Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS EC 745: Macroeconomics and Financial Markets
  Graduate Prerequisites: (GRSEC704) or consent of instructor. - Topics and approaches combine macroeconomics and finance, with an emphasis on developing and testing theories that involve linkages between financial markets and the macro economy.
• CAS EC 752: Topics in Labor Economics 2
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - In addition to GRS EC 751, this course prepares students to do research in labor economics. Topics include labor supply and demand, human capital, education, job search, wage determination, unemployment, immigration, family and gender, and discrimination. Sequence may be taken in either order.
• CAS EC 761: Public Finance
  Graduate Prerequisites: (GRSEC701) or consent of instructor. - The theory of excess burden; optimal taxation; static, dynamic, and interegional tax incidence; public goods; externalities; corporate taxation; dynamic fiscal policy; and cost-benefit analysis. Extensive use of calculus.
• CAS EC 762: Topics in Applied Public Finance
  Graduate Prerequisites: (GRSEC701) or consent of instructor. - Theory and practice of benefit-cost analysis and other similar techniques for evaluating investment projects. Emphasis on sources of divergence between public and private investment decisions through the estimation of shadow prices in a context of market distortions and disequilibrium. Case studies applying theoretical approach.
• CAS EC 764: Topics in Economic History 1
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - First half of two-semester PhD sequence. Topics generally selected from: history of public debt, state finance, and monetary policy; the Industrial Revolution; urbanization; transportation and trade; institutions and long-run performance; the Great Depression.
• CAS EC 765: Topics in Economic History 2
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Second half of two-semester PhD sequence. Topics generally selected from: agricultural and environmental economic history; manufacturing; demographic change; the female labor force; labor mobility; inequality; business organization and performance.
• CAS EC 781: Health Economics 1
  Graduate Prerequisites: (GRSEC701) or consent of instructor. - Basic issues in the health market: risk aversion, moral hazard, adverse selection, provider payment, physician-patient interaction, health plans, managed care, imperfect and quality competition, and laboratory and field experiments. Theoretical approach complements industrial organization and GRS EC 782.
• CAS EC 782: Health Economics 2
  Graduate Prerequisites: (GRSEC707) or consent of instructor. - Applies theory and econometrics to health topics, including demand and supply, imperfect information, plan-level competition, provider payment, risk adjustment, big data sets, behavioral economics, altruism and health care systems in developed and developing countries. Complements GRS EC 781.
• CAS EC 790: Topics in Economics
  Topic for Fall 2021: Writing in Communication. Intended for economics students who are writing their dissertations. Covers paper organization, essentials of abstracts and introductions, rewriting and editing, table presentations, mathematical writing and presentations at conferences and in seminars.
• CAS EC 791: International Trade
  Graduate Prerequisites: (GRSEC701) or consent of instructor. - Theories and empirical analysis of international trade. Comparative advantage-based neoclassical theory and new trade theory. Quantitative heterogeneous firms models. Empirics of firm-level trade patterns. Multinational production and other forms of globalization: vertical specialization, outsourcing, offshoring.
• CAS EC 792: International Finance
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor (GRS EC 712 recommended). - Theory and empirical analysis of problems in open economy macroeconomics and finance. Topics include dynamic macroeconomic models of open economies; international asset pricing; models of exchange rate determination; international risk sharing; sovereign debt and default.
• CAS EC 794: Financial Econometrics
  Graduate Prerequisites: (GRSEC712) or consent of instructor. - Presents econometric theory and methods for the analysis of financial markets. Topics include cross section and time series properties of asset returns, parametric and nonparametric volatility measurement, implied volatility, estimation of asset pricing models, continuous time models, systemic risk, and model uncertainty.
• CAS EC 798: Global Development Capstone
  Graduate Prerequisites: at least 12 credits toward the Global Development Policy MA or the Glo bal Development Economics MA. - Capstone course for MA students in Global Policy and Global Development Economics. Students, working in groups, apply economic theory, econometric methods, and real-world data to conduct an interdisciplinary policy analysis comparable to those performed in governments and nonprofit agencies.
• CAS EC 901: Dissertation Workshop in Applied Microeconomics 1
  Graduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD qualifying examinations. - Presentation and discussion of dissertation topics and work in progress.
• CAS EC 902: Dissertation Workshop in Macro and Monetary Economics 1
  Graduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD qualifying examinations. - Presentation and discussion of dissertation topics and work in progress.
• CAS EC 903: Dissertation Workshop in Applied Microeconomics 2
  Graduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD qualifying examinations. - Presentation and discussion of dissertation topics and work in progress.
• CAS EC 904: Dissertation Workshop in Applied Microeconomics 2
  Graduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD qualifying examinations. - Presentation and discussion of dissertation topics and work in progress.
• CAS EC 905: Dissertation Workshop in Economic Theory
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD qualifying examinations. - Presentation and discussion of dissertation topics and work in progress.
• CAS EC 906: Dissertation Workshop in Economic Theory
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD qualifying examinations. - Presentation and discussion of dissertation topics and work in progress.
• CAS EC 911: Dissertation Workshop in Econometrics 1
  Graduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD qualifying examinations. - Presentation and discussion of dissertation topics and work in progress.