Courses

• GRS EC 722: Topics in Economic Development II
  This course covers a range of topics on failures of markets and governance in developing countries. Recent research papers including both theoretical and empirical analysis are discussed, including class presentations by students. Topics include credit and insurance market imperfections; implications for investment, inequality and growth; social networks and social learning. Models of political economy and government accountability, with applications to land reform, decentralization, education, tax policy, and role of the media.
• GRS EC 731: Market Organization and Public Policy
  Analytical foundations of public policy toward market organization. Theoretical emphasis on imperfect competition, theory of the firm, and markets with incomplete information. Implications for policy in developed and less-developed countries.
• GRS EC 732: Topics in Industrial Organization
  Topics vary from year to year and may include the economics of contracting and the firm, the economics of regulation, and dynamic models of oligopoly.
• GRS EC 733: Empirical Industrial Organization
  This course studies the frontiers of research in industrial organization, and emphasizes connections between theoretical and empirical topics. Two major areas are covered: advanced topics in auction markets and static demand estimation.
• GRS EC 741: Topics in Macroeconomics and Monetary Theory
  Alternative views of demand and supply of money and financial assets. Analytical theories of monetary policy. Problems in the exercise of monetary policy.
• GRS EC 742: Applied Macroeconomics
  Empirical specification of macroeconomic functions including measuring variables, lag structures, and functional forms; estimation and simulation of multiple equation macro models; and use of models for optimal policy design and positive policy prognosis.
• GRS EC 744: Economic Dynamics
  Introduces the theory and application of dynamic optimization and equilibrium analysis, with emphasis on computational methods and techniques. Covers discrete and continuous time models in both deterministic and stochastic environments.
• GRS EC 745: Macroeconomics and Financial Markets
  For second- and third-year PhD students. Topics and approaches combine macroeconomics and finance, with an emphasis on developing and testing theories that involve linkages between financial markets and the macro economy.
• GRS EC 751: Topics in Economics I
  A survey course that combines an examination of all the major fields in labor market analysis with a comprehensive treatment of methodological topics. Designed to provide the tools necessary to begin a thesis in the field. Topics covered in depth include unemployment, wage setting models, human capital models, and labor mobility.
• GRS EC 752: Topic in Labor Economics II
  Considers models that explain the origins and persistence of differences in incomes between individuals, groups, and regions. Draws on literatures in applied microeconomic theory, labor economics, development economics, public finance, and social choice theory. Discusses topics at the juncture of economics and sociology that bear on the theme of inequality.
• GRS EC 761: Public Finance
  The theory of excess burden; optimal taxation; static, dynamic, and interegional tax incidence; public goods; externalities; corporate taxation; dynamic fiscal policy; and cost-benefit analysis. Extensive use of calculus.
• GRS EC 762: Topics in Applied Public Finance
  Theory and practice of benefit-cost analysis and other similar techniques for evaluating investment projects. Emphasis on sources of divergence between public and private investment decisions through the estimation of shadow prices in a context of market distortions and disequilibrium. Case studies applying theoretical approach.
• GRS EC 765: Topics in Economic History II
  Second half of two-semester PhD sequence. Focus is on macroeconomic topics: long run growth, the Industrial Revolution, demographic change, institutions, urbanization, trade, financial markets, the growth of government, and macroeconomic volatility.
• GRS EC 781: Health Economics
  Concepts of health economics to both developed and developing countries. Topics include: effect of health on the economy, effect of applicable health care on health, hospital behavior, health manpower supply, demand for health care.
• GRS EC 782: Health Economics in Developing Countries
  Issues in allocation of resources to and within the health sector in a developing country. Economics anlaysis of rural primary health care, hospital care, drug supply, public health and nutrition programs. Student projects on specific developing country topic of their choice.
• GRS EC 791: International Trade
  Pure theory of international trade. Analysis of various models that determine comparative advantage. Welfare effects of trade. Emphasis is placed on the use of formal models to analyze tariffs, quotas, and subsidies. Analysis of trade under various competitive frameworks.
• GRS EC 792: International Finance
  Extension of important topics introduced in GRS EC 791; gains from trade and balance-of-payment adjustment approach to the balance of payment; theorems in the pure theory of trade.
• GRS EC 794: Financial Econometrics
  For PhD students working in the area of econometrics, finance, and applied macroeconomics. Topics include prediction of asset returns, financial volatility, asset allocation, value at risk, and high frequency data analysis.
• GRS EC 798: Global Development Captsone
  (Meets with GRS GE 798 and IR 798.) Capstone course for MA students in Global Development Policy and Global Development Economics. Students, working in groups, design and carry out an interdisciplinary policy analysis comparable to those performed for a government or nonprofit agency.
• GRS EC 901: Dissertation Workshop in Macro and Monetary Economics
  Presentation and discussion of dissertation topics and work in progress.

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