This course surveys American political thought from the colonial era to the present. Required readings are drawn mainly from primary sources, including writings of politicians, activists, and theorists. Topics include the relationship between religion and politics, rights, federalism, national identity, republicanism versus liberalism, the relationship of subordinated groups to mainstream political discourse, and the role of ideas in politics. We will analyze the simultaneous radicalism and weakness of American liberalism, how the revolutionary ideas of freedom and equality run up against persistent patterns of inequality. Graduate students are expected to pursue the subject in greater depth through suggested reading and individual research.

Small-group study of advanced subjects under staff supervision. For graduate students wishing to pursue further study in advanced areas of urban studies and city and regional planning not covered in regular subjects of instruction. 11.941 and 11.955 are taught P/D/F.

Analyzes the health policy problems facing America including adequate access to care, the control of health care costs, and the encouragement of medical advances. Considers market and regulatory alternatives as well as possible foreign models including Canadian, Swedish, British, and German arrangements. Emphasis on historical development, interest group behavior, and organizational influences in setting and implementing policy.

Describes how economic theory is linked to economic evaluation techniques like cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis and to introduce students to many concepts that are specific to economic evaluation. Introduces students to the many varieties of economic evaluation to establish a common terminology. Discusses cost-benefit with a demonstration of how this type of evaluation is most clearly linked to economic theory. Explores other theories and concepts, including cost measurement, benefit valuation, and incremental decision-making. Finally, explores recommendations on performing economic evaluations that are made in the United States with a focus on how these are related to underlying economic theory and other concepts.

Considers how institutions have been incorporated theoretically into explorations of growth and development. Four sets of institutions are examined in detail: the corporate sector, to study how ownership, strategy, and structure affect growth-related policies; financial institutions, to analyze how they condition savings and investment; labor market institutions, to investigate their impact on the determination of wage and production-related productivity; and the institutions associated with technology, such as universities, research laboratories, and corporate training centers, to consider how skill formulation is accomplished.

This course explores the theory behind and evidence on regulatory, tax, and other government responses to problems of market failure. Special emphasis is given to developing and implementing tools to evaluate environmental policies. Other topics include cost-benefit analysis, measurement of the benefits of non-market goods and costs of regulations, and the evaluation of the impact of regulations in areas such as financial markets, workplace health and safety, consumer product safety, and other contexts.

This Farmers' Agribusiness training course has been developed to help both farmers and farmer organisations. Its intention is to provide access to provide access to additional skills and knowledge that will allow farmers to move from a 'farm' to a 'firm'. This lesson covers the basic governing principles of economic thinking including the key economic questions, factors of production, efficiency and the market structure.

Continuation of Finance Theory I, concentrating on corporate financial management. Topics: Capital investment decisions, security issues, dividend policy, optimal capital structure, hedging and risk management, futures markets and real options analysis. The objective of this course is to learn the financial tools needed to make good business decisions. The course presents the basic insights of corporate finance theory, but emphasizes the application of theory to real business decisions. Each session involves class discussion, some centered on lectures and others around business cases.

Introduction to investments and corporate finance. Topics include: project and company valuation, risk and return in capital markets, the pricing of stocks and bonds, corporate financing and dividend policy, the cost of capital, and financial options. Subject provides a broad overview of both theory and practice. Restricted to Management of Technology students. Financial Management studies corporate finance and capital markets, emphasizing the financial aspects of managerial decisions. It touches on all areas of finance, including the valuation of real and financial assets, risk management and financial derivatives, the trade-off between risk and expected return, and corporate financing and dividend policy. The course draws heavily on empirical research to help guide managerial decisions.

Urban governance comprises the various forces, institutions, and movements that guide economic and physical development, the distribution of resources, social interactions, and other aspects of daily life in urban areas. This course examines governance from legal, political, social, and economic perspectives. In addition, we will discuss how these structures constrain collective decision making about particular urban issues (immigration, education…). Assignments will be nightly readings and a short paper relating an urban issue to the frameworks outlined in the class.

This website contains official US energy statistics. The site provides reports summarizing Hurricane Katrina impacts on US oil and gas markets. The site contains shut-in statistics, Gulf oil and natural gas facts, price information, plus links to news, related data and references.

This course surveys major topics and theories in the field of Industrial Organization. As part of the applied microeconomics structure, Industrial Organization uses the basic tools of microeconomic theory and game theory to study the structure and behavior of firms and their strategic interactions with one another in the marketplace. Industrial Organization also studies the impact that those interactions have on market structure and welfare. This course will emphasize market structure analysis and the strategic behaviors of competing firms, including (but not limited to) product differentiation, collusion, price discrimination, pricing strategy, non-price discrimination (i.e. advertising), horizontal mergers, vertical integration, and vertical restraints. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: Identify different theories of the firm; Describe the different market structures under which firms operate, with particular emphasis on concentration and monopoly power as well as oligopoly; Analyze how market structures impact the behavior of firms; Identify and compare the anti-competitive pricing strategies that firms adopt under various market structures; Use the theoretical insights presented in this course to explain observed features of particular markets and industries; Apply a deepened knowledge of game theory to understand the strategic behavior of firms in the market; Determine the factors that influence the firm's decision-making over time; Critically analyze the role of the government in regulating industries and the subsequent implications of public regulation. (Economics 306)

In economics, the term 'labor' refers to workers. As a factor of production, labor earns wages for the services that it renders. As such, students of labor economics have traditionally set out to understand wage formation, the level of employment, and all elements that go into the making of a wage relationship. Over the years, the social and economic contexts in which labor markets operate have become increasingly complex; nowadays, labor economics is no longer limited to the study of wages. Modern labor economics instead seeks to understand the complex workings of the labor market by studying the dynamics between employers, employees, and their wage-, price-, and profit-making incentives. In other words, modern labor economics explores the outcomes of the labor market under the assumption that workers strive to maximize their wellbeing and firms strive to maximize profits. It also analyzes the behavior of employers and employees and studies their responses to changes in government policies and/or in the demographic composition of the labor force. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: Demonstrate an understanding of basic labor economics theory, including labor market structures and wage determination; Apply their understanding of theoretical models to analyze trends in data pertaining to topics in labor economics; Apply their understanding of theoretical models to case studies presented in the course; Construct, defend, and analyze important labor policy issues; Comprehend, assess, and criticize existing empirical work in labor economics. (Economics 303)

Models of economic growth, old and new. Half-term subject.

Microeconomics will ground you in - surprise - basic microeconomics-how markets function, how to think about allocating scarce resources among competing uses, what profit maximizing behavior means in industries with different numbers of competitors, how technology and trade reshapes the opportunities people face, and so on. We will apply economic ideas to understand current economic problems, including the housing bubble, the current unemployment situation (particularly for high school gradutes), how Google makes its money and why healthcare costs are rising so fast.

" Networks are ubiquitous in our modern society. The World Wide Web that links us to and enables information flows with the rest of the world is the most visible example. It is, however, only one of many networks within which we are situated. Our social life is organized around networks of friends and colleagues. These networks determine our information, influence our opinions, and shape our political attitudes. They also link us, often through important but weak ties, to everybody else in the United States and in the world. Economic and financial markets also look much more like networks than anonymous marketplaces. Firms interact with the same suppliers and customers and use Web-like supply chains. Financial linkages, both among banks and between consumers, companies and banks, also form a network over which funds flow and risks are shared. Systemic risk in financial markets often results from the counterparty risks created within this financial network. Food chains, interacting biological systems and the spread and containment of epidemics are some of the other natural and social phenomena that exhibit a marked networked structure. This course will introduce the tools for the study of networks. It will show how certain common principles permeate the functioning of these diverse networks and how the same issues related to robustness, fragility, and interlinkages arise in several different types of networks."

Planning Economics will apply microeconomic theory to issues that markets don't always handle well and so are not usually covered in a standard microeconomics course. Issues for this year include global warming, how you value a national park, the economics and politics of New York City development, how cities form and why people are willing to pay more to live in, say, the Boston Metro area, than they would pay to live in rural North Dakota, and how to evaluate costs and benefits that occur at different points in time. 

The purpose of this course is to provide the student with a fundamental understanding of the principles of macroeconomics. Macroeconomists study how a country's economy works and try to determine the best choices to improve the overall wellbeing of a nation. Typical topics include inflation (the overall level of prices), employment, fiscal policy (government taxing and spending), and money and banking (interest rates and lending policies). By studying macroeconomics and understanding the critical ideas and tools used to measure economic data, the student will have a better perspective on the issues and problems discussed in contemporary economics. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Discuss key macroeconomic concerns, including national income accounting, saving and investment, and market forces; Describe the determinants of total output and the ways to measure nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as well as real GDP; Compare and contrast definitions of total employment and unemployment, the three forms of unemployment, and inflation; Explain different ways of computing the general movement in prices, and define the relationship between inflation and unemployment; Explain the model of aggregate demand and aggregate supply; Analyze the government's role in the economy and examine how it uses its fiscal policy and monetary policy to influence macroeconomic variables in order to enable macro and micro economic stability; Describe the mechanics of money supply in detail. They will specifically be able to identify different types of money; explain the money creation process, the money multiplier, and the process of interest rate determination; and discuss the role of the Federal Reserve System and its tools of monetary policy; Identify and analyze major theories of economic growth; Analyze various strategies for developing of less-developed nations; Present the concepts behind international trade. (Economics 102; See also: Business Administration 201)

Examines techniques and procedures relevant for project planning and implementation in developing countries, including project identification, feasibility analysis, design and implementation monitoring. Considers how to evaluate economic and distributive effects of completed or ongoing development projects. Specific attention given to how institutional setting and other practical influences affect the use of conventional analytical tools.