Global Arc

Europe is at a crossroads. Political and economic integration in the European Union (EU) exceeds levels reached in the rest of the world. Economic integration affects trade, migration, agriculture, competition, regions, energy and money. Most euro area economies have been struggling with interlocking crises involving debt, banking and growth, which challenge the viability of monetary union. The EU is now facing a migration crisis. This course studies economic integration in Europe, the ongoing crises, and economic challenges facing EU member countries. It uses economic analysis to study policy issues. Two 90-minute lectures.

European countries have faced sequential crisis episodes since 2008 and the euro area is now one of the few areas where the economy has not yet recovered. How have fiscal imbalances in Greece which weighs less than 5% of the Eurozone GDP put all the system at risk? Can the Economic Monetary Union (EMU) be completed? Or has the EMU come to its final limit and will soon disintegrate? This course will combine basic international macroeconomic theory and political science literature on the European integration to address these questions.

This course examines the transformation of European economies from a circumstance in which Malthusian population pressure on resources was the dominant historical force to one in which the growth of population and income per-capita has become the norm for industrialized countries. This transformation, covering the period from roughly 1200-1900, marks one of history's great changes. Topics include the demographic, technological, and institutional preconditions that supported growth; and the consequences of industrialization to living standards, inequality, and its spread beyond Europe.

Economic analysis of the Chinese economy after 1949. Economic planning, economic reform, economic growth and fluctuations, consumption, environmental problems, population and human capital, banking and financial systems, foreign trade and investment, legal and political systems and current issues. Prerequisites: 100 and 101. Two 90-minute lectures one preceptorial.

Cities play a central role in the economy. But why do they exist? Why do people and firms pay so much money in order to crowd closely together? What forces shape their structure, size, and long-run success? The goal of this course is to answer some of these questions by analyzing cities as economic systems using both theoretical and empirical tools. The theory side of the course covers a standard set of urban models describing both the structure of cities and how they interact as part of larger national economies. The empirical side of the course draws on recent academic papers to introduce some of the econometric tools used to study cities.

Covers the economic analysis of crime and the criminal justice system, including criminal behavior, law enforcement, crime prevention, sentencing, capital punishment, organized crime, and the war on drugs. The primary goal of the course is to develop economic thinking to gain insight into the behavior of the key actors (potential offenders, potential victims, and the many parts of the enforcement system) that determine crime outcomes. The last third of the course analyzes and evaluates policies to prevent or reduce crime.

An introduction to the ethics of market exchange and of economic regulation intended to promote ethical goals. We ask how ethical commitments evolve, and how they influence competition and cooperation. We consider the moral dimension of outsourcing, sweatshops, wage gaps, price gouging, price discrimination, time-inconsistent preferences and policies that exploit them ("nudging"), trade in repugnant goods (such as human organs), poverty, and the inequality of income and health. Prerequisite: ECO 100. Two 90-minute lectures.

A survey of the history of economics, with emphasis on the origins, nature, and evolution of leading economic ideas. This course will situate economic ideas in their historical context, from Aristotle to early 20th century writers, to provide a deeper understanding of economic life and theories of it, emphasizing foundational issues such as the nature of human action and the social good; the role of the state in the economy; and the social and economic consequences of property, prices, money, production, trade and other defining attributes of commercial society. Two 90-minute lectures. Prerequisite: ECO 100.

Wealthy countries in the twenty-first century face a triple social crisis of rising inequality, economic stagnation, and failing political legitimacy; many observers blame free markets for these seemingly intractable problems. This course will explore the counter-intuitive idea that true free markets might actually be able to solve these problems by adopting radically new social institutions. These markets would upend property relations, traditional conceptions of democracy and international migration. We will critically interrogate such unconventional ideas and explore avenues for applying, disseminating and organizing around them.

This course studies the impact of recent technological innovations in the financial sector. We will first study the microeconomic principles of using big data to design credit rating systems, financial platforms, digital tokens, and smart contracts. We will then study a range of applications such as peer-to-peer lending, cryptocurrency valuation, crowdsourcing, micro-credit, green contracting and central bank digital tokens. Finally, we will study the macroeconomic impact of fintech on the broader economy.