UMass LogoUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst - 2001/02 Graduate School Bulletin
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Resource Economics Courses

Program | Faculty | Courses


All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise specified.

696 Independent Study in Resource Economics

Independent study and research on selected problems in resource economics. Credit, 1-9.

698 Research Field Essay

699 Master's Thesis

Credit, 3-9.

701 Quantitative Methods

Introduction to quantitative techniques used in resource economics theory and applications. Basic mathematical concepts and methods of microeconomics and their uses in optimization and comparative static analysis.

702 Econometric Methods

Introduction to econometric methods: the general linear models, nonspherical properties, generalized least squares, and restricted least squares. Also estimation with limited dependent variables, dichotomous choice and causality testing.

703 Topics in Advanced Econometrics

Methodologies for dealing with multicol-linearity: various approaches to placing restrictions on parameters, principal components. Evaluation of restrictions via alternative norms. Generalized least squares approaches. Pooling data. Seemingly unrelated regression. Systems of equations.

711 Microeconomic Theory I

Basic theory of monopoly and competitive markets; market equilibria; comparative statics; and adjustment process. An-alysis of optimizing decisions for firms and consumers; production, cost, and utility functions; comparative static analysis; the derivation of supply and demand curves; corner solutions, risk and uncertainty.

712 Microeconomic Theory II

Principles of welfare economics; introduction to noncooperative game theory; theories of imperfect competition; the provision of public goods, and the control of externalities.

720 Environmental and Resource Economics

Economics of environmental quality and natural resource management; theory of externalities, public goods, and resource extraction. Benefit-cost analyses of natural resource use and preservation of unique resources.

721 Advanced Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

Economic models of renewable and nonrenewable natural resources; introduction to dynamic optimization; and the theory of environmental policy.

731 Agricultural Production Economics

Applications relate to theory of the firm and emphasize techniques learned in ResEc 701 and 702. Major topics are production function estimation, use of duality theory, choice of functional form, dynamic specifications, and the analysis of risk.

732 Industrial Organization I in Resource Economics

Application of industrial organization and strategic management theory to the marketing system. Role of market structure, advertising, consumer information, firm organization, and cooperatives in determining market and firm performance. Empirical analysis of market power exertion.

733 Advanced Agricultural Production Economics

Application of microeconomic theory and quantitative methods to problems in production economics. Literature surveyed includes estimation of production, cost, and supply functions, impacts of technical change, aggregation, disequilibrium, supply irreversibility, and modeling of commodity sectors.

791A Seminar in Resource Economics

Credit, 1.

796 Independent Study

Credit, 1-6.

797A Special Topics in Forecasting

The main quantitative forecasting techniques in use and issues surounding their use. Detailed exposition of exponential smoothing, ARIMA modeling and econometric techniques and sufficient theory of time series to understand them. Introduction to cointegration, vector autoregres-sion, and other current forecasting approaches. Choosing the best method.

797M Industrial Organization II in Resource Economics

Use of advanced industrial organization and related models for analysis of horizontal markets and vertical channels of distribution in the marketing system. Sample topics include market entry, spatial competition, price discovery and transmission, product quality, and vertical restraints of trade.

899 Doctoral Dissertation

Credit, 18.