Spring 2020

Behavior of firms and consumers, functions of the price system, competition and monopoly, labor markets, poverty, government regulation, international trade, and the environment.

Unemployment, inflation and output determination and links.Effects of government taxation and spending on growth, investment,saving, consumption, and trade.

Decision making by business firms, consumer preferences and behavior, uncertainty, competition, monopoly, labor and resource markets, efficient resource allocation, externalities, and government policy.

Explores the theoretical framework of how economic agents make choices and what the implications of these choices are; presentation and application of analytical tools.

The determinants of aggregate income, employment, and inflation;economic fluctuations; fiscal and monetary policy; financialmarkets; the national debt.

Introduction to statistical methods appropriate for analyzing economic data: probability theory, random variables and probability distributions, sampling, estimation, statistical inference.

Application of statistical methods to economic data: estimating economic relationships using regression analysis, testing hypotheses involving economic behavior, forecasting economic variables.

Central topics in the philosophy of economics, including models of economic rationality, the aggregation of preferences and the conditions in which markets yield undesirable outcomes.

Causes of economic underdevelopment: historical, institutional, structural, ideological, technological, cultural. Patterns and theories of development. Role of government, international trade, and education in economic growth.

International cooperation and conflict in the world economy. Global economic problems of growth and development, trade and finance, migration, economic stability, and the environment.

Development and business applications of: theory of the firm; theory of the consumer; inter-temporaldecisions; decisions under risk; market failures; industrial and enterprise structure. Prerequisites: MATH 118 or MATH 125 or MATH 126 or MATH 226. Not for major credit for: Economics, Economics/Mathematics, Social Sciences (Economics). Duplicates credit in former ECON 251.

Theoretical development and significance to business and markets of economic growth; inflation;unemployment; monetary and fiscal policy; business cycles; savings and investment; exchange rates. Corequisite: ECON 351. Recommended preparation: introductory economics course, high school math, and algebra. Not for major credit for: Economics, Economics/Mathematics, Social Sciences (Economics). Duplicates credit in former ECON 252x.

The money, bond, stock, and other financial markets; portfolio choice; determinants of asset prices and interest rates; inflation; interactions between financial markets and government policies.

Role of the government; income and corporate taxation; direct versus indirect taxation; optimal tax structure; public goods; public sector pricing; public debt and macroeconomic stability.

The challenges of policy coordination among independent political entities, starting from the aftermath of German unification (and the ramifications it had in a fixed exchange rate system) to the recent national debt crisis that followed the great recession.

Selected policy dilemmas, including welfare reform, urban renewal, government budget deficits, regulation and deregulation, environmental problems, immigration, and global development. Lectures by leading authorities and weekly discussion sessions.

Introduction to the methodology used in experimental neuroeconomics and discussion of neural correlates of decision-making. Prerequisite: ECON 303.

Detailed discussion of economic models, including models of health, addiction, demand for healthcare and demand for insurance.

Analysis of binary dependent variable models, panel data analysis, program evaluations, IV analysis, basics of time series and forecasting.

What is happiness? How does it vary by socio-economic status and over the life cycle? This course will develop insight into the nature and determinants of subjective well-being. Recommended preparation: ECON 305

Analysis of economic variables; investigation of empirical economics to estimate or test for relationships using various forms of data.

Common law and property; rationing of justice; resource allocation between prevention and enforcement; division of decision making between public and private sectors.

General equilibrium analysis of economics with financial markets; decision making under uncertainty; methods of risk reduction; portfolio theory and valuation of securities; efficiency of security markets.

A human capital interpretation of labor demand and supply; wage determination, differentials, and discrimination; job turnover and occupational mobility; unions and collective bargaining.

Health as an investment in human capital; analysis of the demand for and supply of health services and manpower; health insurance; cost-effectiveness analysis; market structures and the pricing of medical services.

Economic consulting and managerial economic methods applied in real world problems. Economic methods to analyze issues of intellectual property, environmental damage, trademark infringement, brand value, and consumer demand. Prerequisite: ECON 303.

Management and extraction of renewable and non-renewable natural resources; environmental externalities and regulation of air, water, and land pollution; market incentives versus direct regulation.

Supervised individual research. Not available for graduate credit. Requires departmental approval.

Individual research supervised by a faculty advisor. Successful completion required for departmental honors degree.

Theories of the household and the firm; product and factor markets; perfect and imperfect competition; welfare criteria.

Theories of aggregate economic activity; design and use of macroeconometric models; stabilization and control of inflation, unemployment, and growth.

Students will cover large ground in applying game theory to economic and financial markets and interactions in a diverse set of examples like reputation, herding, bubbles and crashes, auctions, strategic information revelation and information accumulation in markets. We will witness the wide range of applications that is amenable to game theoretical analysis.

Application of econometric tools using standard econometric software packages for microcomputers; empirical applications to selected economic problems of estimation and inference.

Factors that make values an essential feature of human society; how values develop, change, and are abandoned; role of values in economic development.

Development, underdevelopment and the problems thereof; agriculture, industry, trade, population, human capital, capital formation; structural, technological, environmental and institutional changes; political economy of the state.

Economic consulting and applied econometric methods applied to real world problems including issues of intellectual property, environmental damage, trademark infringement, brand value and consumer demand.

Research leading to the master's degree. Maximum units which may be applied to the degree to be determined by the department. Graded CR/NC.

Part-time or full-time, practical work experience in the student's field of study. The internship must be located at an off-campus facility. Students are individually supervised by faculty. May not be taken until the student has completed at least one semester of enrollment in the graduate program with a cumulative 3.0 GPA.

Selected topics in economics as developed by the instructor.

General equilibrium theory; existence, uniqueness, and stability; welfare economics; social choice; dynamic models and uncertainty; special topics. Prerequisite: ECON-601.

Macroeconomic theory based on the concepts of optimal growth and intertemporal equilibrium; overlapping generations models; recent developments in macroeconomic theory. Prerequisites: ECON-601 and ECON-602.

Examination of behavioral theories used to describe and predict choices made in both an individual decision-making setting and strategic environments. Prerequisite: ECON 601.

Review of statistical methods of estimation and inference, linear regression with multicollinearity and serial correlation; multivariate regression and simultaneous equations. Prerequisite: ECON 611. Duplicates credit in former ECON 511.

Experimental methods relying on non-choice data. Design methods of experiments that record information in decision-making and physiological data of emotions.

Mathematical tools for the study of social and economic networks.

Theory and empirics of the sources of and barriers to economic development and the micro underpinnings of macroeconomic dynamics of growth, inequality, and productivity. Prerequisites: ECON 601 and ECON 609.

General equilibrium theory applied to theory and practice of commercial policy, economic growth, and trade. Prerequisites: ECON-500 or ECON-601.

Balance of payments concepts and measures; price theory and the foreign exchange market; international monetary systems; adjustment mechanisms; speculation and official intervention.

Financial market equilibrium and partial equilibrium asset pricing in discrete and continuous time; properties of equilibria with and without complete markets: theory of option prices: Black-Scholes pricing formula; term structure of interest rates; hedging strategies and managing market risk using options, futures and swaps; hedging exchange-rates risks. Prerequisite: ECON-601.

This course first proposes various means of evaluating an economic program. It then applies the tools to specific problems. Prerequisites: ECON 500 or ECON 601 and ECON 609.

Theories and methods of government regulation; effects of regulation on various industries; behavior of regulatory agencies. Prerequisites: ECON-500 or ECON-601.

Econometric analysis of industrial organization issues including industry regulation and deregulation, collusions and pricing in differentiated oligopolistic markets, entry and exit, auction mechanisms, contractual relationships. Prerequisites: ECON-601 and ECON-603. Recommended preparation: ECON 600, ECON 603, ECON 612, ECON 615, ECON 680.

Current research in economic theory presented by faculty, students, and outside scholars. Graded CR/NC.

Current research in econometrics presented by faculty, students, and outside scholars. Graded CR/NC.

Current research in international, regional, and urban development economics presented by faculty, students, and outside scholars. Graded CR/NC.

Topics in dynamic economics involving business fluctuations, economic growth and development, microeconomic adjustments and market mechanisms; related quantitative and qualitative methods; empirical research involving economic change. Graded CR/NC.

Presentations on current research in empirical microeconomics by outstanding scholars from leading Economics departments and faculty at USC. Open only to Economics Ph.D. students. Graded CR/NC.

Examination of various frontier research topics of economics through critical discussions of research papers that study the most recent economic research agendas.

Time-series methods; aggregation; structural models and methods such as factor analysis and multiple indicator models; various special topics.

Credit on acceptance of Dissertation. Graded CR/NC.

Credit on acceptance of Dissertation. Graded CR/NC.

Credit on acceptance of Dissertation. Graded CR/NC.

Credit on acceptance of Dissertation. Graded CR/NC.

Credit on acceptance of Dissertation. Graded CR/NC.