Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS EC 523: Economics and Psychology
  Prerequisites: CASEC201 or EC221 or EC501. - Introduction to a field of economics that challenges the traditional model of rational decision-making and uses research in psychology to construct alternative models. Covers the theory of choice under certainty, uncertainty, and temptation; biases in judgment; social preferences.
• CAS EC 531: Market Structure and Industrial Organization
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA121) or a more advanced calculus course) and CASEC201 (or a more advanced m icroeconomics course), or consent of instructor. - Mathematical models and quantitative analysis of the main interactions between firms and consumers under different market conditions and market structures. Among the issues discussed: profit maximization, monopoly power, price discrimination, bundling, oligopoly and imperfect competition, entry deterrence, quality choice, and advertising.
• CAS EC 536: Economics of Corporate Organization
  Mathematical models and quantitative analysis of the architecture and performance of firms and other organizations. Topics include firm boundaries, the allocation of ownership and control, integration and outsourcing, corporate governance, performance evaluation, and compensation. May not be taken for credit in addition to CAS EC 436.
• CAS EC 541: Topics in Monetary Theory and Macroeconomics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Combines monetary economics, macroeconomics, and finance. Mathematical models and quantitative analysis of the interactions among money, interest rate, and consumption and their consequences for monetary policy and asset prices (bonds, stocks, and currencies). Real-world data and econometric methods are also used.
• CAS EC 542: Money and Financial Intermediation
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC341 OR CASEC342) or consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASEC341 OR CASEC342) or consent of instructor. - Quantitative analyses of the role of money in the economy, financial institutions, the money supply process, models of money demand, financial markets, interest rates, asset prices. Study of monetary policy transmission, financial intermediary management and regulation, derivatives and risk management.
• CAS EC 544: Introduction to Economic Dynamics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: CASEC 201 or EC 501, or equivalent; and CASEC 202 or EC 502, or equivalent; and CASMA 121 or MA 123 or MA 127 or EC 505, or equivalent; and CASEC 507, or equivalent. - An introduction to the theory and applications of dynamic optimization and equilibrium analysis in discrete time. Focuses on numerical methods for solving many economic problems. Topics include difference equations, dynamic programming, and business cycle models.
• CAS EC 545: Financial Economics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC201 & CASEC202) and (CASEC203 or CASEC303) and one approved Calculus Course (CASMA121, 122, 123, 124, 127, or 129) or consent of instructor. - Provides a sound understanding of the economic principles of finance, including the financial decisions and capital structure of a corporation, and its relation to capital markets. Models of capital asset pricing and investors' behavior are also discussed.
• CAS EC 551: Economics of Labor Markets
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC201 & CASEC202) or consent of instructor. - Economic behavior of labor markets and labor market institutions in the United States. Wage determination, labor allocation, discrimination, economics of trade unions, and industrial relations. Implications of labor market behaviors for public policy.
• CAS EC 561: Public Economics I
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC201) or consent of instructor. - Quantitative and microeconomic analysis of public-policy decisions worldwide, by means of applied welfare economics or cost-benefit analysis. Applications include project evaluation, taxation, regulation, shadow pricing, privatization, policy impact analysis, and valuation of external effects such as pollution and congestion.
• CAS EC 563: Race and the Development of the American Economy: A Global Perspective
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC 101) - Surveys African-American economic history in the context of the development of American and global economies, using available data and econometrics methods. Topics include: economics of slavery; race and industrialization; the Great Migration; anti-discrimination legislation; historical origins of contemporary racial inequalities. (Meets with CASAA 563.)
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS EC 565: Economic Institutions in Historical Perspective
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC101) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASEC101) - Historical development and role of institutions underlying market economies. Topics include contract enforcement and trading institutions, financial institutions, property rights in land, environmental resources such as water management and fisheries, economic infrastructure, regulation of labor, and capital markets.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Historical Consciousness
  • Quantitative Reasoning I
• CAS EC 571: Energy and Environmental Economics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC201 OR CASEC501) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASEC201 OR CASEC501) - Environmental resources and markets characterized from physical, economic, and legal standpoints. Welfare arguments for public sector intervention. Methodologies for policy assessment and simulation analyzed, including project analysis, new technology, evaluation models, deterministic and econometric models.
• CAS EC 572: Public Control of Business
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC201 OR CASEC501) - Examines economic theory and case studies of antitrust policy, government regulation of private industry and operation of state owned enterprises. Case studies are drawn from both industrialized and developing countries.
• CAS EC 581: Health Economics I
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC501) or consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASEC501) or consent of instructor. - Quantitative analyses of demand for insurance and healthcare, moral hazard, adverse selection, healthcare supply, quality and price competition. Physician agency, payment systems, capitation, risk management and managed care. Emphasis is on U.S. institutions, but concepts and methodology are applicable worldwide.
• CAS EC 590: Special Topics in Economics
  ay be repeated for credit as topics vary. One topic is offered in Fall 2024. Section AA: Political Economy. Studies game theoretical models of political competition to understand how societies decide on public policies. Discusses the idea of rational choice for a society when the members of that society differ in how they rank different alternatives. Models are applied to public policy issues such as income redistribution and political corruption.
• CAS EC 591: International Economics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC 304 & CASEC 391) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASEC 303 & CASEC 304). - Quantitative theory of international trade; empirical evidence from both industrialized and developing economies. Factor content of trade, technology and trade patterns, scale economies and imperfect competition, economic geography. Policy interventions: tariffs, exchange rates, trading blocs, and political economy of reform.
• CAS EC 595: International Finance
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASEC 502) or consent of instructor. Prerequisite in EC 502 will be waived at the instructor’s discretion. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASEC 502) or consent of instructor. Prerequisite in EC 502 will be waived at the instructor’s discretion. - Applies economic tools to open-economy macroeconomics. Topics include the determinants of the current account, exchange rate management, international capital markets, and growth in the world economy. Topical issues: the formation of the Euro; debt and financial crisis in developing countries.
• CAS EC 598: The Economics of Globalization
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: CASEC201 or EC501, or equivalent; CASEC203 or EC303 or EC507, or equi valent; CASEC391 or EC591, or equivalent; CASMA121 or MA123 or CASMA12 7 or EC505, or equivalent; or consent of instructor. - Analyzes various facets of globalization from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, using tools from international trade theory. Topics include firm-level trade patterns, multinational production, foreign direct investment, the creation of global vertical supply chains, outsourcing, and offshoring.
• CAS EE 100: Environmental Change and Sustainability
  Introduces the distinctive ways that environmental change and sustainability are studied across the environmental social sciences and humanities, focusing on the contested meanings as much as material realities and policy responses to global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry 1, Ethical Reasoning. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry 1, Teamwork/Collaboration.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Social Inquiry I
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• CAS EE 105: Crises of Planet Earth
  After covering the origin of the universe, earth and life, the course examines two topics: natural hazards, including earthquakes and volcanoes; and human impacts on Earth, including climate change, ozone depletion, pollution, and increasing demands on mineral and energy resources. Carries natural science divisional credit (with lab) in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry I, Quantitative Reasoning I, Research and Information Literacy.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Quantitative Reasoning I
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Scientific Inquiry I