Selected Graduate Course Listing
Economics 700 - The Economics of Coordination, Cooperation and Conflict
Provides an introduction to fundamental concepts concerning conflict, cooperation, competition and coordination failures in capitalist and other economies. Introduces and evaluates game theoretic and other microeconomic approaches to these questions. Topics addressed include social norms, incomplete information, bounded rationality, property rights, transaction costs, the optimality of competitive market outcomes, the theory of the firm, and economic power. Syllabus - S. Bowles
Economics 701 - Microeconomic Theory
Provides a unified treatment of basic microeconomic theory. The course focuses on individuals, firms, and their market interactions. In so doing, it constructs a detailed, consistent and cohesive theory of the perfectly competitive economy. The image that emerges could be referred to as the 'Walrasian vision' of the microeconomy, and the theoretical construction itself is the modern and current version of what is taught in most leading graduate schools in economics. Topics covered include preferences; theory of demand; production; cost; firm input demand and output supply; isolated and interacting markets.
Economics 702 - The Microeconomics of Choice and Strategic Action
This course addresses contemporary issues in the theory of individual and social choice under classical and Bayesian uncertainty. The basic tool is noncooperative game theory. Subjects covered include one-shot and repeated games with imperfect and asymmetric information, principal-agent problems, bilateral and multilateral bargaining, the design of incentive mechanisms, and the microfoundations of labor and capital markets, the public sector, and the firm.
Economics 703 - Introduction to Economic History
Specifically designed for first-year students, this course introduces broad themes in economic history by exploring a small number of topics in depth, and provides background knowledge for other graduate courses in areas such as macroeconomics, industrial organization and labor. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of economic and political institutions. After discussion of relationships between economic theory and economic history, the following topics are examined: The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Europe; U.S. Slavery, the Emergence of a Wage-Labor Force, and the Southern Regional Economy; The Rise of the Large-Scale Firm: Economic and Political Consequences; and Instability, Depression, and Regimes of Accumulation in the Twentieth-Century World Economy. Among the authors read are K. Polanyi, M. Dobb, P. Sweezy, B. Moore, Jr., G. Wright, R. Ransom and R. Sutch, A. Chandler, N. Lamoreaux, A. Amsden, P. Temin, and M. Bernstein. Syllabus - C. Heim
Economics 705 - Macroeconomic Theory I
The objectives of this course are to review the ideas developed in the macroeconomics literature over the past half century and to introduce the tools and modeling techniques used to express these ideas. The course is a foundation for specialized courses in macroeconomics and monetary economics. The course covers classical and Keynesian models, new classical theory (monetarism, rational expectations, real business cycle theory), growth theory, and microfoundations of macroeconomics (wage and price stickiness, investment theories, consumption theories). Syllabus - J. Heintz Syllabus - P. Skott
Economics 706 - Macroeconomic Theory II
This course focuses on major issues in economic methodology and their implications for macroeconomic theory. The first part of the course deals with issues raised by the assumptions of fundamental uncertainty and asset and decision irreversibility. Seminal work by Keynes and contributions by the Post Keynesian school are used to develop theories of macroeconomic dynamics under conditions of uncertainty. Other major topics include a comparison of Keynesian and Marxian approaches to financial markets and to macroeconomic dynamics; an analysis of the complex nature of competition and its effects on macroeconomic behavior; and theories of the emerging neoliberal global economy. Syllabus - J. Crotty
Economics 707 - History of Economic Thought
This course traces the development of economic analysis from the French Physiocrats and the English Classical School, to modern neoclassical, post-Keynesian, Sraffian, and neo-Marxian theory. The stress is on the interaction of analytical innovation, social conditions, and political forces in the succession of schools of economic analysis. The final third of the course moves from history to critique, attempting to lay the foundation for a contemporary critique of dominant economic paradigms.
Economics 708 - Political Economy I
A beginning graduate level course in Marxian and other non-mainstream economic theories. Topics covered include historical materialism, value and surplus value, accumulation and crisis, and imperialism. Syllabus - D. Kotz
Economics 709 - Political Economy II
Institutionalist and feminist approaches to political economy with consideration of links to Marxian political economy. Course begins with a careful reading of Erik Olin Wright's new book, Envisioning Real Utopias, offers a brief overview of earlier "utopian" thinkers, then focuses on recent economic research on topics such as patriarchal property rights, household decision making, the impact of social norms, incentive-enhancing preferences, collective rent-seeking, racial and ethnic coalitions, collective management of the commons, and worker-owned enterprises and cooperatives. Syllabus - N. Folbre
Economics 710 - Political Economy III
This course focuses on the causes and consequences of forms of inequality based on race, gender, and class. Topics include theories of collective identity and action, the production of human capabilities, and social capital. Selected policy issues are also explored. As the third semester of the political economy sequence, the course presumes both a strong background in Marxian Theory and completion of the basic first year graduate economics curriculum or equivalent. Syllabus - S. Resnick
Economics 711 - Money, Credit and Financial Markets
This course explores a range of theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented questions in which monetary and financial structures play a central role. Framing the course this way - rather than saying it is about money and credit per se - allows us to consider issues that are not always closely linked - e.g. monetary theory and financial regulation; the politics of central bank policy; the theory of saving and investment; and international capital flows. Theoretically, the course is mainly informed by Post Keynesian and Marxian approaches to money, finance and macroeconomic activity. But we cross theoretical boundaries regularly, as we are primarily going to be focused on how well we can explain real-world phenomena, rather than providing the final wrinkle in any given theoretical approach. The course also examines the question of how to construct a financial system that is both 'equitable and efficient', to use conventional terminology. But financial market policies are almost never evaluated in terms of their impact on economic fairness. Thus, in taking up the issue of equity as well as efficiency, the course brings an unusual focus on financial policy measures for extending and deepening egalitarianism within various countries and settings.
Economics 721 - International Finance
This course analyzes the nature and effects of financial arrangements on capitalist economies operating in an international context. Thus, it deals with international financial arrangements, and more generally with 'Open Economy Macroeconomics'. Topics include the effects of international banking, finance and monetary policy on capital accumulation, unemployment inflation, income distribution and class conflict in advanced capitalist and third world countries. These topics will be approached from both an historical and a modeling perspective.
Economics 722 - International Trade
This course presents classical, neoclassical, and heterodox theories of international commodity and factor trade, addressing both the motivations for, and consequences of, international commerce. Specific topics include cost theories of trade, the factor-proportions theory of trade, theories of North-South exchange, trade in the presence of market imperfections and increasing returns to scale, linkages between trade and development, and the effects of global integration on welfare, commodity prices and income distribution. The logical implications of various theories of trade are considered along with their empirical performance. The historical evolution of ideas related to trade and globalization are also discussed. Syllabus - A. Razmi
Economics 731 - Industrial Organization
This course covers the main research methods and findings about competition and monopoly in the markets of the modern economy. It is based primarily on neoclassical concepts of markets, market structure and performance, as developed in the mainstream literature. Students participate in selecting topics for emphasis and in presenting some topics. We begin with the basic theories of competition, monopoly dominance and oligopoly. The methods of defining markets and assessing market structure then follow. Next are the possible determinants of structure, such as economics of scale. The nature of the firm and of financial markets come next, followed by methods of assessing industrial performance. The next section covers oligopoly, entry and vertical patterns. Then come price discrimination, diversification, advertising and technological change. Real cases and policy issues are woven into the coverage at many points, giving extensive coverage of antitrust, regulation and deregulation. A textbook or two is used, but readings are drawn mainly from journals and books. Students prepare a research paper, in two drafts, on a topic of their choosing, usually on a point of method or concept.
Economics 751 - Mathematical Methods for Economists
This course develops the fundamental mathematical skills required to pursue model building in all areas of microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, econometrics, and such applied fields as labor, international, financial, and development economics. Subjects covered include matrix algebra, the comparative statics of models involving several variables; constrained optimization of functions of several variables, and introductory dynamics. This course stresses the interaction of conceptual understanding and extensive problem solving as the key to mastery of mathematical reasoning. Syllabus - P. Skott
Economics 753 - Econometrics II: Applied Econometrics
The purpose of this course is to help students become comfortable and creative as quantitative economics researchers. Toward that end, it introduces a series of econometric techniques by observing life in the trenches, i.e., working through how practitioners have approached and solved econometric problems as a tool for conducting significant research on substantive questions. The course also puts lots of stress on being able to communicate econometric results and other quantitative research results in ways that are illuminating and persuasive as well as rigorous. We also continually ask the basic methodological question: what does it mean to be rigorous with econometrics and with statistics in general? Finally, in the process of studying and replicating various econometric research issues, we assist students in becoming increasingly comfortable with at least one major statistical software package and with manipulating data sets. Syllabus - M. Ash & R. Pollin
Economics 763 - History of Capitalist Development in Europe and the World Economy
This course focuses on the industrialization of capitalist economies in Europe and on Europe and the nineteenth-century world economy. The course begins with the Atlantic economy and the slave trade, then examines industrialization and its consequences in Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. The last section of the course, on the nineteenth-century world economy, is organized by topic: trade and the international division of labor (center and periphery); international finance and foreign investment; imperialism; migration and fluctuations; and changing industrial leadership in the world economy. Syllabus - C. Heim
Economics 764 - U.S. Economic History
Topics in United States economic history from the Colonial period through the post-World War II era. Analyzes major structural changes in the United States economy and the evolution of class struggles. Topics include the origins of European settlement in the Americas and slavery, the development of commodity markets, technological changes in early manufacturing, the creation of a wage labor force, and the impact of the Civil War. Other topics include the rise of the large corporation and its impact on the labor process, the creation of the modern labor movement, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the development of a truncated American welfare state. Syllabus - G. Friedman
Economics 765 - Economic Development: Structural Problems
Concepts of economic development and structural change in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Topics include: poverty, economic growth, and income distribution; agricultural performance and agrarian change; environmentally sustainable and non-sustainable development; the political economy of external assistance; and the economics of conflict and war-to-peace transitions. Syllabus - J. Boyce
Economics 766 - Economic Development: Policy Issues
This course, sequel to Economics 765, examines central topics in the field of development economics. These include an examination of the meaning of 'development'; the dynamics of technological and institutional change; the impact of agrarian structure upon growth and distribution; trade and industrialization policies; the intersectoral relationships between agriculture and industry; and the impact of international capital movements upon third world countries. Contending theoretical perspectives are examined throughout the course in light of the actual experiences of Asian, African and Latin American countries.
Economics 773 - Comparative Economic Systems
This course examines socialist economic theories and systems. It investigates what can be learned from past and contemporary socialist theories and from the experience of past efforts to build socialist systems concerning the viability of a socialist alternative to capitalism. Topics include approaches to comparing economic systems; markets, planning, and capitalism; early conceptions of, and debates about, socialism, including the Economic Calculation Debate; the Soviet-type system including its origins, main features, and performance; market socialist and self-management systems in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and China; the demise of Soviet-type systems; and recent proposals for alternatives to capitalism including asset-based redistribution, new theories of market socialism, and new theories of a planned economy. Syllabus - D. Kotz
Economics 781 - Labor Economics
The course provides an overview of theoretical models and empirical work in labor economics, with a primary focus on wage and employment outcomes. The approach to theory is comparative, drawing from feminist, Marxian, institutionalist, and neoclassical models. Some policy-relevant topics will be covered in more depth: the minimum wage, increasing wage inequality in the United States, and anti-discrimination policy. Syllabus - F. Kurtulus
Economics 797 - Special Topics, Advanced Marxian Economics
This course builds on the basic concepts of Economics 709 (class, exploitation, capital, so on) to construct a systematic advanced Marxian economics. We focus on modern Marxian theories of economic crisis and social transformation, corporate enterprise, credit, national and international trade, rent and monopoly. Students are enabled to do advanced research utilizing Marxian economics and to teach it at graduate and undergraduate levels.
Economics 797 - Special Topics, History of the Marxian Theoretical
Tradition
This course provides essential background for students wanting to use Marxian economics in research or teaching. Since Marxian economics presumes and builds on different philosophical, sociological, and historical bases from those of other economics, this course focuses on the major twentieth century texts providing those bases: Luxemburg, Lukacs, Gramsci, Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin), Dobb, Sartre, Althusser and several other figures. The approach is analytical, historical, and comparative.
Economics 797 - Seminar: General Equilibrium and Welfare Analysis
This course is a continuation of Economics 701 in which the properties of the model of the perfectly competitive economy as a whole are studied. Topics include existence, uniqueness, and stability of competitive equilibrium; fixed factor supplies; imperfect competition; welfare; and capital.
Economics 797 - Colonialism, Imperialism, and Globalization Today
Course presents a systematic analysis of the ways that different capitalist class structures in Western countries have and continue to interact with capitalist and non-capitalist class structures in third world countries. Readings and lectures will explore how since 1870 the relationship among different class structures gave rise to colonialism, imperialism, and eventually the latest phase - globalization - of what is now called a 'world economy.' Part of the course will be on how global interactions helped to produce changing economic theories of trade, development, and imperialism. Another part of the course will examine how, in turn, those same theories reacted back upon and changed the class interactions. We will study how the interrelationship among class structures and economic theories of trade and development shaped the evolving patterns (locations, distributions, etc.) of both commodity production and trade, on the one hand, and capital flows, on the other. We also will link the class structure-economic theory interrelationship to state policies on trade and development and deepening global inequalities in income, wealth, and power.
Economics 797 - Capital II and III
Economics 797A - Socialism, Communism, and Capitalism in the 20th
Century
This course, co-taught by Professors Wolff and Resnick, presents a systematic and critical examination of the confrontation between capitalism and socialism/communism in the 20th and now the 21st centuries. The alternative economic systems are examined with special attention to their class structures. The course then proceeds to use this class analysis of the capitalism/communism confrontation to offer a new interpretation of the USSR's birth, evolution, and death. The interpretation is extended to other contemporary socialist and also welfare state capitalist economies.
Economics 797C - Labor Markets, Income Distribution and Macroeconomic
Theory
The focus of this course is alternative approaches to macroeconomic theory and policy, and in particular, alternative approaches to the understanding, in capitalist economies, of mass unemployment and related problems - underemployment, 'disguised unemployment', and the macroeconomic factors influencing inequality. The course begins with an overview of the contemporary problem of mass unemployment, and then presents recent critiques of orthodox approaches to macroeconomics. We then consider, in turn, the fundamental contributions to a political economy approach to unemployment, in the works of Marx, Keynes, and Kalecki. We next move into modern treatments of the same subject. We then focus on the development of the orthodox theory of a 'natural rate of unemployment' and the associated concept of NAIRU. We then consider the natural rate and NAIRU within the contemporary political economy tradition We conclude by examining some policy approaches for addressing mass unemployment and related issues.
Economics 797E - The Political Economy of the Environment
This course is a one-semester introduction to the political economy of the environment - that is, the analysis of how scarce environmental and natural resources are allocated not only among competing ends, but also among competing individuals, groups, and classes. It is intended for graduate students with prior background in microeconomics and resource economics. Topics include: the distribution and valuation of environmental costs and benefits, the construction of property rights, the globalization of markets and governance, and selected policy issues. Syllabus - J. Boyce
Economics 797K - Modelling Growth and Distribution
This course focuses on the formal modeling of growth and distribution with an emphasis on work within a broadly Keynesian and/or neo-Marxian approach. Topics include: Keynesian and Kaleckian one-sector models, neo-Marxian models, models of cumulative causation and uneven development, mainstream theories of endogenous growth. Syllabus - P. Skott
Economics 797L - Open Economy Macroeconomics
Syllabus - A. Razmi
Economics 797N - Behavioral and Structuralist Macro Models
The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to formal macroeconomic models within a broadly behavioral and structuralist tradition, including Keynesian and neo-Marxian theories. Topics include: the instability of "full employment", the non-existence of a structurally determined NAIRU, business cycles, economic growth, money and finance, and open economy models. Syllabus - P. Skott
Economics 797x - African Economic Development
This course offers a survey of key structural and policy issues in African economic development. It is intended to provide both a retrospective and prospective view of African economies, taking into account domestic, regional and global dimensions. The themes covered include: growth and structural transformation; poverty and inequality; financing Africa's development; capital flight; conflicts and policies for post-conflict recovery; gender and development; Africa in the global policy arena. Syllabus - L. Ndikumana
Economics 801 - Economic Theory Workshop
A seminar meeting 6 to 10 times a semester in which graduate students and faculty report on research in progress on topics in economic theory and related areas. Faculty from other Departments, other Colleges, and other Universities are frequently invited to both attend and present papers.
Economics 802 - Economic History & Economic Development Workshop
A seminar meeting approximately once a month in which graduate students and faculty from the Economics Department and other colleges and universities present research in progress on a range of topics in economic history and economic development.
Economics 804 - Political Economy Workshop
A seminar meeting every other week. Graduate students and faculty from the Economics Department and from elsewhere present papers on a range of topics in political economy.
