Economics

This course is divided into two sections introducing recent developments in economic theory and policy analysis. The first half of the course covers economic policy in the global economy. Students study the causes and consequences of international economic integration, focusing on how globalization affects the trade-offs that shape policy. Both theoretical and empirical analyses will be considered. Key topics include international trade, capital flows, migration, technology diffusion, taxation in the global economy, and the relationship between globalization and national sovereignty.

This course provides students with theoretical and practical understanding of macroeconomics. The course covers long run and short run analysis of the economy, goods, money and labor market analysis, and policy implications. Students must have a good knowledge of calculus and basic mathematical tools such as log transformations. Visiting students must have studied an introductory economics course.

This course seeks to answer the questions, How was the manorial system formed, and how did it mitigate incentive problems then? How were property rights of peasants formed and protected in early modern times? Finally, how was Japan industrialized after the Meiji Restoration? In the real world, the first best resource allocation, which is presumed to be realized under perfect competition, cannot be achieved anyway. Given the structure of informational asymmetry and other technological conditions, a better second best has been sought and has evolved over times. The aim of the course is to understand the economic development of Japan from the medieval times, through the Tokugawa period and the Meiji Restoration, to the industrial revolution in the late 19th century.

This course provides an introduction to demography focusing on developing basic demography methods related to the measurement of vital events. These methods are then applied to study empirically (and theoretically) how demographic and economic changes interact with each other over time. Topics include measures of and economic and social determinants of fertility, mortality, and migration; as well as macro- and microeconomic causes and consequences of demographic transitions.

This course introduces the study of development economics. The central aim of the course is to present key theoretical models and related empirical evidence that shape our thinking of economic interactions and policy-making in developing countries. The course begins by giving an overview of growth theory in order to identify potential drivers of economic growth and to provide a benchmark for analyzing the role of market imperfections. The course then analyzes markets and institutions in developing countries, with a focus on how they have developed to make up for market imperfections in developing countries. In particular, the structure of labor and credit markets in developing countries is introduced with a view towards understanding how imperfections in these markets affect the lives of the poor and the economy at large, and shape economic policy-making. The course also explores issues related to education and gender in development, with a particular focus on the methodology of field experiments to provide insights into these topics. The course has a strong applied focus. For each topic, simple theoretical models are introduced to derive testable predictions, followed by a review of the empirical results and their implications for policy. The course discusses topics including: facts about development and growth; growth via factor accumulation; inequality and growth; foreign aid, development, and corruption; impact evaluation; education; gender and ethnicity; informal institutions; financial markets and microcredit; private sector development and entrepreneurship; and labor markets. Students are expected to be comfortable with econometrics and microeconomics to feel at ease with this course.

The course explores the economic history of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Many, if not most, of MENA’s contemporary problems cannot be understood without a deep understanding of its history, not only during the postcolonial period, but also during the precolonial and colonial periods. The course first introduces students to the definition of the MENA region, and the broad trends in its history since antiquity. It then examines specific themes that are of great importance for understanding the economic history of the region, such as: how most of MENA’s population became Muslims in the Middle Ages? What do we know about MENA’s economic performance vis-à-vis Europe in the long run? How did “Islamic” institutions emerge? What legal rights did people have over land and labor? Students also discuss state-led development, inequality, education, socioeconomic inequality across ethnoreligious groups, and the demographic transition. Throughout the course, students focus on the view from below, examining the living conditions, preferences, and behavior of local populations, rather than taking a macroeconomic perspective that studies MENA only in comparison to Europe. Students also emphasize the recent developments in MENA economic history based on novel data sources, including MENA local archives, papyrology, medieval chronicles, literary sources, and archeology. In terms of methods, the course will draw upon both qualitative and quantitative approaches to history, employing economic theory, econometric methods, novel data sources, and solid historical evidence.

The main topics covered in this course are financial risk analysis and financial risk. The course provides students with a thorough understanding of market risk from both a practical and technical point of view. A representative list of topics covered includes empirical properties of market prices (fat tails, volatility clusters) and forecasting of conditional volatility; concepts of financial risk (volatility, Value-at-Risk); univariate and multivariate volatility models (ARCH, GARCH); implementation and evaluation of risk forecasts; and endogenous risk. Students apply the models to real financial data using Matlab/Python/R, a programming environment widely used in industry and academia. No prior knowledge of programming is assumed.

This is a contemporary history (from late 20th century to current period) course on East Asia surveyed through the lens of multidisciplinary area studies. It highlights select important themes in political-economic developments that may potentially lead to better understanding of contemporary East Asian regionalism and affairs. These political-economic themes can be found in the case studies on East Asian regionalism, energy use, soft power, technological developments (including military-industrial complex). The course materials are also divided into three major regions of focus: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and US-Pacific presence. This course does not pretend to be comprehensive but provides class participants with the essential knowledge to analyze and understand contemporary East Asian political-economic affairs and development.

This course is about the economic effects of taxation, and economic aspects of tax policy. It gives students an understanding of the key economic issues in tax policy, and shows how these can be analyzed using standard tools of theoretical and empirical economic analysis.

In this course, welfare economics, public choice theory, social justice, as well as socialism and market economies are examined using recent papers. It discusses political thoughts, social philosophy, and ethics through tools of neo-classical economic theories like public choice theory and game theory. More specifically, this course studies the economics of Network effects. It first examines the literature on direct network effects developed in the late 70s and 80s, followed by a look at the literature on indirect network effects developed in the early 2000 through what is known as platform economics, or two-sided markets.