Courses

This course gives students a foundation in the general principles of economics as a basis for effective citizenship and, when combined with 111, as a preparation for all advanced study in economics. Topics include analysis of the measurement, level, and distribution of national income; the concepts of inflation and depression; the role and structure of the banking system; fiscal and monetary stabilization techniques; implications of and limits to economic growth; and international economic relations.

This course gives the students a foundation in the general principles of economics as a basis for effective citizenship and, when combined with 110, as a preparation for all advanced study in economics. Topics include consumer choice theory; the formation of prices under competition, monopoly, and other market structures; the determination of wages, profits, and income from capital; the distribution of income; and an analysis of policy directed towards problems of public finance, pollution, natural resources, and public goods.

The course focuses on the development of the British economy since the inter-war period. The approach integrates economic and historical analysis to discuss the development of the structure of the British economy, economic policy, and the institutions affecting economic performance.

Economic growth only became an expected part of modern life during the Industrial Revolution. This course will explore the origins and implications of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Why did this revolution start in Britain? How did it change life for British citizens, and how did the many changes move beyond Britain? The course will use readings, lectures and visits to industrial sites and museums in and around Manchester.

Among the most important economic institutions in the world today are multinational enterprises. This course will explore the theory and practice of MNEs. Lectures and reading will be supplemented with visits to British multinationals.

Britain has nurtured some of the most important economists in the world and Cambridge was the intellectual home of the foremost of these, J.M. Keynes. This course will explore the economic theory and social thought of Keynes and the influence of his contemporaries in the Bloomsbury group on post-WWI Britain.

This course explores household behavior in developing countries. We will cover areas including fertility decisions, health and mortality, investment in education, the intra-household allocation of resources, household structure, and the marriage market. We will also look at the characteristics of land, labor, and credit markets, particularly technology adoption; land tenure and tenancy arrangements; the role of agrarian institutions in the development process; and the impacts of alternative politics and strategies in developing countries. The course complements Economics 241.

Why are some countries rich and others poor? What causes countries to grow over time? This course documents different patterns of macroeconomic development across the world and how economic theory explains those patterns. We will draw on both cross-country evidence and individual case studies to understand the role of formal and informal institutions, culture, geography, policy, and other fundamental causes of differences in long run macroeconomic outcomes.

Latin America has the highest level of inequality in the world, undergirded by significant ethnic and gender inequalities. The course will analyze key gender issues such as the feminization of poverty, female labor force participation and violence against women. We will also investigate how men can contribute to promoting gender equality and how public policy can promote healthy—rather than toxic—masculinities. We will explore what development means for indigenous peoples in the Americas, analyze different ways of measuring development with identity, and delve into how to promote better health and educational outcomes for indigenous peoples, in collaboration with indigenous communities and in ways that respect their worldview. This course is designed to be a combination of topics and tools. You will be equipped with a few useful tools from the economist’s toolkit, including using randomized controlled trials to measure the effectiveness of public policy and deploying nudges inspired by behavioral science to change behaviors in quick and low-cost fashion.

This course examines the role of gender in determining key socio-economic outcomes. Topics include education, marriage, divorce, domestic violence, sex, fertility, work, earnings, occupation, and discrimination. We develop economic tools to examine patterns in gender differentials across time, across societies, and within socio-economic groups. We also evaluate the impact of policies, such as paid versus unpaid parental leave, on gender-based outcomes.

The rise of Silicon Valley has drawn attention to the role of the entrepreneur in a modern economy. This course examines connections between start-ups and macroeconomic forces of growth, the business cycle, and inequality. In addition, we will survey microeconomic determinants of entrepreneurial activity: government policy, social networks, culture, demographics, and more. A series of class visits by alumni will undergird discussion of the connections between lessons in the academic literature and the experience of active entrepreneurs.

Healthcare deserves a course of its own because it accounts for one-sixth of US economic activity. This course studies the provision of healthcare and insurance. We explore alternative policy models of healthcare distribution, focusing on the tradeoffs between access, cost, and quality. These choices are complicated by economic incentives that lead healthy people to opt out of insurance and insured people to take on excess risk.

Game theory is the study of decision making in strategic situations. In this course we will develop tools to help us to analyze a wide variety of settings in which two or more people make choices that jointly affect one another’s well-being. We will discuss many different applications, including negotiations, charitable giving, the division of labor on shared projects, armed conflicts, and the role of education in the job market. Topics covered include pure and mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium, rationalizability, backward induction, repeated games, Bayesian games and level-k reasoning.

This course introduces behavioral economics as a complementary approach to traditional economic models of decision making. We will study situations in which the predictions of traditional models can appear to be inconsistent with the choices people actually make, and then ask whether we can improve those models by introducing psychologically plausible assumptions. We will discuss a broad range of behavioral topics, including biases in decision making, risk and time preferences, prospect theory, other-regarding preferences, and the design of experiments.

How do we address increasingly urgent problems of environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources?  This course develops the economic approach to addressing a wide variety of related issues, while also considering how issues of law and political economy affect resource allocations and the desirability and feasibility of various policies.  Topics covered include climate change, energy production, air quality regulation policies, wildlife management, endangered species protection, water resource management, and valuation of the environment.

This course explores the history of financial crises and what we can learn from their patterns over time. You'll also learn about the economic ideas behind these crises, such as how debt, risky behavior, and the lack of coordination among individuals can create problems. We'll discuss tools that governments and institutions use to manage risks and prevent crises, including deposit insurance and foreign currency reserves.

Firms that free themselves from competition may leverage market power for profit. This course studies strategies that monopolies and oligopolies use to establish or defend their own market power while protecting themselves from the market power of both suppliers and distributors. We also explore how market power influences related choices like advertising, innovation, and product quality.

Do countries benefit from trading with each other? Why do some individuals embrace free trade while others oppose it? This course develops economic models that explain why countries choose to or choose not to trade. We examine the roots of political conflict surrounding trade policy and discuss recent trade-related controversies. We also evaluate the myriad policy tools governments deploy to manipulate trading relationships, and quantify their benefits and costs.

How people form and express their beliefs about ‘objective’ economic and political facts is a central question for social science.  We will explore the literature on how people form beliefs about political and economic data from a multidisciplinary approach and learn how to apply methods from economics and political science to understand the causes and consequences of disagreement about social facts.

Recommended Preparation: POSC 122. 

ECON 286 is cross listed with POSC 286.

This course explores the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI), economics, and policy. We examine AI's economic potential impacts on labor markets (job creation/displacement, skills, wages, and implications for policies like minimum wage or Universal Basic Income), productivity, economic growth, market structures, and innovation, using theory and empirical evidence. Real-world AI applications and socio-economic consequences are analyzed through case studies across multiple sectors of the economy. The course also investigates AI's use as a research tool (literature review, data collection, analysis, forecasting) and explores critical ethical challenges (bias, fairness, privacy, transparency, environmental implications), and broader policy/governance issues.

This course focuses on the theoretical analysis of the macroeconomy, with an emphasis on the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic outcomes. Topics include the analysis of long-run growth, theories of business cycles, and optimal stabilization policy.  This class is normally taken by juniors. Sophomores considering enrolling should speak to the instructor.

This seminar will focus on contemporary approaches to analyzing the macroeconomy and financial markets. Students will be exposed to empirical methods suited for the causal analysis of cross-sectional, time series, and panel data. Topics covered depend on student interest and may include purchasing power parity, arbitrage, capital control, globalization, financial crises, exchange rate dynamics, efficient market hypothesis, and the role of financial markets in the real economy. We will read journal articles that apply econometric techniques to questions in macroeconomics and finance, and students will give presentations on their own research ideas.

Experimental economics focuses on using controlled experiments to demonstrate causal relationships in economic decision making. We will develop a deep understanding of both the methodology and major findings of experimental economics. Many discussions will be student-led, through in-depth presentation of journal articles. Topics covered will be determined largely by student interest, but might include subjects such as altruistic behavior, bargaining, market behavior, risk preferences, public goods, and preferences for honesty.

This seminar introduces you to the empirical tools commonly used by applied microeconomists interested in questions of inequality. We will read journal articles that apply advanced econometric techniques to micro-level data, the goal being that students develop the skills to conduct an empirical project of their own. Class time is devoted to discussion of articles, econometric applications, and student-led presentations. Topics covered depend on student interest and may include: earnings gaps across socio-economic groups, labor market discrimination, gender/racial differentials in employment, the impact of gender/race on health, etc.

Required of all senior Economics majors. Students complete either the research paper or the policy paper developed in ECON 395. Students writing the research paper must enroll concurrently in ECON 398.