This course develops the tools of modern microeconomic theory and notes their applications to matters of utility and demand; production functions and cost; pricing of output under perfect competition, monopoly, oligopoly, etc.; pricing of productive services; intertemporal decision-making; the economics of uncertainty; efficiency, equity, general equilibrium; externalities and public goods. A student may not receive credit for both ECON 300 and ECON 301.

Independent reading course. Full course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

The economic development of the United States provides an excellent starting point for an understanding of both this nation’s history and its current economic situation. We begin with the colonial period and the creation of the nation and end with the Civil War and the breakdown of the Union. Throughout we provide an economic reading of the events and try to explain the conflicts and resolutions in economic terms.

Requisite: ECON 111/111E. Limited to 30 students. Fall semester. Professor Barbezat.

This course surveys major topics in the study of economic development. We will examine economic issues pertinent to developing countries through a discussion of economic theory and a review of empirical evidence. The topics covered will include economic growth, structural change, education, health, migration, gender, institutions, aid, and industrial policy. Using publicly available data, students will work on an empirical report identifying key development issues in a country of their choice and analyzing policy recommendations.

The United States is in an unprecedented period of rising inequality. This course begins by examining the history of inequality in the U.S. since the start of the twentieth century. It then uses cutting-edge and detailed national data to document and explore the current state of inequality and intergenerational mobility in the U.S. We consider inequality by various metrics, such as race, gender, and geography, and in various outcomes, such as income, wealth, health, educational attainment, and incarceration.

Inequality is arguably one of the primary issues of our time. In this course, we will focus on understanding the particular manifestations of inequality in health and individual well-being that derive from inequality in environmental conditions. We will start with the canonical models of public economics, studying the role of government and paying particular attention to how failures of standard assumptions of rationality, perfect information, and perfect competition will lead to inefficiencies and inequities.

This course introduces the field of behavioral economics, which incorporates insights from psychology into economics with the aim of improving human welfare. Behavioral economics studies how individuals actually make decisions, which may deviate from the way "rational actors" are modeled in terms of making decisions in classical economics. Motivated by non-fiction readings and academic articles, we will use behavioral economic frameworks to characterize this actual decision-making and to explore its consequences for markets and for policy.

(Offered as ECON 108 and STAT 108) This course will provide a rigorous presentation of fundamental statistical principles and ethics. We will discuss standards for relationships between statisticians and policy makers, researchers, the press, and other institutions, as well as the standards for interactions between statisticians and their employers/clients, colleagues and research subjects.

Independent reading course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

In designing computer systems, one often is trying to meet a performance objective while simultaneously being constrained by resource or budgetary limitations. For example, we might want to ensure that jobs complete service within a certain time bound, while also remaining within a fixed cost or power budget. We also have many choices to make: should we purchase one fast server or two slow servers? In what order should we schedule jobs to run on our server? In a multi-server system, how should we decide to which server an arriving job should best be dispatched?