English

This global business course focuses on the organizational behavior perspective in a global context. The course covers individual-level inputs, outputs and processes (IOPs) such as demographic diversity; personality and values; attitudes and behaviors; emotions and moods; perception and individual decision making; motivations, as well as group-level and organizational level IOPs in the global context.

Industrial organization is one of the most important applied areas of microeconomics. It takes a close look at how markets work, how traders (firms, consumers, etc.) interact in a market either strategically or otherwise, and how exogenous environments, including policy variables, affect the market and the participants therein. This class provides an overview of the basics of industrial organization theory, empirics, and some of the state-of-art research.  

This course analyzes firms’ behavior under imperfect competition by using microeconomics; price theory and game theory. It deals with the following topics: monopoly and monopsony, duopoly (with price/quantity competition), differentiation and compatibility, entry deterrence, location choice, timing selection, investment and R&D, vertical integration, mixed duopoly, etc. 

Prerequisite: PRINCIPLE OF MICROECONOMICS and GAME THEORY. Students are highly recommended to take this course after INTRODUCTION OF MATHEMATICS TO ECONOMICS. 
 

This course examines how and why volcanoes erupt and how to communicate this to diverse audiences. It explores local volcanoes on field trips, and  volcanoes in North Island NZ/Aotearoa and Iceland via virtual field trips. During the labs you will use microscopes, cooking, and explosions to describe volcanic deposits, understand lava viscosity, and explain volcanic hazards. 

The course teaches students a thorough understanding of high-performance and energy-efficient computer architecture. Students learn principles and techniques for evaluating architectural proposals, explore how knowledge of computer architecture informs software performance engineering, and gain a deep understanding of topical trends in advanced computer architecture, compiler design, operating systems, and parallel processing

This course examines nature and origin of structures produced by deformation in the Earth’s crust, and material properties of rocks that affect the way in which they respond, as well as practical geometric methods associated with deriving and representing the three dimensional form of structures commonly encountered in geological practice, and synthesis of tectonic settings. It also covers large-scale geometry and processes of plate tectonics, and topics in global geophysics linked to current observation and plate tectonic theory.

This course offers a study of the political and social reality of the Middle East and North Africa. It analyzes the primary and secondary institutions that constitute the regional order as well as the external action of the main regional and extra-regional actors. 

The course covers the basics of corporate finance from a big picture and value enhancing perspective. The course has three main objectives: (1) Develop an understanding of the tools that are used to value investment projects and companies (valuation); (2) Understand the basic issues involved in how firms should raise funds for their investments (financing); (3) Evaluate how investment and financing decisions are related. Emphasis is placed on applying the theoretical framework of corporate finance to real world problems. Prerequisites: Understanding of basic economic and statistical concepts, familiarity with time value of money, financial statements analysis, discounted cash flow analysis, risk-return trade-off, and diversification.

This course will be offered as a companion course to JAPANESE BUDDHISM AND SOCIAL SUFFERING by the same instructor in the second half of the semester. You do not have to take both courses, but it is recommended to do so for a fuller understanding. Buddhism is the largest indigenous religion of Asia and has ancient roots in every country in the region, including majority Muslim ones like Bangladesh and Indonesia. However, in the contemporary age, it is in crisis, principally from the way economic and scientific modernity challenges its worldview and values. Buddhist institutions throughout the region have been responding to this crisis in variety of ways from nationalistic chauvinism, to market and technologically savvy new Buddhist organizations, and also progressive social action movements known as Socially Engaged Buddhism. This course will look at these different responses and attempts by Buddhism to remain relevant in the dynamic social landscape of contemporary Asia, while offering numerous case studies familiar to the instructor’s 25 years of experience throughout the region. 

This course applies economic theory to the study of firms in markets. The study focuses on firm behavior in imperfectly competitive markets, which appear to be far more common than the perfectly competitive markets that were the focus of basic microeconomics courses. It draws on game theory, transaction cost analysis, information theory, and the economic analysis of the law to provide detailed consideration of firm behavior and the goals and effects of government intervention.

The course provides a broad range of examples on how economic theory and experiments can be used to understand pressing societal problems as well as to inform governments, firms, and consumers. The applications range from media bias to environmental conservation, from discrimination to education and social housing. Each topic starts from simple theoretical models and then discusses experimental evidence, both supporting the model or showing potential limitations of the theory. While starting from simple laboratory experiments and in-class demonstrations, the main focus of the course is on field experiments. The list of topics covered includes: inequality; cooperation and the environment; human capital formation and education; voting and political participation; media bias and echo chambers; and incentives and the workplace. The course has three main objectives: (i) explain how economists learn from empirical evidence, and how lab, field, and natural experiments can help establishing causation; (ii) teach the intuition behind some intermediate game theoretical concepts; (iii) show a wide range of applications and topics in economics.