University of Commerce Luigi Bocconi

Public institutions and non-profit organizations play a fundamental role in today's economic systems as policy designers, public service-providers, grant-makers, and advocates of unmet ever-changing human needs. As their goals are different from those pursued by business companies, managers working in these organizations perform different tasks, follow different logic and must develop different skills. At the end of this course students understand these differences, are able to assess how successful public/nonprofit managers behave, are aware about which mistakes to avoid, and apply this learning to perform basic tasks connected to the overall creation of public value that public/non-profit organizations produce for their communities. The course is divided into 2 parts. Part 1: Public policy and public management (governments and their structure; role of bureaucracies; types of bureaucrats and how to motivate them; decision-making and performance evaluation in public agencies). Part 2: Non-profit management (role of the third sector in the economy; types of non-profit organizations: an overview; governance and management of non-profit organizations; how to secure contributed income: key successful factors in fundraising).

This course provides: (i) a working knowledge of the most important aspects of the linear regression model; and (ii) basic tools needed to understand and critically interpret empirical research conducted by others as well as to plan and conduct empirical analyses using economic data. The key concepts of the underlying statistical theory are covered, but major emphasis is placed on application of the theory from a practical standpoint. The course also provides an introduction on how to conduct empirical analysis of economic data using Stata, a statistical software package. Prerequisites: Sound knowledge of mathematics and statistics.

This course aims at providing the basic theoretical and applied tools for a rigorous statistical analysis. Specifically, the course focuses on techniques to summarize and visualize data of different types and their possible relations, as well as on basic sampling and inferential procedures, and on the assessment of the risk associated to extrapolation and inference. In particular, students learn how to extract information from data and how to assess the reliability of such information. The course covers the following topics: collection, management, and summary of data using frequency distributions, graphical representations, and summaries; study of the relationship between two variables; statistical inference and sampling variability; theory of point estimation and confidence intervals; hypothesis testing; and simple and multiple regression models. All the descriptive and inferential tools introduced during the course are applied to data using the statistical software R - and in particular the integrated development environment (IDE) RStudio. Prerequisites: understanding of the concepts of probability theory and random variables.

This course is an introduction to labor economics. The course objective is to understand how labor markets operate and how they are affected by institutions and labor market policies. Both empirical evidence and standard theory are covered. The course highlights the effects on efficiency and the redistributive properties of institutions operating in imperfect labor markets, subject to market failures. This provides three reasons for the existence of institutions: i) remedying market failures, ii) achieving some redistribution, and iii) remedying potential negative side effects of other institutions. The course consists of 14 key lectures. The first lecture set up the stage by introducing workers’ labor supply, firms' labor demand, the labor market equilibrium and the institutional wedges. Lecture 2 through 14 deal with specific institutions and have the same setup: a description of the institution, some cross-country comparisons, theory in perfect and imperfect labor markets, empirical evidence on the effects of this institution, interactions with other institutions, and policy issues. The four lecture topics are: overview; minimum wages; unions and collective bargaining; antidiscrimination legislation; regulation of working hours; early retirement plans; family policies; education and training; migration policies; employment protection legislation; regulations on self-employment; unemployment benefits and active labor market policies; health related labor policies; and payroll taxes.

The course develops students’ skills in understanding, analyzing, and interpreting financial statements. Conceptually, the course emphasizes that producers and users of financial statements have different objectives and informational needs. At the same time, the course is applied in that it teaches students how to analyze actual financial statements data to make informed business decisions and assessments. The course is designed to broaden and deepen students’ conceptual and technical understanding of accounting as it is used for management purposes. The emphasis in the course is on financial controls, which provides the dominant form of control in the vast majority of decentralized organizations. This module provides support in business decisions, evaluation of organizational performance, or in evaluation of others (and/or be evaluated) through the use of financial and non-financial information. Course topics include understanding financial statements; fundamental analysis; growth strategy and financial tensions: the logic behind target setting; market based measures, ESG, and integrated reporting; management and control; financial responsibility; incentive systems; remedy to the myopia problem; and uncontrollable factors.

The aim of the course is twofold. First, the course provides a toolkit to identify, model, and reason through strategic interactions (such as business strategies, negotiations, etc.) and discusses how to apply this toolkit when designing strategic environments (such as auctions, competitions, teamwork, etc.). Second, and in the interdisciplinary spirit of the program, the course illustrates the ability of mathematics in modeling, analyzing, and understanding real-world social as well as business interactions. Course topics include: what is Game Theory, static and multistage games of complete and incomplete information, signaling and repeated games, mechanism design, Bayesian and dominant-strategy incentive compatibility, efficient mechanisms, auctions, and applications of the theory. Prerequisites: Ability to complete rigorous mathematical proofs.

This provides students with an understanding of the nature and structure of the disclosures that an acquirer must make when proposing a merger with a target. Particular attention is paid to data that is useful for valuation purposes when trying to appraise a target with a view to developing a target identification methodology. Course topics include the anatomy of a typical merger – mini case study; overview of Mergers Analysis – methods to identify prospective targets using financial statements; brief outline of US and European financial reporting requirements; required filings to raising finance to publicly fund transactions; obtaining a purchase price and creating a Pro Forma Valuation; special topic on fair values, goodwill, and intangibles valuation; applied examples; constructing projections including accretion and dilution; and ex-post analysis of deals. Prerequisites for the course: introductory level accounting.

This course gives students the opportunity to improve their ability to build and manage constructive relationships and to get to high value added results managing not only their own, but also other people's performance. The determinants of optimal performance, that is competence, motivation, and positive psychological states, are explored with the aim of both improving the ability to engage oneself and the people they are working with, and the effectiveness when managing problem/underperforming people. Leadership skills gives students the opportunity to reflect and act upon change: change is one of the relevant dimensions of leadership and becoming a leader requires students to go through a personal and professional transition. This course provides the resources needed to specifically manage the transition from Individual Contributor to Manager, encouraging a greater self-awareness and therefore increased effectiveness. This course covers the main theories of leadership: trait, situational approach, transactional, transformational and charismatic leadership; the dark side of leadership. It also covers leadership skills: influence, integration of differences, compelling communication, leading for excellent performance. Other topics covered include: designing and leading teams; minorities, women, and leadership; organizational culture and leadership in multicultural environments. Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of organizational behavior.

This course deals with psychological phenomena, biases, and socially-oriented behavior that affect economically relevant decisions of people. The main focus is on what economists have learned from various experiments, as well as the methodology of answering questions by the means of an experiment. In order to understand better the motivation and contribution of experimental works, the course reviews the structure and predictions of standard models in Microeconomics and discusses the ways in which they are modified or extended to incorporate psychological theory and empirical findings. Students who have preparation in Calculus, Statistics, Econometrics, and Intermediate Microeconomics benefit from the course the most. Lack of background knowledge in one of these disciplines increases the amount of work that students need to do to keep up with their peers.

International Economics dominates the public debate. Has globalization helped or hurt the citizens of developed and emerging nations? What will be the consequences of Brexit for Great Britain and for the EU? Will there be a “trade war” between the United States and China, and what would its consequences be? Is the Euro-Dollar exchange rate too low or too high, and what should the European Central Bank do about it? Getting the answers right is important for policymakers, for economic experts in government and in the private sector, and also for any interested citizen. International Economics gives no ready-made answers to these questions, but it gives us important tools to think about them. The course aims to give students an overview of this framework and show them how it can help us to better understand the world we live in. The course discusses topics including the world economy since the Industrial Revolution; the theory of comparative advantage; the role of resources for trade; the effects of trade and migration on the income distribution; economies of scale and trade; exporters, multinational firms, and offshoring; trade policy; the balance of payments and the true meaning of trade deficits; exchange rates; international capital flows and international financial crises. In order to successfully follow this course, students should be familiar with basic microeconomic concepts such as budget sets, indifference curves, consumer and producer surplus, and marginal cost. They should also be at ease with simple mathematical tools such as derivatives and solution methods for linear equation systems.