Spring 2023

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.

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.

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.

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 BUAD 351.

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 BUAD 352.

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.

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.

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

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

Consequences of trade deficits; theories of capital and currency markets, exchange rate regimes, and international monetary coordination.

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.

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.

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.

Selected topics in economic theory, history, or policy.

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.

Learn to design, analyze and interpret field experiments and understand their practical significance to applied economics, business and policy.

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

Understanding and implementing models commonly used in time series econometrics. Emphasis is placed on intuition and application. Assists students understanding how to use time series data to test hypotheses and serve as an introduction to the ideas and techniques of forecasting.

Classical economic theory; its precursors, main contributors, extensions and critics; focus upon the writings and ideas of Smith, Say, Malthus, Ricardo, Mill and Marx.

Introduction and exploration of quantitative methods and data sources used for applied trade policy analysis.

Introduction to the theory and practice of causal econometrics in modern settings of large-scale data. Major algorithms from machine learning focused on methodology and applications.

Broad training in theoretical and empirical finance. Choice under uncertainty; equilibrium asset pricing; static portfolio choice; factor pricing models, asset allocation; the Black-Scholes-Merton Formula.

Efficiency, market failure, government regulation, some basics for antitrust economics, competition policy analysis and collusion and agreements among competitors.

Economic methods to analyze issues of intellectual property, environmental damage, trademark infringement, brand value and consumer demand, using an applied econometric approach.

The role of designing incentives to reduce negative urban externalities and the interplay between spatial Big Data and testing urban economics hypotheses.

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. Students must have a specific job/internship offer. Job must be related to students major. The internship must be located at an off-campus facility. Students are individually supervised by faculty. Students must have been in F-1 student status for at least one academic year in a degree-seeking program before they can apply for CPT, with a cumulative 3.0 GPA. Course does not apply to degree credit. Open only to graduate students.

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.

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.

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.

A human capital interpretation of labor demand and supply; wage determination, differentials, and discrimination; job turnover and occupational mobility; unions and collective bargaining. Prerequisites: ECON-500 or ECON-601.

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.