New Economics Courses for 2011-12
We are pleased to offer several new courses for the academic year 2011-2012. This webpage provides very brief information on the new courses. Further details are (or will be) available in the Arts and Sciences Calendar, and on the Economics Departmental website later this summer.
The new courses, with links to the calendar, are:
The following are very brief descriptions of the courses, and a sketch of the prerequisites. Detailed prerequisites are in the calendar, and students are reminded that prerequisites are strictly followed.
Click here for 300-level courses;
Click here for 40X-numbered courses;
Click here for other new 400-level courses;
300-Level Courses
ECO306H1, American Economic History
This course will survey American economic history from the ante-bellum period to the present. One goal of this class will be to learn about economic events, factors and arguments in order to explain current economic events through an historical lens. Another goal will be to use the tools of economics to analyze important research questions in American economic history. Topics explored will include the following:
- The rapid growth and integration of the American economy in the late 19th and early 20th century;
- The causes of the onset of the Great Depression;
- The economic impact of slavery and its aftermath;
- Health and demographic trends;
- 20th century trends in inequality.
Classes will consist of lectures and discussion. There will be at least one term paper (essay), possibly a term test, and a final exam.
Prerequisites: Intermediate micro, macro, and statistics.
ECO316H1, Applied Game Theory
This course focuses on core ideas an concepts in game theory as a tool to understand a variety of strategic interactions, across several fields of application. The focus is broader, and the level of technical detail lower, than ECO326H1.Prerequisites: Intermediate micro.
ECO349H1, Money, Banking, and Financial Markets
This course studies the interaction of the monetary and banking sectors with financial markets and the broader economy. It builds especially on tools developed in intermediate macroeconomics, but also focuses on the institutional structure of the Canadian monetary sector, including the role and operation of the Bank of Canada.Prerequisites: Intermediate micro, macro, and statistics.
This course was previously offeredin 2010-2011 as ECO351H1, and the syllabus from the previous version is available through that link.
ECO357H1, Islamic Banking and Finance
This course provides an overview and economic analysis of Islamic Economics, Finance and Banking. Students will develop basic understanding and principles governing Islamic Economics & Finance, its history, growth and place in the world economy.Prerequisites: Intermediate micro and statistics.
This course was previously offeredin 2010-2011 as ECO356H1, and the syllabus from the previous version is available through that link.
ECO362H1, Economic Growth
The course considers a broad range of issues that underlie economic growth, including technical progress and the accumulation of human and physical capital. Beyond these factors, the course also investigates the efficiency with which capital is used, the role of foreign trade, and the possible roles for government and culture.Prerequisites: Intermediate micro, macro, and statistics.
This course was previously offeredin 2010-2011 as ECO352H1, and the syllabus from the previous version is available through that link.
"40X"-Numbered Courses
The ECO40XH series of courses is new for 2011-2012. These courses are designed to allow students to apply skills developed in previous economics courses to a specific area of interest near the frontier of economics.
The courses have a common set of prerequisites:
Note in particular that it is not necessary to have taken a 300-level course in the specific area of the 40X course, nor is the 40X version an exclusion to the 300-level version (e.g., you do not need to take a 300-level Health Economics course to take "Topics in Health Economics").
The courses also have a few common features:
ECO401H1, Topics in Economic Policy
This course covers basic issues in the theoretical and empirical evaluation of public policy. Sample topics include income redistribution through taxation and the provision of social insurance and public goods, the mitigation of externalities, and welfare analysis in behavioral models.The course will review the latest empirical methods and tools used in public economics and labour economics, drawing on evidence from the United States and Canada. Students will learn how to use empirical evidence on "behavioural responses" to characterize the properties of optimal policies. The course includes an introduction to new insights from the field of behavioural economics.
ECO402H1, Topics in Health Economics
Health economics is a fast growing field of microeconomics. This course has the following goals:
- To provide students with an overview of current and historical institutional characteristics of the health care market;
- Analyze the health care market theoretically and empirically using microeconomic tools and statistical analysis;
- Apply key concepts in the field to current domestic and international issues in health policy, which include the consequences of government regulation and market competition on outcomes of the health care industry.
Classes will consist of lectures and discussion. Students will write one term paper, and one exam.
ECO404H1, Topics in Managerial Economics
This course applies quantitative economic methods to analyze real world problems (mostly through Harvard Business School cases). Sample topics include: dynamic programming methods for Bio-tech R & D investment in developing artificial human insulin, Pricing airline seats (yield management), Panel data regression analysis for measuring product promotion in a supermarket chain, Negotiating prices of raw green coffee beans by batch size and optimal blend mix of green beans to achieve a target "taste" and "body" for a major coffee beverage company, New product design for an automaker, Decision making under uncertainty for a fishing company, Market segmentation for a PDA company, Valuing frequent flier miles for accounting statements, Inventory analysis for a company with demand uncertainty and option to carry over inventory in multiple storage facilities, Game theoretic analysis of price wars, Financial portfolio design, and optimal pricing.The course involves substantial modeling in Excel, regression analysis and optimization methods with sensitivity analysis. Students will write papers and make presentations.
ECO409H1, Topics in Money, Banking, and Finance
The theme of this course is that the best way to understand money, and institutions that provide financial intermediation, is by the use of dynamic models that are specific with respect to the services that money provides. Models with this feature are constructed using the tools mastered in intermediate micro and macroeconomics. The usefulness of these models is illustrated by applying them to analyze the roles of money and financial institutions in both short run financial crises, and in facilitating long run economic growth. The theoretical developments are complemented by discussions of Specific historical episodes and situations. This focus on basic principles provides students with frameworks that help understand the new situations and institutions that are part of the continual change that characterizes financial, and capital markets.Other 400-Level Courses
The following courses have more demanding pre-requisites, and are taught as joint undergraduate-graduate courses. These courses should appeal especially to students considering graduate school, or those students otherwise interested in exploring the frontiers of economic research.
ECO432H1, Topics in Economics of the Family
Many disciplines study the family. Economics bring an analytic and quantitative approach to the study of the family. The course will discuss analytic and empirical models of family behavior including nature versus nurture, parental investments, quantity and quality tradeoff in children, marital matching, resource allocation within the household and gender roles. The course will make liberal use of multivariate calculus and elementary econometrics. Lecture notes will be available online. There is also a reading list of about 10 required articles. Grading will be based on 4 problem sets (50%) and a final (50%).Prerequisites: Intermediate Micro with calculus (ECO204Y or ECO206Y), Advanced Micro (ECO326H), and Econometrics (ECO374H or ECO375H)
Recommended Preparation: ECO332H1 (Economics of the Family)
ECO434H1, Political Economy
The tools of economic analysis, like rational choice and optimizing behavior, as well as strategic interaction that can be modeled using game theory, are increasingly applied in the domain of politics. This course introduces students to the theoretical applications, and empirical evaluation, of economic models to political behavior.
Prerequisites: Advanced Micro (ECO326H) and Econometrics (ECO374H or ECO375H)
This course was previously offeredin 2010-2011 as ECO422H1, and the syllabus from the previous version is available through that link.
ECO438H1, Topics in the Economics of Business Cycles
This course will review the stylized empirical facts, introduce the basic Real Business Cycle model, and discuss the current extensions of the model in a Dynamic General Equilibrium framework. Students will learn some basic methods used to solve these types of models and work with common data need to calibrate and/or estimate the models.Prerequisites: Advanced Macro (ECO325H, minimum 80%) and Econometrics (ECO374H or ECO375H, with a minimum of 80%)