Markets, Public Policy & Law: Courses

Examines the use of economic and statistical tools for making business decisions at an advanced level, and prepares students for future study in business analytics. Introduces programming for data analysis (no previous programming knowledge required) and links data analysis to decision making using both spreadsheet modeling and statistical programming. Topics include multiple regression, causal inference, forecasting, predictive analytics, machine learning, demand modeling, and optimization. Case studies apply advanced concepts to practical business problems. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Quantitative Reasoning II.

Provides a broad overview of the American judicial system and fundamental legal issues. Examines dispute resolution, torts, contracts, criminal law, business organizations, employment law, intellectual property, and international law. The goal is to understand not only the basic rules of law but also the underlying social policies and ethical dilemmas.

Many companies struggle with how to support diverse employees, and the need to do so has become even more urgent in the wake of events like the death of George Floyd. Navigating these issues requires understanding how the lived experiences varies systematically among different ethnic groups, genders, gender identities, and sexual orientation. Successfully addressing inequities and adopting practical solutions necessitates understanding the history of racism, sexism, and other "isms" in America. This course will address these and other relevant issues in the context of the corporate environment. It will cover doctrinal issues regarding the ethical and legal obligations of corporations as it relates to managing discrimination in the workplace (e.g., history of antidiscrimination legislation, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), but will also delve into some of the more practical aspects of the tools and techniques companies can or should adopt to achieve a more inclusive work environment. 4 cr.

An in-depth look at the legal issues involved in the employer/employee relationship. Such topics include: discrimination, affirmative action, harassment, the hiring process, employee testing, and terminating employees (for cause, layoffs). Discussions will focus on the duties and rights of both parties through the stages of employment, from hiring and managing your workforce, to benefits, conditions of employment, and downsizing.

Real estate can generate spectacular wealth and contribute to unprecedented financial losses. Real estate is an essential component of every business that requires a physical location to operate. Real estate is where we sleep, where we attend school, where we work, where we play, where we go when we are sick -it quite literally is beneath everything we do. Every real estate transaction begins and ends with legal principles. Mastering the basics of property law puts one in a superior position. Knowledge of real estate law is imperative for those who plan to invest in or manage property on a larger scale. This course provides an overview of real estate law for tenants, present and future property owners, developers, investors, and public policy advocates. We examine the nature of real property and property ownership, residential and commercial real estate transactions, and selected issues of real estate development.

The securities industry is highly regulated by a complex set of federal laws designed to "protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation." (www.sec.gov/about/whatwedo.shtml) Federal law governs the issuance of securities ("going public"), regulates companies whose shares are being traded (known as "issuers"), and makes rules for everyone working in the securities industry, including bankers, brokers, dealers, and investment advisors. Those issuers and financial institutions (and their employees or directors) who violate the myriad of federal laws regulating securities face civil litigation from shareholders, enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and criminal charges from the Department of Justice. This course will focus upon the key federal statutes that regulate securities and participants in the securities markets: the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Sarbanes-Oxley, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and several criminal statutes that are utilized for violations of securities regulation. We will read statutes and case law, and use examples and guest speakers to understand the application of the law in real life. The class is intended for students interested in careers in finance or leadership in a public company. The goal is not to create securities lawyers, but to give students an awareness of the regulation and the legal risks involved in the securities market.

Due to the financial crisis of 2008, the industry has re-aligned its business models to a risk-based approach for products and services. In response to this paradigm shift, Advanced Business Law, now known as Law and Risk Management, will focus on the identification, assessment, and management of operational and regulatory risk in the context of the law. Topics covered will continue to include contract risk, commercial financing, the Uniform Commercial Code, agency liability, bankruptcy, products liability, and real estate. The class will emphasize legal issues as a component of effective strategic business planning with a particular emphasis on duties and liabilities for corporate accounting. Group work includes contract drafting, interpretation, and negotiation. This course in part supplements many of the legal issues central to the accounting concentration and addresses many of the topics on the Regulation section of the CPA Exam.

This course explores online privacy regulation and law, cybersecurity law, and Internet regulation. The goal is not to create Internet regulatory attorneys, but to give students a solid awareness of the Internet privacy regulation and the pitfalls of not being aware of those regulations. Students will also learn how to create crisis strategies for dealing with a major breach. During the course, we will read privacy regulations and privacy orders and study the significant FTC privacy and breach cases. We will have guest speakers that will explain real-life, first-hand experiences with privacy and cybersecurity breaches, how a real crisis was handled, and what could have been done to prevent the breach and improve on the response. By the end of this course, students will understand Internet regulation and its significance for businesses using the Internet.

Directed study in Law. 2 or 4 cr. Application available on Undergraduate Program website.

Formerly PL425. This course provides a dynamic introduction to the health sector, beginning with the burden and distribution of disease and current patterns of expenditures. While the primary emphasis will be on the U.S. healthcare system, a global context will be developed. The basic elements of insurance and payment, service organization and delivery, and life sciences products (drugs, diagnostics, and devices) will be described, and placed in the context of the unique economic structure of the sector. The intense challenges of the sector will be explored, including ethical, social and organizational dilemmas that arise as well as business opportunities that emerge. The roles that government policy, rapid technology growth, and practice development play as drivers of system change will be addressed throughout. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Social Inquiry II.

Formerly PL430. The U.S. health care system has undergone sweeping change as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010. Knowledge of how the reform law is affecting health care organizations, health professionals, consumers, and American businesses is essential for everyone, especially those planning careers in management or business. This rigorous seminar, which counts toward the Health & Life Sciences concentration and the Law and Public Policy concentration, provides an in-depth look at the economic, political, social and organizational challenges facing the nation as attempts to repeal-and-replace the ACA are debated by Congress. Students read and analyze articles, business cases, issue briefs, and legal opinions from diverse perspectives to learn how the U.S. health care system came to be and how it will change in the future. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Social Inquiry II.

We provide an introduction to how individuals make decisions, applying the tools of psychology and economics. We will learn to identify common mistakes and biases. Students will have the opportunity to evaluate their own decision- making ability and learn how to make improved decisions. We link each aspect of decision-making studied to current personal finance decision, business problem & public policy issue. This course will improve negotiation ability and prepare students to use social science data to support decisions. The course consists of cases, discussions, lectures & project. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Critical Thinking.

Directed study in Markets and Public Policy. 2 or 4 cr. Application available on Undergraduate Program website

Exposes students to the fundamentals of probability, decision analysis, and statistics, and their application to business. Topics include probability, decision analysis, distributions, sampling, estimation, hypothesis testing, and chi-square. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Quantitative Reasoning I.

Examines the use of economic and statistical tools for making business decisions. The course emphasizes linking data analysis to spreadsheet modeling of decision making. Topics include multiple regression, causal inference, forecasting, demand modeling, and optimization. Case studies apply concepts to practical business problems. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Quantitative Reasoning II.

Component of QST SM 323, The Cross Functional Core. Teaches quantitative methods and modeling techniques that will improve the student's ability to make informed decisions in an uncertain world. The two major modules of the course are models for optimal decision-making and decision- making under uncertainty. The first module focuses on methods and predictive models for decision-making; how optimization models are used to identify the best choice; and how choices change in response to changes in the model's parameters (sensitivity analysis). The second module covers the measurement and management of risk and Monte Carlo simulation. Throughout the semester, we will perform hands-on analysis that will improve Excel modeling skills; discuss the ethical use of data analytics; and learn to recognize pitfalls and biases in quantitative decision-making. cr. N

This course focuses on how to learn from data, specifically to 1) organize, portray, and summarize data; 2) assess the validity of conclusions that have been drawn from statistical analyses to support business (and other) decisions; and 3) recognize the extent to which variation characterizes products and processes, and understand the implications of variation on organizational decisions when interpreting data. Students will increase their understanding of the use of probabilities to reflect uncertainty; how to interpret data in light of uncertainty to assess risk; and how to build and interpret regression models, which can be used to inform core business and organizational decisions.

This course studies the strategic and economic issues facing insurers, providers, and life-sciences companies in the healthcare sector. The course will adapt tools from health economics, strategy, and finance to understand the problems faced by these firms. The course will also examine the problems faced by regulators, who must craft policies that shape the healthcare sector: which hospital mergers to allow; what procedures health insurers must cover; how public programs ought to reimburse life-sciences companies; how quality of care is measured and rewarded; and so on.

This course examines an array of compelling opportunities for innovation, incremental and disruptive, across products and services, created within existing organizations or by starting new businesses. It bridges design and implementation, examining the unique and complex array of elements that make successful innovation in the health sector so difficult, and developing the skills and knowledge needed to effectively address those challenges. The course provides a conceptual framework, and then emphasizes hands-on engagement, concrete exercises, written cases, and in-class speakers who are engaged in real-world innovation initiatives. Students will have the opportunity to focus on areas of particular interest and relevance to current or future work. They will leave better equipped to drive or support the viable, value-creating innovation so desperately needed in the health sector.

Understanding and analyzing the core strategic decisions facing businesses in competitive markets. Students will examine how businesses achieve their fundamental goals given the need to produce goods and services efficiently and a market environment reflecting consumer preferences (demand) and the strategies and strengths of competitors. Students will develop analytic skills necessary for understanding core business models and how different models create value for the business as well as the larger society.

The aim of the course is to present many of the decision problems managers face and to present the economic analysis they need to guide these decisions. Microeconomic tools are used to structure complicated decision problems about production, pricing, investment, and other strategic issues, address uncertainty through probabilistic forecasts and sequential decisions. An important part of the course is to develop an understanding of the external environment in which firms operate by analyzing the implications of market structure, macroeconomic developments and policy, and other forms of public policy toward business.

Macroeconomics is the study of the aggregate behavior of global market participants, i.e. consumers, firms, workers, governments, central banks, foreign investors. Decision making by investment bankers, product/sales managers, policy makers, or consumers inevitably rely on an understanding of the main forces driving GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rates, and exchange rates. Consider these questions: 1. Should new consumer durable products be launched during recessions? 2. Are countries that experience high productivity growth good investment targets? 3. Will interest rates drop if the US government starts buying back its debt? 4. With significant liquidity demands by the US economy from the public sector, the household sector and businesses, what explains the low US interest rates? Are these factors expected to keep interest rates low also in the future? 5. Can the Euro boost productivity in Europe in the medium to long run and what are the competitiveness challenges for US businesses of such changes? 6. What are the economic effects of wars and how should they be financed? These and other issues will come up in the course. The main goal of this course is to provide a coherent framework that you can use to understand economic events as you confront them in your work environment.

Many companies struggle with how to support diverse employees, and the need to do so has become even more urgent in the wake of events like the death of George Floyd. Navigating these issues requires understanding how the lived experiences varies systematically among different ethnic groups, genders, gender identities, and sexual orientation. Successfully addressing inequities and adopting practical solutions necessitates understanding the history of racism, sexism, and other "isms" in America. This course will address these and other relevant issues in the context of the corporate environment. It will cover doctrinal issues regarding the ethical and legal obligations of corporations as it relates to managing discrimination in the workplace (e.g., history of antidiscrimination legislation, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), but will also delve into some of the more practical aspects of the tools and techniques companies can or should adopt to achieve a more inclusive work environment.

The main aim of Improving Your Decisions is to present many of the decision problems managers face and to identify the most effective ways to make sound decisions -- as well as the pitfalls, biases, and mistakes that should be avoided. A key element of the course is to present students with a series of decision challenges: What would you do? In other words, you must come to grips with actual decisions and defend your actions. The assigned readings also convey the most recent research findings in behavioral economics: how individuals and managers actually make decisions. The second half of the course centers on group decision making: how groups with common and not-so-common interests decide. The focus shifts from individual choices to group decisions that embody both competitive and cooperative elements.

The course will feature a series of 13 speakers, each from one area of sustainable energy business, in a discussion that connects the business strategy, business model, public policy and regulatory drivers that affect the business. The areas featured include solar and wind energy, the smart grid, energy efficiency businesses, energy storage, and several others. The goal of the course is to (1) introduce business students to this specialized area and to the range of subjects they will need to learn if they intend to pursue a career in this sector; (2) show students how different sustainable energy companies define their business model to respond to transformations and opportunities in their industry, and how that business model interacts with public policies. Students from outside of Questrom may enroll with permission of instructor, based on knowledge of energy technologies, regulation, and basic energy economics.

You ask your outside lawyer or your company's legal department whether you can undertake some activity without violating the law. You are annoyed when you are told "Well, maybe. It depends". You want a yes-or-no answer, not a game of twenty questions. Why can't your lawyers give you a straight answer? Why do they make everything more complicated? What language are they speaking? Most business people ask these questions. If you do business you cannot avoid dealing with lawyers. You can allow your interactions with lawyers to frustrate you, or you can learn how lawyers think so that you can better manage them. Emerging Issues in Business Law introduces graduate business students to fundamentals of legal analysis by focusing on timely legal problems of particular interest to business. Students develop familiarity with substantive legal principles and leave the course with the ability to recognize legal issues, discuss them intelligently, and understand why the lawyers seem incapable of giving a simple answer. The course uses lectures to provide a common foundation of knowledge. It is primarily discussion based, using a question and answer format to engage students in the process of legal analysis.

Graduate-level directed study in Markets, Public Policy, and Law. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.

Graduate-level directed study in Markets, Public Policy, and Law. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.

PhD-level directed study in Markets, Public Policy, and Law. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.

The overall goal of this course is to improve student ability to learn from data, specifically to 1) assess the validity of conclusions that have been drawn from statistical analyses; 2) recognize the extent to which variation characterizes products and processes, and understand the implications of variation on organizational decisions when interpreting data; and 3) portray, summarize and analyze data to support operational and strategic decisions associated with the core business models. Students will increase their understanding of the use of probabilities to reflect uncertainty; how to interpret data in light of uncertainty to assess risk; and how to build and interpret regression models, which can be used to inform core business and organizational decisions.

The overall goal of this course is to improve student ability to learn from data, specifically to 1) assess the validity of conclusions that have been drawn from statistical analyses; 2) recognize the extent to which variation characterizes products and processes, and understand the implications of variation on organizational decisions when interpreting data; and 3) portray, summarize and analyze data to support operational and strategic decisions associated with the core business models. Students will increase their understanding of the use of probabilities to reflect uncertainty; how to interpret data in light of uncertainty to assess risk; and how to build and interpret regression models, which can be used to inform core business and organizational decisions.

This course teaches the essentials of R programming and complements this with knowledge of some of the most popular libraries in data analysis and data visualization. Upon completion, students will apply these skills to a several in-demand applications. No prior programming experience is assumed. The course covers variables, data types and data structures, frames, conditionals and loops, and functions. It also covers reading and writing CSV files, and the core APIs in analysis and visualization. Students will be introduced to the most popular libraries for data analysis in R, such as dplyr, ggplot2, readr, and rmarkdown. These packages will facilitate the workflow and enhance the basic R functionalities; using them, one can clean up a dataset, create elaborate plots, analyze and summarize the data, and produce presentable reports.

In this course, students will learn the most essential aspects of python programming. The topics are tailored towards data analysis; no prior programming experience is required. We will cover variables, data types and data structures, data frames, conditionals, loops, and functions. We will also cover reading and writing raw files and the core APIs in analysis and visualization. With the basics under their belt, we will complement these concepts with some of the most popular libraries for data analysis in Python such as: Pandas and Numpy for data manipulation, Matplotlib and Seaborn for visualization, and Jupyter Notebook for analysis and reporting. These packages will facilitate workflow and enhance the basic Python functionalities; using them, one can effortlessly clean up a dataset, create elaborate plots, analyze and summarize the data, and produce presentable reports. During this module, students solidify their new skills by applying the concepts they have learned to the analysis of several datasets. They will be given the opportunity to live-code during the sessions and troubleshoot their code with classmates and the instructor. Students will walk out of this bootcamp with newly-forged Python coding skills, knowledge of several of the most important data science libraries and tools, and have the resources in hand for learning more. Please note that students in the MSDi and MSDT programs may not take this course for degree credit.

The modeling process illustrated throughout the course will significantly improve students' abilities to structure complex problems and derive insights about the value of alternatives. You will develop the skills to formulate and analyze a wide range of models that can aid in managerial decision-making in the functional areas of business. These areas include finance (capital budgeting, cash planning, portfolio optimization, valuing options, hedging investments), marketing (pricing, sales force allocation, planning advertising budgets) and operations (production planning, workforce scheduling, facility location, project management). The course will be taught almost entirely by example, using problems from the main functional areas of business. This course is not for people who want a general introduction to or review of Excel. This course is for students who are already comfortable using Excel and would like to use it to create optimization and simulation models.

Graduate-level directed study in Quantitative Methods. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.

Graduate-level directed study in Quantitative Methods. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.

PhD-level directed study in Quantitative Methods. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.

PhD-level directed study in Quantitative Methods. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.