Weill Medical College of Cornell University · Courses
ECON
135 courses with the subject ECON, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
ECON 1001Principles of Micro-Economics Supplement1-2
Reviews lecture material presented in ECON 1110 lectures; provides problem-solving techniques, study tips, and additional problems to prepare for exams and problem sets; provides additional time for questions and discussion of concepts. Provides additional instruction for students who need reinforcement.
ECON 1002Principles of Macro-Economics Supplement1-2
Reviews lecture material presented in ECON 1120 lectures; provides problem-solving techniques, study tips, and additional problems to prepare for exams and problem sets; provides additional time for questions and discussion of concepts. Provides additional instruction for students who need reinforcement.
How do you decide whether to buy a new computer or not? What determines the price of a computer? Should you buy a Mac or a PC? These questions have one thing in common: they can be answered using the tools of microeconomic analysis. Students will explore opportunity cost, efficiency, demand and supply, and equilibrium and constrained market outcomes. The course emphasizes skill development through in-class instruction, task modeling, and extensive hands-on graphing and problem solving with real-world applications. By the end of the course, students will be able to compare opportunity costs in decision-making, identify efficient and inefficient market outcomes, and construct graphical solutions for various market scenarios.
Microeconomics is the study and evaluation of how individuals, firms, and governments make decisions in markets. This course builds a basic framework of how prices convey information in markets, and how governments and policy can shift market behavior, correct market failures, and potentially bring about more socially desirable outcomes.
Analysis of aggregate economic activity in relation to the level, stability, and growth of national income. Topics may include the determination and effects of unemployment, inflation, balance of payments, deficits, and economic development, and how these may be influenced by monetary, fiscal, and other policies.
This course teaches students what they need to know in order to be excellent course assistants (CA's) in economics courses at Cornell. We will meet for an hour each week to talk about how students learn economics, and how best to help them learn. Students in this course will get concrete guidance on what to do as a CA, and we'll discuss the research behind this guidance. Students will be expected to do some reading outside class and either write a research paper on economic education or develop new teaching materials that can be incorporated into an economics course. Students will also facilitate small group activities in lecture courses (3 hours per week) and help other students in the Economics Support Center (2 hours per week).
Introduction to international economic principles and issues. Begins by surveying key topics such as the elements of comparative advantage, tariff and nontariff barriers, and multilateral institutions. The second part of the course treats selected topics in international finance, including exchange rates, balance of payments, and capital markets. Discusses current issues such as the effects of trade liberalization, trade and economic growth, and instability in international capital markets. Designed as a less technical introduction to concepts developed at a more advanced level in AEM 4300 and ECON 4510-ECON 4520.
ECON 2475Visualizing Economics: Introducing Basic Economic Concepts with Visual Arts3
This course proposes a new and innovative approach to learning about economics. If you want to learn in a different manner, if you are attracted to visualizations in general, this course is for you. This course will challenge preconceptions about what economics is. The goal is to use visual arts to illustrate basic economic concepts that are general, and demonstrate how these tools can be used to analyze and understand a variety of human and social phenomena. The idea of using arts to teach a non-arts related topic stems from recent research in neurology suggesting that creative arts aid learning and memorizing. The course focuses on the core concepts and ideas in economics and is meant to be widely accessible.
ECON 2500Using Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problems3
This course will show how "big data" can be used to understand and address some of the most important social and economic problems of our time. The course will give students an introduction to frontier research and policy applications in economics and social science in a non-technical manner that does not require prior coursework in economics, making it suitable both for students exploring economics for the first time, as well as for more advanced students. The course will include discussions with leading researchers and practitioners, who use big data in real-world applications. Topics include equality of opportunity, education, racial disparities, innovation and entrepreneurship, health care, climate change, criminal justice, tax policy, and poverty in developing countries. In the context of these topics, the course will provide an introduction to basic methods in data science, including regression, causal inference, and machine learning. In empirical projects and weekly labs, students will work with real data to learn how the methods discussed in the course can be implemented in practice.
ECON 2801Game Theory: For Economics, Politics, Knowledge and Rationality3
The course is an introduction to game theory, for students from different disciplinary backgrounds and interests. Game theory, as a discipline, is barely one hundred years old. From its origins in the analysis of parlor games, it has now become part of real life, including diplomacy and corporate strategy. Its rapid rise to prominence, with implications for various disciplines, from economics and computer science, to politics, philosophy and evolutionary biology has few parallels. This course is designed as a primer for students who have no background in game theory but have an interest in deductive reasoning.
This interdisciplinary course examines network structures and how they matter in everyday life. The course examines how each of the computing, economic, sociological and natural worlds are connected and how the structure of these connections affects each of these worlds. Tools of graph theory and game theory are taught and then used to analyze networks. Topics covered include the web, the small world phenomenon, markets, neural networks, contagion, search and the evolution of networks.
The pricing processes in a private enterprise economy are analyzed under varying competitive conditions, and their role in the allocation of resources and the functional distribution of national income is considered.
Introduces the theory of national income and determination and economic growth in alternative models of the national economy. Examines the interaction and relation of these models to empirical aggregate economic data. Reviews national accounts, output and employment determination, price stability and economic growth, in the context of alternative government policy programs and the impact of globalization.
This course provides an introduction to probability and parametric inference. Topics include: random variables, standard distributions, the law of large numbers, the central limit theorem, likelihood-based estimation, sampling distributions and hypothesis testing.
Introduction to the theory and application of econometric techniques. Emphasis is on both development of techniques and applications of econometrics to economic questions. Topics include estimation and inference in bivariate and multiple regression models, instrumental variables, regression with qualitative information, heteroskedasticity, and serial correlation. Students are expected to apply techniques through regular empirical exercises with economic data.
Provides an introduction to statistical inference and to principles of probability. It includes descriptive statistics, principles of probability, discrete and continuous distributions, and hypothesis testing (of sample means, proportions, variance). Regression analysis and correlation are introduced.
Introduction to the theory and application of econometric techniques. Emphasis is on foundations and development of econometric models, focusing on how a theoretical economic model can be placed into a statistical framework where data is used for the purposes of prediction/forecasting, measurement, and/or testing of economic theory. Topics include estimation and inference in bivariate and multiple regression models, instrumental variables, regression with qualitative information, heteroskedasticity, and causal inference.
ECON 3171Causal Inference and Data Analysis for Public Policy3
This course covers methods used by social scientists to identify causal relationships in data, with a focus on evaluating the effects of real-world policies. Many social science analyses--including in the economics fields of public, labor, health, and development-aim to answer these types of policy-related causal questions: What is the effect of having health insurance on someone's health? Does the death penalty reduce crime? Will lowering class sizes increase students' academic achievement? The goal of this course is to train you to become both a high-quality consumer and producer of this type of research. You will learn about several research designs and data analysis methods for identifying causal relationships in data, read and assess empirical papers that apply these methods, and apply these methods to datasets yourself.
This course provides an overview of the major programs that make up the social safety net in the United States. We will review the economic rationale behind social programs, identify the economic consequences of these programs, and assess the empirical research on these topics. A major emphasis of the course will be on understanding the strengths and limitations of the core methodologies used in the existing economics literature.
This course surveys topics in crime and crime prevention, with a focus on thinking critically about empirical evidence. The first part of the course briefly introduces an economic model of crime and reviews relevant empirical methods. The remainder of the course is spent discussing a range of crime-related topics, including policing, incarceration, employment, drugs & alcohol, firearms, education, and health. Students will consider trade-offs to different crime prevention policies and gain experience framing and summarizing evidence for policymakers.
ECON 3300Development of Economic Thought and Institutions3
Examines the causes and consequences of sustained economic growth, and the development of economics as a discipline, from pre-industrial mercantilist thought through the economics of John Maynard Keynes. Stresses the relationship between the consequences of 19th-century economic growth and the evolution of economic thought.
This course is a ‘show and tell’ designed to introduce students to the variety of topics that economics spans. The vehicle is to lightly survey the work of some Nobel laureates working in different areas of economics. The advantage of focusing on prize winners is that much has been written about their work that is quite accessible to people with limited knowledge of economic methodology. Examples include Avner Greif, Daron Acemoglu, Al Roth, Gary Becker… I will devote each class to one laureate. Students and I will share the responsibility for presenting the laureate’s contribution to the class and leading the discussion.
ECON 3340The Evolution of Social Policy in Britain and America3
Surveys the history of social policy in Great Britain and the United States from 1800 to the adoption of the British welfare state after World War II. Topics include the role of poor relief in the early 19th century; the changing relationship between public relief and private charity; the adoption of social insurance programs and protective labor legislation for children and women; government intervention in the Great Depression; and the beginnings of the welfare state.
ECON 3430Compensation, Incentives, and Productivity3
Examines topics in labor economics of particular relevance to individual managers and firms. Representative topics include recruitment, screening, and hiring strategies; compensation (including retirement pensions and other benefits); training, turnover, and the theory of human capital; incentive schemes and promotions; layoffs, downsizing, and buyouts; teamwork; and internal labor markets. Focuses on labor-related business problems using the analytic tools of economic theory and should appeal to students with strong quantitative skills who are contemplating careers in general business, consulting, and human resource management as well as in economics.
Examines the changing economic roles of women and men in the labor market and in the family. Topics include a historical overview of changing gender roles, the determinants of the gender division of labor in the family, trends in female and male labor-force participation, gender differences in occupations and earnings, the consequences of women's employment for the family, and a consideration of women's status in other countries.
Uses the tools of labor and public economics to analyze modern welfare states. What are the rationales for the level of government intervention in these states, and how do these rationales square with notions of market failure? What are the economic costs and benefits of taxes, transfers, and regulations in these states? Can voting models explain the growth and operation of welfare states? What are the impacts of these policies on labor markets? Possible answers to these questions are discussed.
This course introduces the foundations for best management practices when it comes to recruiting, retaining, and motivating a productive workforce. This course holds a magnifying glass up to the workplace, zooming in on the daily interactions within a firm, between management and employees, from recruiting talent to engaging in layoffs, in setting pay and bonuses to establishing working conditions. By introducing real-life applications, explore theories of the workplace, and bridge modern research from the field at the frontier of personnel economics, we will cover topics such as: how employers choose whom to interview and hire, how bosses can motivate employees, how workers value non-wage amenities such as organizational culture, and how new technologies such as remote work and AI factor into each of these dimensions.
ECON 3465Bridging the Divide: Labor Market Reforms and Place-Based Policies3
Should policy interventions target inequality between workers or disparities between places? Inequality has risen in most developed countries in recent decades. While top incomes have grown significantly, incomes at the bottom of the distribution have increased much less. In light of these trends, this course examines the role of labor market and place-based policies in reducing inequality, and discusses the trade-offs that arise between reducing inequality and promoting economic activity.
ECON 3475Visualizing Economics: Introducing Basic Economic Concepts with Visual Arts3
This course proposes a new and innovative approach to learning about economics. If you want to learn in a different manner, if you are attracted to visualizations in general, this course is for you. This course will challenge preconceptions about what economics is. The goal is to use visual arts to illustrate basic economic concepts that are general, and demonstrate how these tools can be used to analyze and understand a variety of human and social phenomena. The idea of using arts to teach a non-arts related topic stems from recent research in neurology suggesting that creative arts aid learning and memorizing. The course focuses on the core concepts and ideas in economics and is meant to be widely accessible.
ECON 3480Race and the American Labor Market in Historical Perspective3
This class investigates race and class in the American labor market from Colonial America to the present day. We investigate the circumstances and labor institutions that brought labor to the U.S. and how laborers of various classes were received. A primary goal of the class is to understand the degree to which social mobility was historically possible in different time periods in American history. Social mobility is intimately tied to labor market institutions and the ability for workers to get ahead within those institutions. Some of the institutions we study are Indentured Servitude, Slavery, tenant farming, the Great Migration and labor organization in the industrial north. Ultimately we hope to build an understanding of the historical roots of the role of race and class today. (HIST-HNA)
ECON 3485Economics of the Labor Market in the 21st Century3
This course examines economic approaches to how new technologies impact the labor market. We will study how new technologies affect the nature of jobs and tasks, the nature and flexibility of work contracts, as well as how firms and workers search and find each other. We will discuss the emergence of flexible work arrangements (gig economy, teleworking). The goal is to learn how economists approach and analyze these phenomena, both theoretically and empirically.
This course will provide an overview of new financial technologies (Fintech), cryptocurrencies, central bank digital currencies, and decentralized finance (DeFi). The implications of these novel technologies for the future of financial markets, central banking, and international finance will be examined. The course will also cover basic analytical models in open economy macroeconomics and international finance, focusing on capital flows and exchange rate dynamics.
The goal of this course is to expand students' understanding of the economics of developing countries. We will address questions like: why do some countries grow quickly and others slowly? What factors prevent countries, households, and individuals from escaping the cycle of poverty? How do policymakers balance economic growth and environmental sustainability? Why don't financial markets work well in most developing countries, and do informal institutions fill the gap? How do we analyze the challenges facing small-scale farming households, and how do decisions by those households influence migration, labor markets, and the growth of industry? How do we evaluate policies and programs in order to understand what works for development? The approach in this course will be primarily microeconomic, although a basic understanding of macroeconomics is important for some topics. Emphasis will be on theory, real-world examples, and reading and interpreting research and policy papers.
Two United States’ worth of people across the world live in extreme poverty, defined as less than $2.15 per day (adjusted for purchasing power to the United States in 2017). Cross-country income differences between high-income and low-income countries can be on the order of 2,000–4,000%. This course will discuss theories and empirical studies from development economics that aim to understand the causes and consequences of these vast differences, and formulate and evaluate policies designed to improve the lives of people living in poverty. The course will draw on readings from textbook(s) and original research papers.
Familiarizes students with the economic analysis of consumer policy issues. Uses the tools of microeconomic analysis to investigate the interaction between government and the marketplace, with an emphasis on how that interaction affects consumers. Examines the rationale for and effects of regulation of industry. Considers alternative theories of regulation, including the capture, economic, and public interest theories. Applies those theories to specific types of regulation, including economic regulation of specific industries (e.g., telecommunications, electricity, trucking, railroads, postal services) as well as to broader social regulation (e.g., health, safety, environmental). The effects of regulatory reform in numerous industries are also examined. An attempt is made to examine current topics relating to consumer policy.
Standard economic theory assumes that individuals are rational decision-makers; however, that is often not the case in the real world. Behavioral economics uses findings from psychology to determine ways in which individuals are systematically irrational to improve upon existing models. The first part of this course reviews these theories, while the second part of the course focuses on how these findings have been used to design better education, health, and tax policies as well as many others.
Risky health behaviors such as cigarette smoking, alcohol abuse, risky sex, drug use, poor diet and physical inactivity (leading to obesity), and self-harm are responsible for hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths and impose billions of dollars in medical care costs each year in the United States. This course teaches the economic approach to studying risky health behaviors. The research literature on the economic causes and correlates of risky health behaviors will be studied in detail. Numerous policies to modify risky health behaviors, such as the minimum legal drinking age and recreational marijuana use laws, will be debated in class. A policy wargame is conducted, with students creating advertisements, giving oral presentations, and lobbying policymakers to advocate a specific policy position.
ECON 3711The Economics and Regulation of Risky Health Behaviors3
Risky health behaviors such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, cigarette smoking, risky sex, poor diet, physical inactivity, and self-harm are responsible for hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths and impose billions of dollars in medical care costs each year in the United States. This course teaches the economic approach to studying risky health behaviors. The research literature on the economic causes and correlates of risky health behaviors will be studied. Numerous policies to modify risky health behaviors, such as the minimum legal drinking age and recreational marijuana laws, will be debated in class. Students will also participate in a policy wargame on the subject of taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages. (HCP-EL)
This course will review and enhance existing knowledge of health care delivery and related policy issues, using the lens and tools of microeconomics. The topics covered will span consumer behavior, sources and markets for health insurance, provider markets, provider incentives and regulation, as well as market consolidation across a variety of key industries (e.g., physicians, hospitals, and post-acute care providers). Importantly, a key differentiator as well as pedagogical feature of the course will be extensive exposure to classic and contemporary empirical (i.e., data-driven) research tied to these topics. This aspect allows students to be aware of and accumulate knowledge from the frontier of what is scientifically known about key and salient health economics and health policy topics. The selected academic studies incorporated into each lecture will reinforce the core economic theories and insights accompanying a given topic and demonstrate how existing theories can be formally tested as well as refined or expanded using strong empirical research designs. This course should be highly relevant to students planning to work for or with healthcare-focused companies as well as those wishing to pursue master?s (e.g., MBA, MHA, MPH) or doctoral level academic programs (e.g., JD, MD, PharmD, or PhD) tied to healthcare. (HCP-EL)
The economics of education is about understanding how and why people make decisions to invest in education, the effect of education on long-term social and economic outcomes, the behavior of those institutions that produce education, and how best to design and implement public policies affecting the level and distribution of education resources. The basic tools of economics provide a framework to evaluate education policies including K-12 school finance, student financial aid, and college admissions. Throughout the course, there will be an emphasis on examining empirical tests of the economic theory and measuring the effects of policy initiatives on educational outcomes.
Is the U.S. college system a great equalizer or a cause of growing inequality? Improved access to higher education has brought millions of Americans into the middle class, and yet rising selectivity has meant that a disproportionate share of the economic elite come from a few top colleges. This course will explore the three big parts of the college experience --- (1) admissions and the college-going decision; (2) education while in college; and (3) college completion and labor market entry --- and ask how each part contributes to inequality in economic outcomes. Lectures and readings will focus on simple economic theories of higher education as well as the empirical methods used to test these theories.
This course examines the policy-making roles of legislatures, courts, and executive agencies. How do different branches of government make policy? What makes good evidence for policy decisions? How do each of these branches consider and use empirical evidence? How can various approaches such as traditional law and economics or behavioral law and economics help us understand the potential impacts of a policy? In this course, we will consider these questions and more as part of our inquiry into the interplay between law, economics, and public policy. Using real-world case studies, we will trace the evolution of policies from state legislatures to Congress to their interpretations by federal agencies and the judiciary. Students will critically evaluate empirical research and use the tools of microeconomic theory to understand and assess policy effectiveness and unintended consequences. This course is designed for students interested in law, public policy, economics and the role of empirical evidence and economic theory in shaping policy-making.
This course will examine issues that arise when a country attempts to implement and maintain a competition policy as a way of promoting economic growth and efficiency. The basic reading material will start with actual cases (most of them arising under U.S. antitrust law), and use those cases to probe the legal, economic and broad policy issues that the cases raise.
Research on decision theory resides in a variety of disciplines including computer science, economics, game theory, philosophy, and psychology. This course attempts to integrate these various approaches. The course is taught jointly by faculty from Game Theory and Computer Science. The course covers several areas: (1) basic decision theory. This theory, sometimes known as "rational choice theory," is part of the foundation for the disciplines listed above. It applies to decisions made by individuals or by machines; (2) the limitations of and problems with this theory. Issues discussed here include decision theory paradoxes revealed by experiments, cognitive and knowledge limitations, and computational issues; (3) new research designed in response to these difficulties. Issues covered include alternative approaches to the foundations of decision theory, adaptive behavior and shaping the individual decisions by aggregate/evolutionary forces and more computationally based approaches.
Networks II builds on its prerequisite course and continues to examine how each of the computing, economic, sociological and natural worlds are connected and how the structure of these connections affects these worlds. In this course, we will construct mathematical models for and analyze networked settings, allowing us to both make predictions about behavior in such systems, as well as reason about how to design such systems to exhibit some desirable behavior. Throughout, we will draw on real-world examples such as social networks, peer-to-peer filesharing, Internet markets, and crowdsourcing, that illustrate these phenomena.
ECON 3830Economics of Consumer Protection and the Law3
The course will focus on how legal rules and regulations impact consumers in the marketplace. A significant portion of this course will focus on how developments in tort law, contract law, property law, and regulatory law influence social welfare and serve to protect consumers in their interactions with the marketplace. The course will also focus on how the federal regulatory agencies function and analyze the effectiveness of these agencies in protecting consumers. The course will focus specifically on the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission. In addition to students interested in public policy and economics, the course can be helpful to students who are interested in attending law school as students will get exposed to many of the concepts they will address in a first year law school curriculum.
Introduction to the use of economics as a tool in forming and evaluating environmental policy, with a focus on how economists measure effects of environmental quality and regulation. Topics include: externalities in an environmental context; regulation methods such as command and control, Pigouvian taxation, and cap and trade; methods for measuring the costs and benefits of environmental policy; overview of current environmental legislation; environmental quality and health; regulation and environmental justice.
This course introduces the concepts and methods used by economists to study not only cities, regions and their relationships with each other, but, more generally, the spatial aspects and outcomes of decision-making by households and firms. Areas examined include determinants of urban growth and decline, land and housing markets, transportation issues, segregation and poverty, and the allocation and distribution of urban public services.
AEM 4500 / ECON 3860 introduces students to the economics of renewable and nonrenewable natural resources. Topics covered include the valuation and use of land; water economics, management, and conservation; the extraction and management of nonrenewable resources such as minerals, rare earth elements, and energy resources; renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy; forest management; fishery economics; groundwater; natural resource markets, demand, supply, and scarcity; and sustainability. Students will learn how to use dynamic models to analyze decision-making over time, and to solve dynamic optimization problems analytically and numerically. Students will also learn tools in numerical analysis, data analytics, graphical analysis, computational techniques, regression analysis, and econometric modeling. Students will apply the methods, quantitative tools, and concepts to analyze natural resource issues at global and local levels; to introspectively reflect on their own lives and future aspirations; and to draw lessons and implications for leadership, management, and policy. A solid background in calculus is required.
This class will focus on the role of the environment in the theory and practice of economics. It will make use of microeconomic analysis at the intermediate level and will incorporate real-world examples. It examines market failure, externalities, benefit-cost analysis, nonmarket valuation techniques, and cost-effective policy instruments.
Why do most economic activities happen within managed organizations (i.e., firms) and not in markets (i.e., purchased from others)? More fundamentally, what is a firm? This course provides an introduction to *organizational economics* that seeks to understand the nature and workings of organizations-a collection of different people with dispersed information, responsibilities and non-aligned interests. You will learn about the theories of the boundaries of the firm that help unravel the neoclassical economics' blackbox view of the firm and the theories on the provision of incentives that ultimately shape firms. While the class takes a predominantly theoretical approach, you will also learn how the theories are in conversation with empirical evidence.
Statistical Decision Theory provides a normative framework to think about how to best use data to aid decision making under uncertainty. The goal of this course is to provide an undergraduate introduction to Statistical Decision Theory. At the end of the course, the students will be able to de?ne Statistical Models, Statistical Decision Problems, Statistical Decision Rules, Risk Functions, and to describe di?erent optimality criteria for statistical decision making (Bayes risk minimization, the minimax principle, and the minimax regret principle). The course will present di?erent applications to Economics, Econometrics, and Machine Learning.
ECON 4140Methods and Computation in Program Evaluation3
Introduces fundamental frameworks for program evaluation and causal inference in empirical research and the industry, and studies how modern predictive machine learning methods can be applied to get more credible estimates of causal effects. Problems are formulated and discussed in terms of formal econometric models, but the focus will be the applied and practical perspectives, especially in economics. Requires statistic and econometric knowledge at the level of ECON 3140 or equivalent, and programing experience in R or Python.
A systematic treatment of the determinants of the money supply and the volume of credit. Economic analysis of credit markets and financial institutions in the United States.
ECON 4260Public Finance: The Microeconomics of Government3
Analyzes the role of government in a free market economy. Topics include public goods, market failures, allocation mechanisms, optimal taxation, effects of taxation, and benefit-cost analysis. Current topics of an applied nature vary from semester to semester.
This course provides an introduction to state and local public finance. The course has two goals: first, to provide institutional detail about U.S. state and local governments and their policies, and, second, to use economic theory to analyze public policy issues that arise in the state and local government setting. The course is divided into eight parts. Parts I and II provide background by reviewing key theoretical concepts in public finance and public choice: Part I covers the normative economic theory of the role of government in a market economy and Part II covers some standard positive theories of policy-making. Part III introduces the theory of fiscal federalism, which seeks to provide guidance on the appropriate role of state and local governments. Parts IV and V discuss different ways in which the provision of state and local goods and services are financed: Part IV deals with non-tax sources of finance and Part V covers commonly used taxes. Part VI explains the budget process of state and local governments. Part VII describes how three of the most important state and local government responsibilities are organized: education, transportation, and health and welfare. Finally, Part VIII discusses state and local government policies towards residential and business development.
This is an advanced course intended for upper level economics undergraduates who enjoy learning about and analyzing economic models. The course provides an introduction to the economic analysis of politics. Part I discusses collective choice and introduces some core ideas from social choice theory. Part II provides an overview of economic theories of political behavior. Part III discusses how political decisions are distorted away from those that would be made by the benevolent governments from public economics textbooks. Part IV offers economic perspectives on a number of contemporary issues in American politics.
The course will cover the determinants of employment and wages, with a focus on income inequality. We will cover labor demand, labor supply, human capital, compensating differentials, imperfect competition, discrimination, top incomes, and the labor market’s role in business cycles. The course will focus on labor market models with empirical applications and application to current events.
ECON 4410Quantitative Models for the Labor Market3
In this course we will study two major features of modern economies. The first is the large dispersion across households in income and wealth, the second is the existence of persistent unemployment. We will be interested in understanding the models and tools that economists have developed to represent these phenomena, as well as in using these models to analyze the welfare implications of various government interventions. Topics to be covered include: Dynamic programming. Solution Methods of General Equilibrium models. Heterogeneous-agent macroeconomic models. Search, matching and equilibrium unemployment.
ECON 4545Advanced International Finance and Macroeconomics3
This course introduces and develops the leading modern theories of economies open to trade in financial assets and real goods. The goal is to understand how cross-country linkages influence macroeconomic developments within individual countries; how financial markets distribute risk and wealth around the world; and how trade changes the effectiveness of national monetary and fiscal policies. In exploring these questions, we emphasize the role that exchange rates and exchange rate policy take in shaping the consequences of international linkages. We apply our theories to current and recent events, including growing geoeconomic conflict between Eastern and Western countries, hyperinflation in Argentina, Brexit, and recent Euro-area debt crises.
Development economics studies why some countries remain poor while others prosper, and what policies or institutions can help improve living standards in low-income settings. Over the last several decades, economists have developed theoretical frameworks and empirical tools to understand the fundamental frictions that limit growth—why credit and insurance markets fail, why technologies do not diffuse, why individuals underinvest in education or migration, and how these failures shape inequality and welfare. This course investigates these questions by combining economic theory with empirical evidence from both observational and experimental studies. We begin with a simple framework for thinking about the forces that drive development and the market imperfections that can slow it down. We then apply this framework to specific domains—credit and savings, technology adoption, labor markets, and mobility—to understand how these frictions interact and how policy can address them.
ECON 4600Economics of Risk and Insurance: Decision Making Under Risk and Insurance Demand3
The course will cover foundations of modern theory of decision making under risk. The first part of the course will cover the functioning of financial markets with focus on asset pricing. The main part of the course will focus on how consumers perceive and evaluate risk, as well as issues arising from asymmetric information, such as adverse selection and moral hazard. The latter part of the course will discuss the functioning of various insurance markets and welfare implications of potential policy interventions.
This course takes a game theoretic approach to the study of markets and market power. Topics include pricing, collusion, entry, product differentiation, advertising, and bargaining.
ECON 4620Industrial Organization: A Computational Approach3
This course takes a game theoretic and computational approach to the study of firms, markets, and competition. Topics include firms' pricing, product, and investment decisions in the face of competition. For each topic, the course covers theory and both analytical and computational approaches.
This course introduces students to behavioral economics, a subfield of economics that incorporates insights from psychology and other social sciences into economics. The course reviews some of the standard assumptions made in economics, and examines evidence on how human behavior systematically departs from these assumptions. The course then investigates alternative models of human decision making, and assesses to what extent these alternative models help improve economic analyses.
Behavioral economics starts by developing models of decision making and investigating the implications of those models for individuals and household outcomes (which is the focus of ECON 4660). This course will focus on the next step: What are the implications of those models for market outcomes and for the role of government interventions to improve market outcomes? We will study applications from industrial organization and health economics, and applications from the new subfield of behavioral public economics that studies how to think about government policy when individuals and households may not be behaving as economists typically assume.
This course examines the use of field experiments in economics – and particularly how they are used in organizations. The course emphasizes the design and econometrics of such experiments, as well as their application to study research questions in organizations. The first part of the course looks at why we use field experiments, as well as the econometric assumptions we make when using them. The second part of the course looks at how field experiments are used in organizations to study topics including whether firms underprovide training, how social connections matter for performance at work, and whether different pay scales are motivating or demotivating for workers.
The course will appeal to students who have strong quantitative skills and would like to see applications of economic theory to analyze issues prominent in major public debates. Currently, we offer a very limited number of advanced courses that require students to do independent research, discuss their ideas in teams, present their work, and write a research proposal.
ECON 4907The Economics of Asymmetric Information and Contracts3
This course provides an introduction to the economics of asymmetric information, contracts and mechanism design. Topics covered include: bilateral contracting problems with moral hazard and/or adverse selection, bargaining with asymmetric information, the design of optimal auctions and other multilateral mechanisms, signaling and incomplete contacts. Prerequisites include intermediate microeconomics and statistics. The student is expected to be comfortable with basic probability (random variables, expectation, independence, and conditional probability) and calculus.
This independent study course offers economics majors (i.e., undergraduates whose applications to affiliate with the economics major have been approved) an opportunity to reflect on concepts from economics as they were encountered and applied in a recent internship. Students write a short paper describing their work experience and how it connects to the educational objectives of the economics major.
This independent study course offers economics majors (i.e., undergraduates whose applications to affiliate with the economics major have been approved) an opportunity to reflect on concepts from economics as they were encountered and applied in a recent internship. Students write a short paper describing their work experience and how it connects to the educational objectives of the economics major.
Topics in consumer and producer theory, equilibrium models and their application, externalities and public goods, intertemporal choice, simple dynamic models and resource depletion, choice under uncertainty.
This course teaches the fundamentals of non-cooperative game theory and classic applications used in applied work in economics and related fields such as finance, marketing, operations, and accounting. The course begins with a brief primer on non-cooperative game theory that covers pure versus mixed strategies, Nash equilibrium, and various equilibrium refinements. Coverage then turns to basic frameworks that utilize game theory to model a wide range of settings in economics and related fields. These include agency analysis, classic asymmetric information models such as adverse selection and signaling, time inconsistency, and repeated games and reputation.
Covers the following topics: static general equilibrium; intertemporal general equilibrium: infinitely lived agents models and overlapping generations models; welfare theorems; equivalence between sequential markets and Arrow-Debreu Markets; Ricardian proposition; Modigliani-Miller theorem; asset pricing; recursive competitive equilibrium; the Neoclassical Growth Model; calibration; and introduction to dynamic programming.
Gives the probabilistic and statistical background for meaningful application of econometric techniques. Topics include probability theory probability spaces, random variables, distributions, moments, transformations, conditional distributions, distribution theory and the multivariate normal distribution, convergence concepts, laws of large numbers, central limit theorems, Monte Carlo simulation; statistics: sample statistics, sufficiency, exponential families of distributions. Further topics in statistics are considered in ECON 6200.
A continuation of ECON 6190 covering statistics: estimation theory, least squares methods, method of maximum likelihood, generalized method of moments, theory of hypothesis testing, asymptotic test theory, and nonnested hypothesis testing; and econometrics: the general linear model, generalized least squares, specification tests, instrumental variables, dynamic regression models, linear simultaneous equation models, nonlinear models, and applications.
This course belongs to the health economics sequence. In addition to health economics, some topics cover public and labor economics. Students will also learn how to develop research sketches. First, we talk about U.S. health insurance and its intersection with the labor market. Then, we talk about health care providers, their reimbursement and behavior. Next, we study social insurance systems for health risks, such as disability or sick leave insurance. Finally, we cover specific topics like health measurement, the value of a statistical life or cost-benefit analysis. The lectures will not cover health behaviors (PUBPOL 6410), human capital and early childhood effects, the environment-health literature, and effects of income, education, and unemployment on health (behaviors).
ECON 6590Empirical Strategies for Policy Analysis3
Focuses on empirical strategies to identify the causal effects of public policies and programs. The course uses problem sets based on real-world examples and data to examine techniques for analyzing nonexperimental data including control function approaches, matching methods, panel-data methods, selection models, instrumental variables, and regression-discontinuity methods. The emphasis throughout, however, is on the critical role of research design in facilitating credible causal inference. The course aids students in both learning to implement a variety of statistical tools using large data sets, and in learning to select which tools are best suited to a given research project. (MPA-DA, MPA-DATSCI)
ECON 6591Empirical Strategies for Policy Research II3
This course is the second of a two-course sequence. Both PUBPOL 6090 and this course are, for the most part, targeted at students looking to do empirical research into the effects of some X on some Y. Both courses require students to complete problem sets that involve hands-on exercises - some based on real data and some using Monte Carlo simulations. The hope is that this learning by doing will reinforce what is taught in class. Usually, the first course covers core methods, specifically regression adjustment, matching and instrumental variables. This second course covers additional topics in matching (we will touch on machine learning methods in the process), regression discontinuity designs, panel data methods, and mediation analysis.
Research on decision theory resides in a variety of disciplines including computer science, economics, game theory, philosophy, and psychology. This course attempts to integrate these various approaches. The course is taught jointly by faculty from Game Theory and Computer Science. The course covers several areas: (1) basic decision theory. This theory, sometimes known as "rational choice theory," is part of the foundation for the disciplines listed above. It applies to decisions made by individuals or by machines; (2) the limitations of and problems with this theory. Issues discussed here include decision theory paradoxes revealed by experiments, cognitive and knowledge limitations, and computational issues; (3) new research designed in response to these difficulties. Issues covered include alternative approaches to the foundations of decision theory, adaptive behavior and shaping the individual decisions by aggregate/evolutionary forces and more computationally based approaches.
Social science research almost always combines empirical observation (data), the construction of concepts (language), and the logical analysis of the relations between observations and concepts (statistics). This course examines the relations between these three dimensions as the analyst moves from one to the other both as practice and in the crafting of a formal summary of findings and argument. We will be particularly interested in the foundational assumptions that underpin the connections between empirical reality, language, and statistical analysis. While these foundational assumptions are often taken for granted by social scientists, they vary dramatically between social science disciplines. The implicit contradiction between that variance and their doxic acceptance within disciplines will be a primary focus of the course. (GOVT-PT)
The principal objective of this course is to explore empirical evidence on the role of government intervention in the economy. The focus of the course will be on reading important papers and learning techniques that will allow you to produce original research in public economics and to analyze critically existing research in the field.
This course explores links between urbanization and real estate markets. High downtown rents reflect the benefits of proximity to other companies and natural features like port facilities. High housing costs reflect proximity to jobs and the lure of urban amenities. At the same time, segregation and congestion are often exacerbated by urbanization, the costs of which are seen in inequality, crime, pollution, and traffic jams. Urban real estate markets are also affected by local government policy, including enforcement of property rights, zoning, tax and subsidy programs. Shrinking rust belt cities and work from home threaten to undermine urban real estate markets, while volatility and uncertainty contributes to mispricing. These and related ideas will be explored drawing on context from countries around the world.
This course is an advanced course in International Trade, targeted at second year PhD students. It covers theoretical models of international trade and economic geography, the gravity-type structure of trade through a variety of micro-foundations, and techniques to estimate trade models and assess counterfactuals. The course will also touch on global value chains, multinational productions, international diffusion of ideas, migration, and the consequences of trade for inequality.
This course introduces econometric and machine learning methods that are useful for causal inference. Modern empirical research often encounters datasets with many covariates or observations. We start by evaluating the quality of standard estimators in the presence of large datasets, and then study when and how machine learning methods can be used or modified to improve the measurement of causal effects and the inference on estimated effects. The aim of the course is not to exhaust all machine learning methods, but to introduce a theoretic framework and related statistical tools that help research students develop independent research in econometric theory or applied econometrics. Topics include: (1) potential outcome model and treatment effect, (2) nonparametric regression with series estimator, (3) probability foundations for high dimensional data (concentration and maximal inequalities, uniform convergence), (4) estimation of high dimensional linear models with lasso and related methods, (5) estimation of high dimensional generalised linear models with L1 regularisation, (6) introduction to other machine learning methods such as neural networks, regression trees and random forests, (7) inference on semiparametric models with high dimensional components, orthogonalisation, de-biased machine learning, (8) other related topics, such as balancing methods, treatment choice problems, etc. Class slides will be circulated and students are expected to read theoretic and empirical research papers that involve machine learning methods.
An overview of the models and methods for analyzing data with cross-sectional dependence, i.e., those able to explicitly test behavioral models with interdependent agents' decisions. The technicalities are presented in a basic formulation, favoring the transmission of ideas, intuitions, and stressing the links with underlying behavioral mechanisms essential to guiding the interpretation of the results. The open questions in the economics literature are emphasized. They include: 1) the definition of the reference group; 2) the possible presence of unobserved attributes that may generate a problem of confounding variables (spurious spatial correlation); and 3) simultaneity in agents' behavior that may hinder identification of exogenous effects, i.e., influence of agents' attributes) from endogenous effects, i.e., influence of agents' outcomes. This short course focuses on identification issues.
This course explores how production networks shape macroeconomic outcomes. We develop models in which firms interact through input-output linkages and examine how shocks propagate along supply chains. We also study how networks are formed, and how the impact of taxes and other distortions can be affected by the structure of the production network.
The course introduces students to Bayesian time series methods. Students will learn how to make likelihood-based inference about unobserved quantities, e.g. model parameters, policy impacts or future outcomes, conditional on the observed data. Applications include structural vector autoregressions, state space models and linearized dynamic stochastic general equilibrium macro models. Student will become familiar with numerical posterior simulation techniques such as Gibbs sampling and the Metropolis-Hasting algorithm. The course is useful for any students interested in empirical work that involves time series and/or structural likelihood-based estimation.
ECON 7325Firm Dynamics and Aggregate Productivity3
This course focuses on ?rm dynamics, causes of size and productivity differences as well as patterns of growth, entry, and exit over the life cycle. It also studies how ?rms interact through production networks, the economic forces that shape these relationships, and the consequences for aggregate outcomes.
Many economic decisions have to be made in settings in which many interacting agents have imperfect and diverse information about pay-off relevant variables. This course gives an overview of existing research in macroeconomics and finance that deviates from settings with perfectly informed rational agents. The course will cover both methodological and substantial aspects of the existing literature.
ECON 7350Public Finance: Resource Allocation and Fiscal Policy3
Develops a mathematical and highly analytical understanding of the role of government in market economies and the fundamentals of public economics and related issues. Topics include generalizations and extensions of the fundamental theorems of welfare economics, in-depth analysis of social choice theory and the theory on implementation in economic environments, public goods and externalities and other forms of market failure associated with asymmetric information. The theoretical foundation for optimal direct and indirect taxation is also introduced along with the development of various consumer surplus measures and an application to benefit cost analysis. Topics of an applied nature vary from semester to semester depending on faculty research interests.
Focused on analytical models of political institutions, this course is organized around canonical models and their applications. These include voting models, menu auctions, models of reputation, and cheap talk games. These models are used to explain patterns of participation in elections, institutions of congress, lobbying, payments to special interest groups and other observed phenomena.
ECON 7390Empirical Political Economy: Institutions, Elections, and Public Policy3
This course surveys modern empirical research in political economy, with an emphasis on institutions, elections, legislatures, political accountability, lobbying, regulation, and public policy. Students will study how contemporary empirical methods, including causal inference and structural methods, are used to identify causal effects and evaluate influential research. The course develops students’ ability to assess empirical evidence critically and to design original research in political economy and applied microeconomics.
Includes reading and discussion of selected topics in labor economics. Stresses applications of economic theory and econometrics to the labor market and human resource areas.
Includes reading and discussion of selected topics in labor economics. Stresses applications of economic theory and econometrics to the labor market and human resource areas. The combination of ILRLE 7450 and ILRLE 7460 constitute Ph.D.-level sequence in labor economics.
ECON 7450Model Building for Applied (Labor) Economists3
The aim of the course “Model Building for Applied (Labor) Economists” is to equip applied researchers with the tools to formalize their theories in terms of mathematical economic models. In contrast to a classical economic theory course that is built mostly around solving models, this course spends more time on the art of building simple models – ideally in a way that captures the key ideas but remains simple enough to allow relatively easy insights. We will review the basic setup of models including some discussion of ways in which to keep models tractable; and we will read papers that successfully put some of these principles into action. Participants will present some of these papers, and they have to build models and derive insights from them.
ECON 7455Local Labor Markets: Disparities and Remedies3
Since the 1980s, American cities have exhibited increasingly divergent trends. This Great Divergence has had profound effects on local employment, income, political preferences, health outcomes, and intergenerational mobility. As more detailed data become available, recent research seeks to uncover the causes of this divergence and evaluate how policy interventions might mitigate its negative effects. Building on this research, this course explores recent advancements at the crossroads of labor and spatial economics. It begins by examining the growing disparities between cities and regions in terms of productivity, labor market opportunities, and amenities, in several countries. It then investigates the rationale behind place-based policies and their potential to stimulate local development. Finally, the course will provide students with essential tools and theories to study the sorting of workers and firms over space and to understand its implications for economic growth and inequality.
This course aims to provide an in-depth perspective on three important themes in modern labor economics: (1) Job search, (2) Technological change and new forms of work, (3) Sorting of workers and firms. Both micro and macro perspectives will be considered.
ECON 7510Industrial Organization and Structural Methods3
This course offers a graduate-level introduction to the core theoretical models and empirical methods of industrial organization. The course is designed to equip students with tools for structural empirical research on questions both within and outside of industrial organization. Theoretical topics include monopoly pricing, dynamic competition, and entry games. Empirical methods covered include demand estimation and estimation of dynamic discrete choice models.
ECON 7520Industrial Organization and Regulation II3
This course explores advanced topics in Industrial Organization not covered in ECON 7510 with the intent of spurring students towards independent research. Empirical models will include vertical markets, platforms, auctions, and other topics.
This course provides an overview of the field of behavioral economics. The course reviews evidence on how human behavior systematically departs from the standard assumptions of economics, and discusses how one might formally model alternative assumptions based on this evidence. The course then examines attempts to empirically test these theories. The goal is not merely to point out problems with traditional economic assumptions, rather, it is to develop alternative assumptions and to investigate whether these alternative assumptions can be usefully incorporated into mainstream economics.
ECON 7660Microeconomics of International Development1.5
This course introduces students to the key theories, canonical papers, and current frontiers in the microeconomics of international development. We cover topics related to agricultural household models, consumption smoothing, labor markets, trade and search, relational contracts, and public finance. Paired with AEM 7621 to form a graduate sequence in development economics.
ECON 7661Microeconomics of International Development II3
This course is an extension of AEM 7620/ECON 7660 and will cover current microeconomic issues of developing countries including but not limited to factors influencing human capital accumulation (e.g. health, education), contracting and firm structure, credit and saving, and behavioral economics and development. Most lectures will begin with applied theory and then discuss leading papers on that topic. The course is also designed with a focus on empirical methods and testing theories with data. Finally, the course contains classes on how to prepare for field work in order to provide a foundation for many of the practical skills needed to move a project forward.
This course will provide a selective overview of topics at the cutting-edge of academic research and policy debates about the international monetary and financial system. Main areas will include the effects of financial globalization on growth, volatility, and the transmission of business cycles, as well as the determinants of capital flows and exchange rates. The course will cover topics at the intersection of international finance and macroeconomics, with particular emphasis on the implications for monetary policy and financial regulation. New research related to Fintech, cryptocurrencies, and central bank digital currencies will also be covered. This course is intended for advanced Ph.D. students, especially those in search of thesis topics, and will require extensive student involvement in preparing research proposals and critiques of existing literature. Students will develop their own research ideas during the course and are required to write a substantive research paper.
ECON 7711Microeconomics of Development: Applications to Health, Nutrition and Education3
Advanced seminar explores recent empirical research and evaluation literature on issues of health, nutrition, education and intrahousehold decision-making in developing countries.
ECON 7740Law and Economics: A Game-Theoretic Approach3
This course introduces graduate students to the main concepts and ideas of law and economics, founded on elementary game theory. These ideas are then applied to contemporary policy concerns, from promoting economic development and designing welfare interventions in developing countries, to controlling corruption and financial fraud. The defining feature of the course is the structuring of these topics within a common conceptual framework, and training students to develop these ideas further and apply them to new research questions.
The purpose of this course is to familiarize you with basic models and empirical regularities in the area of macro-development. That is, the use of structural models and micro data to answer policy relevant questions related to the process of economic development and with focus on developing countries.
Research workshop featuring guests lecturers. Presentations of completed papers and work in progress by faculty members, advanced graduate students, and speakers from other universities. Focuses on the formulation, design, and execution of dissertations.
Ph.D. students in the Field of Economics are required to take this year-long research seminar, and receive a grade of Satisfactory, in order to remain in good standing in the Ph.D. program. Students present and discuss each second-year paper, which must be completed before the semester opens and Economics 7850 meets for the first time. Students also present at least two additional papers or paper plans. These are intended to be part of the core of the student's thesis proposal, which must be given as part of the student's A Exam prior to the start of the fourth year of graduate study in the economics Ph.D. program. Economics 7851 ends with a mini-conference, attended by faculty and other Ph.D. students, in which each student makes a formal presentation in standard economics conference format, and each student discusses one of these presentations. Professional writing and presentation coaching is also provided.
Ph.D. students in the Field of Economics are required to take this year-long research seminar, and receive a grade of Satisfactory, in order to remain in good standing in the Ph.D. program. Students present and discuss each second-year paper, which must be completed before the semester opens and Economics 7850 meets for the first time. Students also present at least two additional papers or paper plans. These are intended to be part of the core of the student's thesis proposal, which must be given as part of the student's A Exam prior to the start of the fourth year of graduate study in the economics Ph.D. program. Economics 7851 ends with a mini-conference, attended by faculty and other Ph.D. students, in which each student makes a formal presentation in standard economics conference format, and each student discusses one of these presentations. Professional writing and presentation coaching is also provided.
ECON 7854Law, Economics, and Public Policy Seminar0.5
The Law, Economics, and Policy seminar is a speaker hosted in the Brooks School of Public Policy. Outside (and sometimes internal) speakers give talks on a variety of topics relevant to advanced research in law, economics, and/or policy topics. This series provides graduate students with exposure to high-quality research, strengthens their skills in interpreting economics and policy research, and allows them networking opportunities with the external speakers.
