Undergraduate Course Descriptions
Fall 2020
Introductory microeconomics with a special emphasis on quantitative methods and examples. Intended for students with limited or no experience with calculus.
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 to the basic tools of microeconomics to provide a rigorous framework for understanding how individuals, firms, markets, and governments allocate scarce resources. The design and evaluation of public policy.
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.
Introduction to data analysis from the beginning of the econometrics sequence; exposure to modern empirical economics; and development of credible economic analysis. This course emphasizes working directly and early with data, through such economic examples as studies of environmental/natural resource economics, intergenerational mobility, discrimination, and finance. Topics include: probability, statistics, and sampling; selection, causation and causal inference; regression and model specification; and machine learning and big data.
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.
Contemporary theories of employment, finance, money, business fluctuations, and economic growth. Their implications for monetary and fiscal policy. Emphasis on empirical studies, financial and monetary crises, and recent policies and problems.
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.
Similar to ECON 121 but with a more intensive treatment of consumer and producer theory, and covering additional topics including choice under uncertainty, game theory, contracting under hidden actions or hidden information, externalities and public goods, and general equilibrium theory. Recommended for students considering graduate study in economics.
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.
A global view of the world economy and the salient issues in the short and the long run. Economics of crises, fiscal policy, debt, inequality, global imbalances, climate change. The course is based on reading, debating, and applying cutting edge macroeconomic research.
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.
The transitional imperatives of the Next China take on new meaning in a post-pandemic, conflict-prone climate. This seminar offers a deep dive into this transition, with special emphasis on China’s AI-enabled push to indigenous innovation. Focus is also directed at reforms of debt-intensive state-owned enterprises as well as the development of a modern financial system and a fully-convertible currency. A rethinking of China’s relationship challenges, especially with the United States, is an over-arching theme of the seminar.
The transitional imperatives of the Next China take on new meaning in a post-pandemic, conflict-prone climate. This seminar offers a deep dive into this transition, with special emphasis on China’s AI-enabled push to indigenous innovation. Focus is also directed at reforms of debt-intensive state-owned enterprises as well as the development of a modern financial system and a fully-convertible currency. A rethinking of China’s relationship challenges, especially with the United States, is an over-arching theme of the seminar.
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.
Comprehensive survey of the causes, events, policy responses, and aftermath of the recent global financial crisis. Study of the dynamics of financial crises in a modern economy. Prerequisite: Successful completion of a course in introductory economics.
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.
Analysis of firms’ incentives to innovate, focusing on the effects of market power on the intensity of innovative activity. Topics include strategic investment in innovation, patent races, the diffusion of knowledge, intellectual property (IP) protection systems, IP licensing, research joint ventures, litigation, venture capital, and conflicts between IP rights and antitrust regulation.
Advanced study of econometric theory and applied econometrics, providing students opportunity and ability to conduct high-level empirical research, combining economics, econometrics, and data. Recommended for students planning to write or currently writing an empirical senior essay.
Introduction to the different roles and responsibilities of modern central banks, including the operation of payments systems, monetary policy, supervision and regulation, and financial stability. Discussion of different ways to structure central banks to best manage their responsibilities.
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 course covers the history, science, sociology, statistics, and economic impacts of catastrophes, focusing on pandemics and climate change. The course ranges in content from humanistic through social sciences to epidemiology, and some parts are highly technical.
The objective of this advanced course is to study various aspects of inequality and social mobility and to understand their trends over time and their drivers. Although we briefly study some international comparisons, the focus of the course is inequality in the US and, to a less extent, the UK. We consider inequalities among different countries only tangentially.
This course has an applied econometrics focus. Topics include voting behavior, betting markets, and various issues in sports. The aim of the course is to help students prepare original empirical research using econometric tools and to read empirical papers in economics and other social sciences. Students write three empirical papers. The first can be an extension of an existing article, where some of the results are duplicated and then extended. The second is similar to the first with no example provided. The third is an original paper within the range of topics covered in the course, where data are collected and analyzed using relevant econometric techniques.
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.
Advanced development economics course on applied microeconomics research using studies and data from South Asia. Students learn how to read, analyze, and critique empirical economics. Students learn how to develop their own research topic and conduct exploratory analysis of data which they gather.
This seminar course is about the economics of gender and has a focus on labor and marriage markets. Students are given an overview of gender differences in these markets, as well as some potential reasons for those differences. The course also discusses policies that can affect the gender gaps.
A case-oriented study of principal issues and investment types found in substantial private equity portfolios. Discussion of enterprise valuation, value creation, business economics, negotiation, and legal structure, based on primary source materials and original cases.
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.
This course studies the economics of innovation and the effects of artificial intelligence on different industries. Topics include economics of the intellectual property (IP) protection system; strategic choices in innovation and competition; patent races; measurement and big data; the sharing and digitalized economy; collective intelligence and decisions; online auctions; venture capital; legal and social infrastructure.
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.
This course focuses on the growing body of psychology and economics literature studying how poverty affects economic decision-making through psychological and behavioral mechanisms.
Focus on systemic risk, banking crises, financial stability and macroprudential policies. Additional emphasis on systemic risk and prudential policies in peripheral European economies and emerging economies.
Introduction to empirical microeconomics and its methodologies. Academic research in the field explored using tools from economic theory and econometrics. Topics include approaches to identification, environmental effects on health, and the economics of crime, gender, and race.
This course explores topics on dynamic games: we consider situations where agents interact repeatedly. We cover applications related to a range of fields from industrial organization (price wars and oligopoly with imperfect monitoring) to macroeconomic policy (time consistency). Students should have a solid background in multivariate calculus, be comfortable with rigorous proofs and mathematical arguments, and be willing to learn further mathematical tools as needed.
Students wishing to write a senior essay must choose their topics and advisers by Monday, October 5, 2020. One-term senior essays are due on Wednesday December 9 by 4:30 pm. Two-term senior essays are due by 4:30 pm on Wednesday, April 7, 2020. Essays should be submitted electronically to the Economics department (qazi.azam@yale.edu) by the due date. Late essays will not be accepted without a dean’s excuse. Advisers are chosen with the assistance of the DUS, lecturer and TA. The format and character of the departmental senior essay may vary to suit the interest of the student and the demands of the topic, but it is expected that the tools and concepts of economic analysis will be employed and that the essay will contain original research. Paper lengths may vary; the normal expectation is thirty pages. Students may receive up to two credits for the senior essay, though it counts as only one departmental seminar whether one or two terms are taken. Please see the canvas page for an introductory video. Senior essay Q&A sessions with the DUS, lecturer and TA for the course will be held on August 13 at 9 am, August 18 at 7 pm and September 1 at 4 pm. RSVP at https://economics.yale.edu/webform/undergrad-info-session to receive the zoom link. You’ll receive the link just prior to the meeting start time. Senior essay prospectus forms are due Monday, October 5, 2020. Students who do not turn the prospectus in on time will not be permitted to write an essay.
Junior and senior economics majors desiring a directed reading course in special topics in economics not covered in other graduate or undergraduate courses may elect this course, not more than once, with written permission of the director of undergraduate studies and of the instructor. The instructor meets with the student regularly, typically for an hour a week, and the student writes a paper or a series of short essays. Junior and senior majors may take this course for a letter grade, but it does not meet the requirement for a department seminar.