Economics

This course introduces students to a number of case studies concerning past financial crises. It begins by discussing economic theories regarding the occurrence of crises. The course studies how the financial system functions and how it interacts with the broader economy. Students then learn what the principal actors of financial crisis management–central banks–do and how and their mandates evolved in response to crises. Among others, the course studies the Great Depression, Japan's Lost Decade, Zimbabwe's hyperinflation, the 2007-2009 subprime crisis, and the European sovereign debt crisis. This offers an opportunity to discuss issues regarding the regulation of the financial system and the welfare costs of financial crises.

Modern economic growth theories: Exogenous and endogenous growth theories. The main focus is on the fundamental causes of the long-run economic growth: Saving and capital accumulation education investment and human accumulation, international trade, and R&D investment.

This course helps students develop an advanced perspective on how firms make investment and financing decisions. It covers the three main aspects of modern corporate finance: capital budgeting, financing, and capital structure. Capital budgeting concerns how a firm makes investment decisions to increase its value. The course applies the fundamental concept of time value of money to capital budgeting decisions. The course introduces different investment decision criteria and illustrates the calculation of free cash flow. The course then studies firm's financing options, equity and debt. For equity market, several stock valuation methods are discussed in detail. For debt market, general bond valuation method and corporate bonds are covered. The last part of the course combines equity and debt together to develop the concept of weighted average cost of capital, which links a firm's capital budgeting decision with its financing decision.

This course provides a framework and strategic tools to better understand the issues surrounding competition in knowledge creation and innovation. The main focus is on the acquisition of a set of powerful analytical tools that are critical for the development of a strategy in high-technology sectors. High-technology industries exhibit specific characteristics that require particular approaches to cope with their dynamics. Competitive dynamics of sectors such as streaming media, digital music, home video gaming, disk drives, wireless service providers, and mobile television are discussed. These tools can provide the framework for insightful planning when deciding which technologies to invest in, how to structure those investments, and how to anticipate and respond to the conduct of a variety of economic actors. Guest lectures and a variety of company examples provide evidence on how firms have succeeded in out-innovating their competition and successfully established themselves as dominant players. Textbooks for the course include COMPETING THROUGH INNOVATION: TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY AND ANTITRUST POLICIES by D.J. Teece and STRATEGY RULES: FIVE TIMELESS LESSONS FROM BILL GATES, ANDY GROVE, AND STEVE JOBS by D.B. Yoffie, M.A. Cusumano.

This course introduces the theory of financial economics and major topics of modern finance. The course assumes standard knowledge (Hiyoshi-level) of microeconomics, calculus and probability theory. The course consists of three parts. The first part is a refresher on the basic economic concepts used throughout the course, such as expected utility, choice under uncertainty, or competitive equilibrium. The second part covers standard portfolio-choice problems and equilibrium asset-pricing models such as CAPM or CCAPM. The third part studies the theory of incentives and/or asymmetric information and its applications to finance.

This course provides an in-depth study of game theory and its applications, examining strategies and balances. The course covers static games with complete information, dynamic games with complete information, static games with incomplete information, and cooperative games. Topics also include both personal and impersonal cooperative and non-cooperative games, matrix games, bargaining models, and solution methods. Texts include J. Pérez, J. Jimeno, and E. Cerdá, TEORIA DE JUEGOS; Roy Gardner, JUEGOS PARA EMPRESARIOS Y ECONOMISTAS; Robert Gibbons, UN PRIMER CURSO DE TEORIA DE JUEGOS; M. J. Osborne, AN INTRODUCTION TO GAME THEORY; C. Rafels, et al., JOCS COOPERATIUS I APLICACIONS ECONOMIQUES; Ken Binmore, TEORIA DE JUEGOS; Avinash Dixit and Barry Naleboff, PENSAR ESTRATEGICAMENTE; and J. Watson, STRATEGY: AN INTRODUCTION TO GAME THEORY.

This course provides an analysis of the effects of government spending on the macroeconomic goals, such as price stability, economic growth, distribution of income, and employment conditions, as well as the effects of government spending on important economic sectors. Topics include the role of government in economic activities, government outlay, welfare economics, theory of public goods, theory of externalities, public choice, public pricing and policies, and fiscal decentralization.

This class surveys the challenges faced by emerging economies, with the purpose of covering the main areas at the center of the debate in development economics. It discusses the questions raised, the academic research on these questions, and the possible policy responses. This class covers topics at the individual level (consumption, health and education) as well as at the firm level (contracts, technology, entrepreneurship). The class covers both the empirical studies and the theoretical framework that relate to these topics. By the end of this class, students are expected to be able to understand, evaluate, and design interventions in developing countries. In addition, a discussion over the ethical concerns of these interventions takes place in class.