This course covers theory and evidence on government taxation policy. Topics include tax incidence, optimal tax theory, the effect of taxation on labor supply and savings, taxation and corporate behavior, and tax expenditure policy.

This course covers theory and evidence on government expenditure policy-- topics include: The theory of public goods; Education; State and local public goods; Political economy; Redistribution and welfare policy; Social insurance programs such as social security and unemployment insurance; and Health care policy.

Explores the role of government in the economy, applying tools of basic microeconomics to answer important policy questions such as government response to global warming, school choice by K-12 students, Social Security versus private retirement savings accounts, government versus private health insurance, setting income tax rates for individuals and corporations.

This subject presents a survey of social theory from the 17th century to the present. It focuses on the historical contexts out of which theory arises, the utility and limitations of older theories for present conditions, and the creation of new theory out of contemporary circumstances.

This course covers major theorists and theoretical schools since the late 19th century. Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Bourdieu, Levi-Strauss, Geertz, Foucault, Gramsci, and others.

This course treats public-sector policies, programs, and projects that attempt to increase employment through development-promoting measures in the economic realm, through support and regulation. It discusses the types of initiatives, tasks, and environments that are most conducive to equitable outcomes, and emphasizes throughout the understandings gained about why certain initiatives work and others don’t.

People living together must find some way to preserve common resources. Unfortunately, there are strong incentives for people to exploit these resources when they are held in common by everyone. Professor Sean Mullholland of Stonehill College explains what causes this problem, known as tragedy of the commons, and potential solutions.

"Designing a dream city is easy. Rebuilding a living one takes imagination.â€ " " " -Jane Jacobs This course examines the challenges that cities will face and strategies they can use to prepare for the impacts of climate change. Particular attention will be paid to the presence of global disparities, the needs of vulnerable populations and resource constrained locales, and the ways in which local government and community-based activities can achieve equitable levels of climate-readiness.

This course is intended to introduce graduate students to a set of core writings in the field of urban sociology. Topics include the changing nature of community, social inequality, political power, socio-spatial change, technological change, and the relationship between the built environment and human behavior. We examine the key theoretical paradigms that have constituted the field since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these paradigmatic shifts for urban scholarship, social policy and the planning practice.

This course explores the creative dialectic—and sometimes conflict—between sociology and urban policy and design. Topics include the changing conceptions of "community," the effects of neighborhood characteristics on individual outcomes, the significance of social capital and networks, the drivers of categorical inequality, and the interaction of social structure and political power. Students will examine key theoretical paradigms that have constituted sociology since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these shifts for urban research and planning practice.
This seminar took place at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Norfolk, MA, with half the class from MIT and half of the class from MCI Norfolk via the Boston University Prison Education Program. The location and composition of the class was chosen based on the belief that bringing together students of sociology and urban studies who are incarcerated with those who are at MIT would create a unique and valuable environment in which to generate new knowledge about our social world and the repeated mechanisms that contribute to persistent socio-economic inequality and other pressing social problems.

The course examines the causes and effects of rapid urbanization in developing countries. Using case studies from the world's four major developing regions, including (among others) Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Managua, Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Kabul, Beirut, Cairo, Kinshasa, Cape Town and Johannesburg, it explores the economic and political dynamics that grease the wheels of contemporary patterns of growth. In addition to examining both local and transnational forces that drive contemporary urbanization, the course focuses on key issues that emerge in rapidly growing cities of the developing world, ranging from growing income inequality and socio-economic exclusion, environmental challenges, and rising violence. Class sessions are discussion-based and focus on a critical analysis of the arguments presented in the readings.

This course introduces academic debates on the nature of capitalism, drawing upon the ideas of scholars as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. It examines anthropological studies of how contemporary capitalism plays out in people's daily lives in a range of geographic and social settings, and implications for how we understand capitalism today. Settings range from Wall Street investment banks to auto assembly plants, from family businesses to consumer shopping malls.