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.

The course is an introduction to the transformative economic developments that began in Western Europe and spread globally. It applies economic and empirical reasoning to analyze the underlying forces of modern economic development from pre-modern Europe to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of a global economy.

Elementary computational methods in statistics. Basic techniques in regression analysis of econometric models. One-hour weekly recitation sessions to complement lectures.

Conceptualization and measurement of inequality and poverty, poverty traps and distributional dynamics, economics and politics of public policies, in both poor and rich countries.

Analyzes education policies and education markets from an economic perspective. Examines challenges that arise when researchers attempt to identify the causal effects of inputs. Other topics: (1) education as an investment, (2) public school finance, (3) teacher labor markets, (4) testing/accountability programs, (5) school choice programs, and (6) urban public school reforms.

Economic transformation of the United States from a small, open agrarian society in the late colonial era to the leading industrial economy of the 20th century. Emphasis is given to the quantitative, institutional, and spatial dimensions of economic growth, and the relationship between the changing structures of the economy and state.

Examines theoretical, empirical, and normative studies of entrepreneurial behavior and its significance. Examines their relationships with risk-taking and innovation. Explores entrepreneurship as applicable to a variety of behaviors, activities or contexts, including large organizations, small business networks, new venture creation, comparative financial institutions that support entrepreneurial environments, and entrepreneurship's contributions to a dynamic economy.

Economics of firm organization and the evolution of the modern business enterprise. The function of organizations in coordinating the use of economic resources. The role of technology, labor, management, and markets in the formation of the business enterprise. Includes international comparisons and attention to alternative economic theories on the role of business organizations on national competitive advantage.

Systematic exposition of current macroeconomic theories of unemployment, inflation, and international financial adjustments.

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.

Introduction to balance of payments and exchange rate theory; capital mobility and expectations; internal and external adjustment under fixed and flexible exchange rates; international financial markets; capital mobility and expectations; international policy coordination and optimum currency areas; history of the international monetary system.

Intellectual origins of the main schools of thought in political economy. Study of the founding texts in classical political economy, Marxian economics, neoclassicism, and Keynesianism.

Theories and policy implications of business cycles. IS/LM, AS/AD and the Phillips Curve; dynamic general equilibrium models based on microfoundations including the Real Business Cycle model; New Keynesian models; models of the political business cycle. Particular episodes in the macroeconomic history of the US will provide case studies in which to study these models and the application of policies within.

Classic questions in monetary economics, including but not limited to: inside and outside money, financial crisis and hyperinflation, central banking and the payments system, liquidity and market making, monetary policy and exchange rates.

A survey of some of the major intellectual developments that have created the discipline of economics. Particular attention to the works of Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, Irving Fisher, and J. M. Keynes.

Empirical findings on economic development, theoretical development models; problems of efficient resource allocation in a growing economy; balanced and unbalanced growth in closed and open economic systems; the role of capital accumulation and innovation in economic growth.

Economic development of the U.S., with special attention to the forces and factors responsible for economic growth: innovation, capital formation, transportation, banking, international trade and capital movements, immigration, and the labor supply. The interactions of public policy and private decision making.

The economic development of Europe from 1700 to the present, with emphasis on those factors responsible for modern economic growth and its pace; technical change, capital formation, labor supply, national and international finance, distribution, international trade, social structure, and the role of public policy.

Covers reform issues in transition economies such as price liberalizatin, currency reform, asset privatization, macroeconomic stabilization, trade liberalization and exchange rate policies, and foreign resource flows with suitable examples from the experience of the transition economies of Russia, the post-Soviet states, East-central Europe, China and Vietnam.

An analytical survey of the economic organization of China, with reference to population and land resources, agriculture, industries, transportation, trade, and finance. The social and cultural forces affecting economic development.

Location theory, land use, housing discrimination, and transportation, including the effects of government policy.

Exploration of the possibility of explaining national economic policies in terms of interaction of economic interest groups, thus endogenizing the political element of economic systems. Topics include problems of  group and coalition formations, the logic of collective action, and the economic input into the political process. Special attention is paid to recent literature on endogenous tariff formation and other restrictive measures.

Intended for graduate students in economics and covers more advanced material than ECON W4450. The economic theory of nonrenewable natural resources (minerals and energy), renewable natural resources (forestries and fisheries), and pollution management.  Tools of dynamic optimization; optimal resource extraction in deterministic and stochastic settings; dynamic welfare analysis, optimality, sustainability and green national income accounting; instrument choice for pollution management (taxes, quotas, tradeable permits); institutional design (given imperfect information and agency problems); and techniques for environmental valuation.

Topics in the new economics field of Transition Economics and the problems raised by the transformation of soviet-type socialist economies into modern market economics.

Theory and institutions of European economic integration stressing contemporary economic policies and problems of the European Communities.  Customs union theory; empirical research on the trade and welfare effects of economic integration; theory of optimum currency areas and the mechanisms of the European Monetary System; member-state macroeconomic policy; the Common Agricultural Policy of the EEC; regional, industrial and social policy; external economic relations of the EEC; US–EC trade and monetary tensions.

Salient issues of the Japanese economy that have attracted considerable academic attention.

Capitalism is evolving in response to driving economic issues in the Anthropocene, as humans have become the dominant geological force in the planet. These issues include Globalization and the evolution of the world's financial markets, the knowledge revolution and the global environmental crisis. Can Capitalism adapt to sustainable development? Can financial markets evolve and help resolve the climate issue, the water crisis, and the destruction of global biodiversity? The seminar will cover the new types of markets that are emerging and changing capitalism so it becomes consistent with sustainable development and closing the gap between the rich and the poor nations, while giving rise to a new definition of GDP that aligns economic progress with the survival of the human species.

This course focuses on the growth and development of the Indian economy from the late 16th century to the present, and considers the changes as the region came in contact with the global economy. The course begins with the transition from the Mughal empire to the British and the experience of colonial rule. The course will then turn to the experience of post-independence India and the subsequent changes in the economy. There will be particular emphasis on the service sector led growth of recent years.

Congestion and other games, and the pricing of transit services. Location theory and land rents. Segregation and discrimination. The fiscal structure of American cities. Zoning and the taking issue. Abandonment and city-owned property. Economic development, abatements, subsidies, and eminent domain. Crime, deadweight losses, and the allocation of police services.

A visiting faculty member to the Institute for Latin American Studies will offer a course on the economic history of the Americas. The course examines the evolution of the economic structure and economic performance of the Americas from the Colonial times until the most recent past. The course will be carried out in chronological order, comparing North America and Latin America as a whole and sub regions within the larger regions: Canada and the United States in North America and México, Central America, the Caribbean, the Andes, Brazil and the Southern Cone in Latin America. Econ-philosophy joint majors and Financial Economics majors may not take this course for elective credit.

The growth and structural changes of the post-World War II economy; its historical roots; interactions with cultural, social, and political institutions; economic relations with the rest of the world.

The labor force and labor markets, educational and man power training, unions and collective bargaining, mobility and immobility, sex and race discrimination, unemployment.

The course is intended to provide an economic framework for understanding the law and legal institutions. Topics covered include property law, contract theory and torts.

Microeconomics is used to study who has an incentive to protect the environment. Government's possible and actual role in protecting the environment is explored. How do technological change, economic development, and free trade affect the environment? Emphasis on hypothesis testing and quantitative analysis of real-world policy issues.

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.

Standard economic theory seeks to explain human behavior (especially in "economic" settings, such as markets) in terms of rational choice, which means that the choices that are made can be predicted on the basis of what would best serve some coherent objective, under an objectively correct understanding of the predictable consequences of alternative actions. Observed behavior often seems difficult to reconcile with a strong form of this theory, even if incentives clearly have some influence on behavior; and the course will discuss empirical evidence (both from laboratory experiments and observations "in the field") for some well-established "anomalies." But beyond simply cataloguing anomalies for the standard theory, the course will consider the extent to which departures from a strong version of rational choice theory can be understood as reflecting cognitive processes that are also evident in other domains such as sensory perception; examples from visual perception will receive particular attention. And in addition to describing what is known about how the underlying mechanisms work (something that is understood in more detail in sensory contexts than in the case of value-based decision making), the course will consider the extent to which such mechanisms --- while "suboptimal" from a normative standpoint that treats perfect knowledge of one's situation as costless and automatic --- might actually represent efficient uses of the limited information and bounded information-processing resources available to actual people (or other organisms). Thus the course will consider both ways in which the realism of economic analysis may be improved by taking into account cognitive processes, and ways in which understanding of cognitive processes might be advanced by considering the "economic" problem of efficient use of limited (cognitive) resources.