Global Arc

India's post-independence journey is a lens to study fundamental questions of economic development and political economy. Despite attempts at big-push industrialization, followed by economic liberalization in the 1990's, the country struggled to create jobs and provide public goods at par with rapid population growth. Extreme economic inequality is now only one concern amidst environmental degradation, gender-based violence, and a Hindu-nationalist political agenda. When, and how, will India achieve sustainable development? The seminar will draw on scholarly works and Indian cinema for a well-rounded economic, social and political commentary.

The course examines the history of financial innovation and its consequences. It examines the evolution of trading practices, bills of exchange, government bonds, equities, banking activity, derivatives markets, and securitization. How do these evolve in particular state or national settings, how are the practices regulated, how do they relate to broader development? What happens as financial instruments are traded across state boundaries, and how does an international financial order evolve? What are the effects of international capital mobility? How is resulting conflict and instability managed, on both a national and international level?

Special Topics in Institutions and Networks will house courses related to communications, media influence and information networks, international organizations and global governance, law and legal systems, political systems and social networks.

An introduction to probability theory and statistical methods especially as they relate to public policy. The course will consist of a brief introduction to probability theory as well as various topics in statistics and how they can be used in the public policy realm. Subject areas will include random variables, sampling, descriptive statistics, distributions, estimation, hypothesis testing, and introduction to the regression model. The data sources will be actual examples taken from the public policy realm. Stata, a general purpose statistical programming package will be used to perform the statistical analysis.

This course introduces students to basic concepts from the study of public policy. It will serve as an introduction into SPIA and the many disciplines that make up its faculty. The course is designed to familiarize students with the broader issues involved in analyzing, designing, and implementing public polity. The course will a) introduce students to three approaches that policy makers use to design and evaluate policy; and b) allow students to apply these abstract notions to a variety of policy debates.

This course will focus on less developed countries and will consider topics such as economic growth and personal well-being; economic inequality and poverty; intra-household resource allocation and gender inequality; fertility and population change, credit markets and microfinance; labor markets and trade policy. It will tackle these issues both theoretically and empirically.

Microeconomics is the study of how people and societies confront scarcity. This course, taught at the intermediate level, focuses on markets as a mechanism for dealing with scarcity, and uses examples that cast light on public policy issues. Two lectures, one preceptorial. Prerequisite: ECO 100.

The standard model used in economics is that of perfectly rational agents endowed with unlimited cognitive resources. However, there are many cases in which human behavior systematically differ from this benchmark. The goal of this class is to discuss these cases: when do they tend to occur, what form do they take, how to model them. We will discuss how people relate to the presence of risk, intertemporal choice, fairness, complexity, etc. For each topic, we will discuss the empirical evidence and leading models. Overall, this class will offer an introduction to one of the most exciting areas of research in economics.

An introduction to the use of economics in thinking about and dealing with environmental issues. Stress on economic externalities and the problem of dealing with them as instances of organizing gains from trade. Applications to a wide variety of problems, among them air pollution (including, importantly, global climate change), water pollution, solid waste and hazardous substances management, species preservation, and population policy.

Since the end of World War II the developing world has experienced numerous violent conflicts. These conflicts often pit government and allied forces against those of relatively small armed groups, often called "insurgents." This course will explore the roots of insurgency, the organization and tactics of insurgent groups (including the use of terrorism), counterinsurgency campaigns, and efforts at conflict resolution. It will focus on the conditions under which insurgents are most likely to prevail in their fight against better-resourced armed forces.