Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Similar to ECON 115, but taught as a lecture discussion with limited enrollment.

Similar to ECON 116, but taught as a lecture discussion with limited enrollment.

An introduction that stresses how the macroeconomy works, including the determination of output, unemployment, inflation, interest rates, and exchange rates. Economic theory is applied to current events.

The theory of resource allocation and its applications. Topics include the theory of choice, consumer and firm behavior, production, price determination in different market structures, welfare, and market failure.

Comprehensive and theoretical examination of econometrics, with further exploration of topics covered in ECON 117. A term research project addresses a research question chosen by the student, and involves the application of learned methods to a relevant data set.

Foundations of mathematical statistics: probability theory, distribution theory, parameter estimation, hypothesis testing, regression, and computer programming. Recommended for students considering graduate study in economics.

Application of economic principles to the study of the U.S. health care system. Emphasis on basic principles about the structure of the U.S. system, current problems, proposed solutions, and the context of health policy making and politics.

European economic growth and development from the late seventeenth century through the first stages of the British industrial revolution. The role of institutional development, trade and imperialism, agricultural improvements, and industrialization. Particular attention to comparisons between Britain and other parts of Europe.

The course is an introduction to important economic ideas:  preferences and rationality, Pareto efficiency, economic equilibrium in a capitalist economy, externalities, the role of the state,  uncertainty and von Neumann-Morgenstern utility, the principle of insurance, elementary game theory (Nash equilibrium), the median voter theorem, political equilibrium with party competition, distributive justice, equality of opportunity,  and Arrow’s impossibility theorem. These topics are essential tools for political economists. 

Introduction to the economic analysis of investment decisions and financial markets. Topics include time discounting, portfolio choice, equilibrium pricing, arbitrage, market efficiency, equity valuation, fixed-income securities, derivative pricing, and financial intermediation.

Microeconomic theory brought to bear on current issues in natural resource policy. Topics include regulation of pollution, hazardous waste management, depletion of the world’s forests and fisheries, wilderness and wildlife preservation, and energy planning.

An introduction to general equilibrium theory and its application to finance and the theory of money. Recommended for students considering graduate study in economics, or a career in quantitative finance.

A study of how consumers and firms are affected by the globalization of the world economy. Topics include trade costs, the current account, exchange rate pass-through, international macroeconomic co-movement, multinational production, and gains from globalization. 

Introduction to international and environmental economics and to research that combines the two fields. Methods for designing and analyzing environmental policy when economic activity and pollution cross political borders. Effects of market openness on the environment and on environmental regulation; international economics and climate change.

This is an advanced course covers basic univariate and multivariate models and methods used to analyze financial and economic time series data and panel time series data. Topics include: classic linear models; serial dependence, autocorrelation in error variances (ARCH, GARCH); methods that allow for nonlinearity, tail dependence, comovements, conditional value at risk, fat-tails, nonstationarity; vector autoregressive models; factor models; Markov switching, latent factors, measurement errors, stochastic volatility; empirical asset pricing models. The aim of the course is to help students write their senior essays and start their own research in economics and finance.

A mathematically rigorous investigation of the interplay of economic theory and computer science, with an emphasis on the relationship of incentive-compatibility and algorithmic efficiency. Our main focus is on algorithmic tools in mechanism design, algorithms and complexity theory for learning and computing Nash and market equilibria, and the price of anarchy. Case studies in Web search auctions, wireless spectrum auctions, matching markets, and network routing, and social networks.

The aim of this course is to analyze the ways that geography determines economic outcomes. We discuss and analyze data on regional economic activity and how economic shocks propagate in space. We pair those data with simple models where geography plays a crucial role in the determination of economic activity and discuss how changes in this geography lead some regions to grow and economic outcomes to diverge. Various policies that affect the spatial allocation of economic activity, such as infrastructure investment, local taxes, and transfers, are analyzed

The role of hedge funds in the United States financial markets and hedge fund behavior; understanding what hedge funds do, why they exist, and how they are different from other investment vehicles. Study of investment strategies that provide opportunity and risk for investors and study of academic papers analyzing (risky) arbitrage strategies.

In recent years, cryptocurrencies and blockchains have seen broad experimentation and adoption across many areas in the modern economy. However, the foundations of blockchains can be traced back to many classical results in the study of incentives and distributed systems, such as in economics, cryptography, and computer science. This seminar aims to introduce students to the theoretical underpinning of blockchain technology and help develop skills in economic analysis. We cover the related literature and more recent developments and applications such as Bitcoin, decentralized exchanges, and smart contracts. We explore this novel field through the lens of mechanism design, i.e., aligning the incentives of strategic agents to induce desirable outcomes in an economic system.

Economic evolution and prospects of the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. Topics include the period from independence to the 1930s; import substitution and industrialization to the early 1980s; the debt crisis and the “lost decade”; reform and disappointment in the late 1980s and the 1990s; exploration of selected episodes in particular countries; and speculations about the future.

How law and economic theory define and conceptualize economic discrimination; whether economic models adequately describe behaviors of discriminators as documented in court cases and government hearings; the extent to which economic theory and econometric techniques aid our understanding of actual marketplace discrimination.

Senior essays are an opportunity for students to engage in independent, original economic research. Essays are not reviews of the literature, rather each should be an examination of a hypothesis using the tools of economics. In particular, the essay must contain original research and/or analysis. They can be theoretical, empirical or computational. The senior essays that receive A’s and are awarded prizes are typically those that use economics tools (and, where appropriate, data) to offer fresh insights on questions. 

Students enrolling in this one-term course need to find an advisor. There are no page requirements or formatting requirements. Generally, essays run about 30 pages. Advice regarding bibliographies, graphs, etc. should be given by your advisor.