Economics

This course focuses on the general economic structure of cinema and the audiovisual industry in France. It includes an overview of the production of cinematic film, the CNC (National Center for Cinema and Moving Images), and the financing and distribution of films. The course includes industry professionals as guest speakers.

This course introduces basic economic ideas and concepts. Students analyze behavior on markets, outcomes of markets, and different market forms. Game theory is introduced to study situations with strategic interaction such as oligopolistic competition. Comparative advantage is used as an explanation of trade patterns. Macroeconomic indicators, economic fluctuations, and economic policy are reviewed. Monetary systems are covered in tutorials. Through presentations and special debates, tutorials provide the opportunity to apply and reflect on some of the contents of the course. The first part of the course mainly covers microeconomic topics and the second part is devoted to macroeconomics

Prerequisites: standard high school knowledge of basic mathematical concepts such as solving equations, reading and working with graphs, and manipulating inequalities is expected. In economics, no prior knowledge is assumed.

This course introduces fundamental topics in economic development with a focus on the microeconomics of development. Topics include agriculture, climate change, conflict, education, gender, health, institutions, nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, and technology adoption. It addresses these topics from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, with an emphasis on using causal evidence to inform policy interventions.

This is an advanced course considering the economic forces that govern the geographic distribution of economic activity and its implications for economic outcomes and public policy issues. The course is divided in two parts. The first part develops a simple theory of cities as the result of the interaction between agglomeration and congestion forces. It proceeds to study in detail the agglomeration forces that attract firms, consumers, and workers to cities, as well as the congestion forces that limit the size of cities and how to overcome them through transportation networks and housing markets. The second part of the course extends the basic model to study a system of many locations, the dynamics of city growth and decline, and to conclude, the role of cities and geography for climate change.

This course covers intermediate mathematical methods presented in contexts relevant for economists and students of connected subject fields. It equips students with operational skills in applying intermediate, applied-mathematical methods to problems taken from various contexts in economics and social sciences; and to train students in planning and systematically executing lengthy calculations both on paper as well as using software aids such as Mathematica/Matlab/Python.

This course examines the process of Korea’s growth and development from the macroeconomic and institutional perspectives. The transformation of the Republic of Korea from one of the most devastated nations to an advanced one is a rare success story in the world development. However, the underlying causes and mechanisms of the success are not well understood, although its surface level performance is well recognized. This course seeks the fundamental understandings about the causes and mechanisms of Korea’s growth and development in order to make Korea’s experience helpful for other developing countries. Furthermore, we draw useful lessons and insights for the future process of Korea’s growth and development from such understandings. This course provides a series of quantitative empirical analyses of Korea’s long-run process of growth and development at both aggregate and sectoral levels, together with theories of growth and development which are be used in interpreting the empirical analysis. We also discuss the issues of policy design and implementation methods that were used to materialize specific development goals. Historical data as well as current issues are explored together, relating the past and the present with each other, so that we pursue an evolutionary understanding.