Course descriptions, instructors, and syllabi for the most recent academic year are listed below:
Summer Semester (July – August, 6 weeks)
- ECO 394C Mathematics for Economists
Short description: Mathematical tools widely used for economic analysis, including advanced calculus, optimization methods, linear algebra, and dynamic systems.
Sample textbooks: Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics by Chiang and Wainwright, Essential Mathematics for Economic Analysis by Sydsaeter and Hammond
Sample syllabus: Summer 2023 - ECO 394D Probability and Statistics
Short description: Probability theory and statistical methods used in economics and econometrics.
Sample textbooks: Probability and Statistics by DeGroot and Schervish, Mathematical Statistics with Applications by Ramachandran and Tsokos
Sample syllabus: Summer 2023 - ECO 395M Real Analysis for Economists (elective)
Short description: An introduction to real analysis, including coverage of Euclidean spaces, one-variable analysis (continuity, compactness, differentiation, integration), and sequences and series of real-valued functions.
Sample textbooks: Analysis, with an Introduction to Proof, 5th edition by Lay
Sample syllabus: Summer 2023
Fall Semester (August – December)
- ECO 394K Microeconomics
Short description: Rigorous introduction to the methods of microeconomic theory, including consumer and producer theory, decision under uncertainty, markets and competition, and general equilibrium.
Sample textbook: Advanced Microeconomic Theory by Jehle and Reny
Sample syllabus: Fall 2023 - ECO 394L Macroeconomics
Short description: Dynamic optimization concepts and methods used in modern macroeconomics. General equilibrium applications in the areas of economic growth, business cycles, and the role of monetary and fiscal policy.
Sample textbook: Advanced Macroeconomics by Romer
Sample syllabus: Fall 2023 - ECO 394M Econometrics
Short description: Identification and estimation of linear and nonlinear regression models. Inference and hypothesis testing.
Sample textbooks: Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach by Wooldridge, Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data by Wooldridge
Sample syllabus: Fall 2023 - ECO 395K Economics of Auctions (elective)
Short description: A myriad of market mechanisms, that can be classified as auctions, allocate resources. Students will learn how these various market mechanisms work.
Sample textbooks: Auctions by Hubbard and Paarsch
Sample syllabus: Fall 2023 - ECO 395K Markets for Electricity (elective)
Short description: This class explores the design and performance of electricity markets and the challenges of confronting these markets.
Sample textbooks: The Economics of Electricity Markets by Biggar, Hesamzaden, and Wiley, IEEE Press, 2014.
Sample syllabus: Fall 2023 - ECO 395L Economic Growth & Financial Crises (elective)
Short description: This course focuses on economic growth models, the empirical estimates of economic growth, and the evidence of economic convergence. It includes an examination of the macroeconomic impacts of financial crises.
Sample textbooks: Introduction to Modern Economic Growth by Daron Acemoglu. The Economics of Growth by Aghion and Howitt.
Sample syllabus: Fall 2023 - ECO 395M Introduction to Python, Databases, and Big Data (elective)
Short description: This course teaches the fundamental programming and data skills for working with data using a standard, modern tech stack. It is a foundational course that emphasizes practical applications over theoretical explorations and introduces students to Python, SQL, GitHub and other tools of data management and analysis.
Sample textbooks: Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist by Allen B. Downey, Pandas 1. x Cookbook : Practical Recipes for Scientific Computing, Time Series Analysis, and Exploratory Data Analysis Using Python by Harrison and Petrou, and Practical SQL: A Beginner’s Guide to Storytelling with Data by Anthony DeBarros.
Sample Syllabus: Fall 2023
Spring Semester (January – May)
While students take their core courses in the fall semester, the spring semester provides ample opportunity to explore various fields of economics through elective coursework. In addition to traditional economics subfields, we offer three methods courses that aim to develop students’ skills in data science and econometric analysis.
- ECO 395K Game Theory (elective)
Short description: Introduction to game theoretic concepts and analyses and their application to study strategic interactions between individuals, firms, and other economic agents.
Sample textbook: A Course in Game Theory by Martin J. Osborne and Ariel Rubinstein
Sample syllabus: Spring 2024 - ECO 394K Industrial Organization (elective)
Short description: Covers the way markets are configured, how many firms exist, how they relate to each other, and how this interaction affects production, pricing, investment, advertising, and other managerial decisions. This is an advanced course which teaches underlying theory but also introduces students to practical methods commonly used in consulting and antitrust enforcement.
Sample textbook: The Theory of Industrial Organization, by Jean Tirole and The Antitrust Revolution, by J. Kwoka and L. White
Sample Syllabus: Spring 2024 - ECO 394K Labor Economics (elective)
Short description: Presents major theoretical models for understanding behavior and outcomes in the labor market. Topics include labor supply of individuals; labor demand by firms; wage determination in competitive labor markets and the wage structure; nonwage job attributes and compensating wage differentials; investment in human capital and wage differentials related to education and experience; and labor market discrimination and wage differentials by race and gender.
Sample textbook: Labor Economics, by George Borjas
Sample syllabus: Spring 2024 - ECO 394L Macro and the Labor Market (elective)
Short description: Focuses on contemporary topics in labor economics from a macroeconomic perspective, including an analysis of the determinants of wages, hours and unemployment both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. Topics include labor supply, the determinants of unemployment and vacancies, the flow approach to the labor market, theoretical models with search frictions, wage inequality, wage bargaining and wage rigidity, the relationship between the labor market and inflation, the decline in the labor share, the dynamics of search behavior over the unemployment spell, and unemployment insurance policy.
Sample textbook: Equilibrium Unemployment Theory by Christopher A. Pissarides, and others
Sample syllabus: Spring 2024 - ECO 394M: Data Mining/Statistical Learning (elective)
Short description: A machine learning course taught in R, focusing on practical applications rather than theory. Topics include data wrangling, linear regression, classification, resampling methods, regularization, feature selection, nonlinear models, trees and ensembles, latent feature models, principal component analysis, and clustering.
Sample textbook: Introduction to Statistical Learning by James, Witten, Hastie, and Tibshirani
Sample syllabus: Spring 2024 - ECO 394M: Causal Inference (elective)
Short description: An advanced course in econometrics covering topics related to causal inference and empirical research in economics. The goal is to introduce students to the methods necessary to arrive at meaningful answers to the questions of causation, using a range of modeling techniques (regression discontinuity design, instrumental variables, differences-in-differences) and coding instructions.
Sample textbook: Causal Inference: The Mixtape by Scott Cunningham
Sample syllabus: Spring 2024 - ECO 394M: Time Series Econometrics (elective)
Short description: An advanced course in econometrics covering current techniques used in time series models with applications in macroeconomics and finance. Topics include distributed lag models, ARMA models, ARCH and GARCH models of volatility, unit roots; forecasting; impulse response functions, local projections, VARs; state-space models, recursive estimation and Kalman filtering. S pecial applications on monetary policy shocks and fiscal shocks.
Sample textbook: A Guide to Modern Econometrics by M. Verbeek; Elements of Forecasting by F. Diebold, and other textbooks and journal articles
Sample syllabus: Spring 2024
Internship Course Credit
- ECO 380D and ECO 180D are available in Summer, Fall, and Spring semesters. See the Internship page for details.