since 1986
• Fellow, Center for Advanced Study, 1995-1996 and 2002-2003
• Visiting Professor, Princeton University, 2001-2002
• Guest Fellow, Brookings Institution, 1991
• National Fellow, Hoover Institution, 1988-1989 and 2011-12
• Assistant Professor, California Institute of Technology, 1983-1986
• Lecturer, University of Rochester, 1981-1982

Professional Experience

• Congressional Fellow, Senate Republican Leader's Office, 1991

Awards and Honors

• Robert and Marilyn Jaedicke Faculty Fellow for 2016-2017
• Robert and Marilyn Jaedicke Faculty Fellow , Stanford GSB, 2014-2015
• Robert T. Davis Faculty Award for Lifetime Achievement, Stanford GSB 2014
• Disinguished Service to the PhD Community, Stanford GSB, 2007
• Sloan Teaching Excellence Award, Stanford GSB, 2000

Teaching

Degree Courses

2017-18

POLECON 682: Institutions and Bridge-Building in Political Economy

This course critically surveys empirical applications of formal models of collective-choice institutions. It is explicitly grounded in philosophy of science (e.g., Popperian positivism and Kuhn¿s notions of paradigms and normal science). Initial...

2016-17

GSBGEN 259: MSx: Ethics

With leadership comes responsibility. This course explores the numerous ethical duties faced by managers and their organizations. It combines classical philosophical theories with contemporary scholarship on human behavior to inform a wide range...

POLECON 682: Institutions and Bridge-Building in Political Economy

This course critically surveys empirical applications of formal models of collective-choice institutions. It is explicitly grounded in philosophy of science (e.g., Popperian positivism and Kuhn¿s notions of paradigms and normal science). Initial...

Insights by Stanford Business

writtenKeith Krehbiel: Why the Cost of Vote-Buying Favors Moderate Policies

February 3, 2015

A Stanford political economist predicts that the new Republican Congress won’t overcome the “gravitational pull to the center” in U.S. politics.

writtenCheer Up, Americans! Gridlock and Bureaucrats Actually Improve Our Politics

January 12, 2015

A Stanford professor of political economy finds virtue in filibusters and “unelected bureaucrats.”