Economics

This course introduces classic and new topics in international trade from theoretical and empirical perspectives. It covers standard and academic materials commonly studied by economists in academia as well as international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of academic studies on international trade after completing this course.

Ideally, students should have already taken "INTERNATIONAL TRADE A" offered in the Fall semester prior to enrollment in this course. However, it is not a prerequisite.

Given the increasing prevalence of empirical approaches in academic studies on international trade, this course covers basic methods of econometrics and their application to data.

This course deals with current trade policy issues in turmoil from the viewpoint of international trade and international laws. After reviewing economic and politico-economic theory on trade policy, the issue of empirical measurement of trade policy will be discussed. Furthermore, the course explores WTO discipline on trade in goods; trade in services; intellectual property rights; safeguards and exception, and government procurement. The relationship between WTO and mega-FTAs such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will also be covered.

This course provides an understanding of the theory and the tools necessary to make good financial decisions. The course covers modern capital market theory and its applications to corporate finance. The course is divided into four parts: role of capital markets and the objectives of financial management; valuation of financial claims; risk and return; and corporate finance decisions including capital budgeting, financing, and divided policy.

Incentives economics (also known as economics of information and contract theory) studies interactions between economic agents in the presence of information asymmetries, such as sellers being better informed than buyers about product quality, or workers knowing better than employers the cost of exerting effort in a given task. Incentives economics is part of the core toolkit of modern graduate-level micro- and macroeconomics. This course introduces basic models featuring risk-sharing, private information and moral hazard, and covers a selection of applications among the following: workers compensation, corporate finance, equal pay communes, pricing, insurance, and higher education.

This course focuses on the relationship between violent conflict and economic development. The first half of the course examines the concepts of conflict and development, as well as some associated theories. The second part focuses on the nexus between conflict and development, the cultural dimensions of conflict and development, and concludes with some policy interventions that could be applied to reduce the risk of conflict and accelerate development. Reference is made to some case studies in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This course provides students with a thorough understanding of the functioning of financial markets. It covers topics such as the role of markets and institutions as providers of liquidity, the reasons for price volatility in financial markets, financial fragility, different types of market microstructure, and informational efficiency of financial markets.

In the spring of 2021 the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) began paying 122 people 1200€ a month, tax free, no strings attached, for three years. The study, which will compare their fortunes to those of a much larger group who also put their hand up to receive the money but were not among the lucky few, aims to contribute empirical evidence to the debate over the merits of a basic income. We will compare the idea of a basic income to other types of government benefits in cash and in kind, and engage with arguments for and against these different benefit types. We will analyze in detail the claim that a basic income would eliminate relative poverty and reduce income inequality by studying income inequality in Germany today. We will look at any data published by the German experiment, and compare its design to that of a two-year trial carried out in Finland in 2017–18. In this way the course will serve as an introduction to research methods in social policy. By the end of the semester you will have gained an overview of tax–transfer systems and of their role in reducing income inequality, and you will be in a position to engage in an informed way in debate over the promise of a basic income.

This course introduces students to the field of behavioral economics. Students explore the reasons why people make irrational decisions; how people decide quickly; why people make mistakes in risky situations; their tendency to procrastination and short-termism; and how people can be affected by social influences, personality, mood, and emotions. Students explore how behavioral economics could help policy-makers to understand the people behind their policies, and facilitate the design of more effective policies.

This course examines the traditional economic theory which assumes that economic agents are fully rational with unlimited cognitive abilities and willpower and considers how individuals frequently and systematically make decisions in contradiction with these standard presumptions. Against the background of this finding the course discusses the shortcomings of traditional theories in economics and finance; how new concepts and theories in behavioral finance and behavioral economics address these shortcomings; how these new theories relate to the traditional theories; what are their strengths and limitations; and how the new behavioral presumptions in behavioral finance and economics change the predictions of classical economic theories. 

This course deals with the theory and practice of international macroeconomics and finance. The objective is to provide a theoretical framework to think about a wide variety of current issues in international finance: current account deficit, global imbalances, exchange rate determination, monetary policy in an open economy setting, and global financial crisis in 2008.