Economics

Covers basic elements of microeconomic and marcoeconomic reasoning at an introductory level. Topics include Individual Constraints and Preferences, Production by Firms, Market Transactions, Competition, The Distribution of Income, Technological Progress and Growth, Unemployment and Inflation, the Role of Government in the Economy. Note: Students cannot get credit for ECON BC1003 if they have taken the Columbia introductory course ECON W1105 Principles of Economics.

Covers basic elements of microeconomic and marcoeconomic reasoning at an introductory level. Topics include Individual Constraints and Preferences, Production by Firms, Market Transactions, Competition, The Distribution of Income, Technological Progress and Growth, Unemployment and Inflation, the Role of Government in the Economy. Note: Students cannot get credit for ECON BC1003 if they have taken the Columbia introductory course ECON W1105 Principles of Economics.

Required Discussion section for ECON UN1105 Principles of Economics

Financial accounting is concerned with the preparation and public dissemination
of financial reports designed to reflect corporate performance and financial
condition. By providing timely, relevant, and reliable information, these reports
facilitate the decision-making of investors, creditors, and other interested parties.
Financial markets depend on the information contained in these reports to
evaluate executives, estimate future stock returns, assess firms’ riskiness, and
allocate society’s resources to their most productive uses.
This course provides a base level of knowledge needed by corporate executives
to understand and discuss corporate financial statements. The process of
learning how various business activities impact financial statements will also give
you opportunities to learn and think about the business activities, themselves.

Financial accounting is concerned with the preparation and public dissemination
of financial reports designed to reflect corporate performance and financial
condition. By providing timely, relevant, and reliable information, these reports
facilitate the decision-making of investors, creditors, and other interested parties.
Financial markets depend on the information contained in these reports to
evaluate executives, estimate future stock returns, assess firms’ riskiness, and
allocate society’s resources to their most productive uses.
This course provides a base level of knowledge needed by corporate executives
to understand and discuss corporate financial statements. The process of
learning how various business activities impact financial statements will also give
you opportunities to learn and think about the business activities, themselves.

Prerequisites: ECON BC3033 or ECON BC3035, and ECON BC2411 or STAT W1111 or STAT W1211, or permission of the instructor. Specification, estimation and evaluation of economic relationships using economic theory, data, and statistical inference; testable implications of economic theories; econometric analysis of topics such as consumption, investment, wages and unemployment, and financial markets.

Prerequisites: (Econ BC 3035) or (Econ BC 3033) This course examines a wide variety of topics about migration and its relationship to economic development, globalization, and social and economic mobility. At its core, this course reflects a key reality: that the movement of people--within regions, within countries, and across borders--is both the result of and impetus for economic change.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and STAT UN1201 Institutional nature and economic function of financial markets. Emphasis on both domestic and international markets (debt, stock, foreign exchange, eurobond, eurocurrency, futures, options, and others). Principles of security pricing and portfolio management; the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and STAT UN1201 Institutional nature and economic function of financial markets. Emphasis on both domestic and international markets (debt, stock, foreign exchange, eurobond, eurocurrency, futures, options, and others). Principles of security pricing and portfolio management; the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.

The course is an introduction to the economic developments that gave rise to capitalist economies and economic globalization from 1500 to the 20th century. We apply economic and empirical reasoning to examine many transformations that have shaped the economies of the modern era—demographic, technological, and institutional changes. We compare the rise of Europe and other Eurasian civilizations, especially China. We examine the role of slavery and imperialism in global economic integration. We examine how the rise of modern capitalism influenced human material well-being and conflict and has led to the convergence and divergence of nations in the global economy.

Prerequisites: An introductory course in economics and a functioning knowledge of high school algebra and analytical geometry or permission of the instructor. Systematic exposition of current macroeconomic theories of unemployment, inflation, and international financial adjustments.

Prerequisites: An introductory course in economics and a functioning knowledge of high school algebra and analytical geometry or permission of the instructor. Systematic exposition of current macroeconomic theories of unemployment, inflation, and international financial adjustments.

Prerequisites: An introductory course in microeconomics or a combined macro/micro principles course (ECON BC1003 or ECON W1105, or the equivalent) and one semester of calculus or ECON BC1007, or permission of the instructor. Preferences and demand; production, cost, and supply; behavior of markets in partial equilibrium; resource allocation in general equilibrium; pricing of goods and services under alternative market structures; implications of individual decision-making for labor supply; income distribution, welfare, and public policy. Emphasis on problem solving.

This course reviews the assumption of rationality in microeconomic theory and presents evidence (primarily from experimental psychology and economics) of how judgement and decision-making systematically deviate from what rationality predicts. 

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Tutorials and conferences on the research for and writing of the senior thesis. This is the 2nd semester of a two-semester course sequence.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Tutorials and conferences on the research for and writing of the senior thesis. This is the 2nd semester of a two-semester course sequence.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Tutorials and conferences on the research for and writing of the senior thesis. This is the 2nd semester of a two-semester course sequence.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Seminar sections are limited to 15 students. A topic in economic theory or policy of the instructors choice. See department for current topics and for senior requirement preference forms.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Seminar sections are limited to 15 students. A topic in economic theory or policy of the instructors choice. See department for current topics and for senior requirement preference forms.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Seminar sections are limited to 15 students. A topic in economic theory or policy of the instructors choice. See department for current topics and for senior requirement preference forms.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Seminar sections are limited to 15 students. A topic in economic theory or policy of the instructors choice. See department for current topics and for senior requirement preference forms.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor and the completion of all courses (except for the senior requirement) required for the economics track, political economy track, or economics and mathematics majors. Exceptions to these prerequisites may be granted by the chair of the department only. Seminar sections are limited to 15 students. A topic in economic theory or policy of the instructors choice. See department for current topics and for senior requirement preference forms.

In 1930 Keynes predicted a 15-hour work week by the 21st century because he expected we would be at the foothills of the "economic promised land." He was more than right about technological progress and staggering productivity growth –– but dead wrong about the role work would play in our lives. Here we are, working 40+ hour weeks in mostly drab jobs, often under precarious employment conditions. 

This course is centered on the concept of "work." The broad objectives of the course are: first, to facilitate a critical understanding of the meaning and significance of work for human life; second, to develop a set of theoretical and analytical tools to dissect and analyze specific work arrangements that we in fact encounter in the real world; and third, and perhaps more importantly, to imagine alternative arrangements of work life that might be better suited for human flourishing. 

We begin with some of the central ideas in modern labor economics, including definition of work, labor supply and demand, market mechanisms of wage determination, human capital theory and incentive-based management. We then assess the underlying assumptions implied in this body of knowledge –– for example, from labor as input in production to profit maximization and utility maximization based on stable consumer preferences over material goods and services and leisure time. The springboard for this critical analysis is a set of alternative viewpoints on what constitutes "work activity" from various other academic disciplines including philosophy, anthropology, linguistics and psychology. These readings, with their origins in different historical and intellectual settings and founded on different conceptions of human nature, stand in sharp contrast to this neoclassical economic view of "man" and "work.”

The course will have a two-part structure. The first half of the course will consist of a series of lectures on modern labor economic models emphasizing the assumptions, theories and labor market “facts” that these models are designed to explain. The second half of the course will shift to a more discussion-based format that is better suited to a close "exegesis" of the required texts as critique of this neoclassical paradigm of work.

Prerequisites: ECON UN1105 and MATH UN1101 and (MATH UN1201 or MATH UN1207) The determination of the relative prices of goods and factors of production and the allocation of resources.

Discussion section for ECON UN3213 Intermediate Macro. Student must register for a section.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 or the equivalent. Introduction to the principles of money and banking. The intermediary institutions of the American economy and their historical developments, current issues in monetary and financial reform.

Required discussion section for ECON UN3412: Intro to Econometrics

This course has two objectives: First, to develop students' skills in research and writing. Students will learn how to formulate a research question and place it in the context of existing literature and public policy importance, and how to bring economic and econometric tools to bear to answer such questions. Second, the course provides an introduction to the key issues in the economics of public policy. Broadly, we want to know how, when, and why the government should intervene in the economy. We will explore these questions through the lens of a number of key policy areas, including taxation, redistribution and social insurance, and the provision of public goods and services.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and MATH UN2010 Students must register for required discussion section. Corequisites: MATH UN2500 or MATH GU4061 The course provides a rigorous introduction to microeconomics. Topics will vary with the instructor but will include consumer theory, producer theory, general equilibrium and welfare, social choice theory, game theory and information economics. This course is strongly recommended for students considering graduate work in economics. Discussion section required.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and STAT Un1201 This course takes New York as our laboratory. Economics is about individual choice subject to constraints and the ways that choices sum up to something often much more than the parts. The fundamental feature of any city is the combination of those forces that bring people together and those that push them apart. Thus both physical and social space will be central to our discussions. The underlying theoretical and empirical analysis will touch on spatial aspects of urban economics, regional, and even international economics. We will aim to see these features in New York City taken as a whole, as well as in specific neighborhoods of the city. We will match these theoretical and empirical analyses with readings that reflect close observation of specific subjects. The close observation is meant to inspire you to probe deeply into a topic in order that the tools and approaches of economics may illuminate these issues in a fresh way.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 The study of industrial behavior based on game-theoretic oligopoly models. Topics include pricing models, strategic aspects of business practice, vertical integration, and technological innovation.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and STAT UN1201 An introduction to the economics principles underlying the financial decisions of firms. The topics covered include bond and stock valuations, capital budgeting, dividend policy, market efficiency, risk valuation, and risk management. For information regarding REGISTRATION for this course, go to: http://econ.columbia.edu/registration-information.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and STAT UN1201 An introduction to the economics principles underlying the financial decisions of firms. The topics covered include bond and stock valuations, capital budgeting, dividend policy, market efficiency, risk valuation, and risk management. For information regarding REGISTRATION for this course, go to: http://econ.columbia.edu/registration-information.

This advanced elective equips economics majors with the tools to analyze the policy challenges and structural dynamics of Middle Eastern economies. Students will apply macroeconomic models and quantitative methods to understand topics such as oil and gas dependence, fiscal sustainability, inflation, trade, labor markets, demographic transition, institutional development, poverty, and the economics of conflict and reform. They will actively research and present case studies that illustrate the policy challenges in specific country settings. Readings are drawn from leading economics textbooks, research articles, policy reports, and multimedia sources, fostering collaboration, critical thinking, and data-driven discussions on contemporary regional development issues while remaining attentive to the human dimension and to the political economy context in which these policies unfold.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 Introduction to the systematic treatment of game theory and its applications in economic analysis.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 Types of market failures and rationales for government intervention in the economy. Benefit-cost analysis and the theory of public goods. Positive and normative aspects of taxation. The U.S. tax structure.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 This course studies gender gaps, their extent, determinants and consequences. The focus will be on the allocation of rights in different cultures and over time, why women's rights have typically been more limited and why most societies have traditionally favored males in the allocation of resources.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 The theory of international trade, comparative advantage and the factor endowments explanation of trade, analysis of the theory and practice of commercial policy, economic integration. International mobility of capital and labor; the North-South debate.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213. Econ GU4505 is an

elective in the economics major. The course develops models for the

analysis of the determinants of international capital flows, trade

imbalances, and exchange rates. The models are then used as the basis

for the discussion of topics such as Global Imbalances, Uncertainty and

the Current Account, The Global Saving Glut, Purchasing Power Parity,

Sudden Stops, Real Exchange Rates and Productivity, Covered Interest

Rate Parity, Uncovered Interest Rate Parity, Borrowing Externalities and

Optimal Capital Controls, Overborrowing,  Macroeconomic Adjustment under

Flexible and Fixed Exchange Rates,  Twin Deficits, and Balance of

Payment Crises.

In lieu of the failure of legislatures to pass comprehensive carbon taxes, there is growing pressure on the financial system to address the risks of global warming.  One set of pressures is to account for the heightened physical risks due to extreme weather events and potential climate tipping points.  Another set of pressures are to find approaches to incentivize corporations to meet the goals set out in the Paris Treaty of 2015.  These approaches include (1) mandates or restrictions to only hold companies with decarbonization plans, (2) development of negative emissions technologies such as direct-air capture and (3) promotion of natural capital markets that can be used to offset carbon emissions.  Moreover, financial markets also provide crucial information on expectations and plans of economic agents regarding climate change.  This course will cover both models and empirical methodologies that are necessary to assess the role of the financial system in addressing global warming.

Prerequisites: (Econ UN3211) and (ECON UN3213) and (STAT UN1201) This course uses economic theory and empirical evidence to study the links between financial markets and the real economy. We will consider questions such as: What is the welfare role of finance? How do financial markets affect consumers and firms? How do shocks to the financial system transmit to the real economy? How do financial markets impact inequality?

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 The world is being transformed by dramatic increases in flows of people, goods and services across nations. Globalization has the potential for enormous gains but is also associated to serious risks. The gains are related to international commerce where the industrial countries dominate, while the risks involve the global environment, poverty and the satisfaction of basic needs that affect in great measure the developing nations. Both are linked to a historical division of the world into the North and the South-the industrial and the developing nations. Key to future evolution are (1) the creation of new markets that trade privately produced public goods, such as knowledge and greenhouse gas emissions, as in the Kyoto Protocol; (2) the updating of the Breton Woods Institutions, including the creation of a Knowledge Bank and an International Bank for Environmental Settlements.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412  Selected topics in microeconomics. 

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412 Registration information is posted on the departments Seminar Sign-up webpage. Selected topics in macroeconomics. Selected topics will be posted on the departments webpage.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412 Registration information is posted on the departments Seminar Sign-up webpage. Selected topics in macroeconomics. Selected topics will be posted on the departments webpage.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412 Registration information is posted on the departments Seminar Sign-up webpage. Selected topics in macroeconomics. Selected topics will be posted on the departments webpage.

Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 and ECON UN3412 and sign-up in the departments office. Registration information is posted on the departments Seminar Sign-up webpage. Analyzing data in a more in-depth fashion than in ECON UN3412. Additional estimation techniques include limited dependent variable and simultaneous equation models. Go to the departments undergraduate Seminar Description webpage for a detailed description.

This is a topics course in industrial organization intended for MA students. The focus of the class is to familiarize students with the way economists in academic, antitrust regulatory and private sector settings approach research questions related to topics such as conduct, pricing, competition or ownership and control in various market structures (e.g., homogenous product, differentiated product, two-sided, vertical markets). The goal of the course is threefold. For each of the market structures considered: (i) familiarize you with the foundational economic theories; (ii) provide you with the empirical tools you can apply in the future to conduct your own research; and (iii) introduce to you key antitrust issues regulators have been focusing on and approaches used in practice to analyze these issues by antitrust economists.

Networks help us describe the complex interactions that occur among large populations of distinct
entities. Some have argued that their incorporation into economic models represents a paradigm
change for the ?eld. This course will introduce you to the central questions in current networks
research as well as the tools and methods used to study networks in economic theory. Topics we
will cover include network games and interventions, di?usion processes, network formation, social
learning and opinion dynamics, and networked markets. The course is divided into two halves. The
rst half will consist of lectures on these topics. In the second half, we will read and discuss recent
research papers.

This course introduces the students to the field of Organizational Economics. We combine theoretical and empirical methods to study the nature, design, and performance of organizations. Organizations, such as firms, bureaucracies, and political parties, live in a second-best world, where inefficiencies are inevitable. Our goal is to understand and measure these inefficiencies, study their causes and how to minimize them. This course is divided in two parts of equal length. The first part introduces a few of the main theoretical models and findings from the organizational-economics literature. The second part focuses on how to bring the models to the data. By design, the course is intended for a broad set of students: those who are theoretically inclined, those who are empirically inclined, and those who are both. Many of the tools and skills that are developed in this course will be useful not only within organizational economics but, more broadly, to other fields such as industrial organization, political economy, development economics. Our ultimate goal is to accelerate the students' transition toward conducting their own independent research.

Prerequisites: ECON G6211, ECON G6212 or the instructor's permission. Survey of recent microeconomic work on firm behavior in developing countries, with a primarily empirical focus. Topics include: credit constraints, contracting frictions, reputations and networks, learning and technology adoption, agency issues within firms, productivity estimation, international dimensions of firms behavior, and debates around industrial policy.

This is the second course of the second year PhD econometrics sequence with emphasis on both economic applications and computationally intense methods for analysis of large and/or complex models. Students can attend the whole sequence or only one of them. While the details of the econometric techniques will be discussed extensively, the core and focus of the course is on the applications of these techniques to the study of actual data. Students will be practiced in econometric methods through computer-based exercises. Prerequisites: Students should have a good understanding of graduate econometrics and should have taken ECON G6411 and G6412.

This graduate course will develop both models and empirical methods that are necessary to assess the role of the financial system in addressing the risks of global warming.  The course will take a continuous-time approach and feature financial markets that provide crucial information on expectations and plans of economic agents regarding climate change.  After a primer on continuous time methods and stochastic growth models, we will cover a number of topics including: an asset pricing approach to integrated assessment models, pricing natural capital such as tropical rain forecasts, mitigation of weather disaster risks that are becoming more frequent with global warming, sustainable finance mandates in fostering the transition of the industrial sector to net-zero emissions, corporate adaptation strategies to heatwaves, and integrating climate tipping points and financial frictions into assessments.

Prerequisites: ECON G6412, ECON G6411, ECON G6215, ECON G6211. Corequisites: ECON G6212, ECON G6216, ECON G6412. This course will critically examine mainstream approaches to economic theory and practice, particularly in the areas of macroeconomic stabilization policy, poverty reduction, economic development, environmental sustainability, and racial and gender inequality. Topics will vary from year to year, but may include responses to the credit crisis and Great Recession, global warming and international negotiations, globalization, the measurement of poverty and inequality, different approaches to poverty reduction, AIDS and malaria, mass imprisonment, childrens wellbeing, the IMF and the World Bank, intellectual property in an international context, racial disparities in life expectancy, public pension systems in developed countries, health care, and homelessness. The course will also examine biases in economic discourse, both among policy makers and scholars.

Prerequisites: ECON G6411 and G6412. Students will make presentations of original research.

Prerequisites: G6215, G6216, G6211, G6212, G6411, G6412. Students will make presentation of original research in Microeconomics.

Prerequisites: G6215, G6216, G6211, G6212, G6411, G6412. Students will make presentations of original research in Microeconomics.

Columbia faculty and guest speakers present research related to Labor and Public Economics.