SYE Application 2010-11

Seminar Choices for 2010-11

Research Seminar This seminar is intended for students desiring to complete an SYE Independent Project (Economics 489/490) or do a full-year, two-unit honors project (Economics 495 & 499). In the fall, students will meet as a seminar, develop project proposals, and begin work on their individual projects. Students allowed to continue with honors will register for Economics 499, Senior Honors Project, for the spring semester. Students wishing to do honors projects must have a cum in economics of 3.5 or better by the end of their junior year. Students wishing to do independent projects must have a GPA of 3.0 or better and submit approved written topic proposals before the last week of classes in the spring of their junior year. |Instructor: Horwitz | Semester: Fall '10|

Great Ideas that Changed Economics:  Game Changers.  Like any discipline, economic thought evolves slowly, almost incrementally, with sudden bursts, new ideas that fundamentally alter how we view an economic outcome or phenomenon; sudden innovations in economic thinking that are "game changers." The economist's view of the firm was radically altered when Coase published "The Nature of the Firm." The pricing system was viewed in a different light with Hayek's publication of The Use of Knowledge in Society. In this course, we will examine several contributions from across the discipline that changed the game, contributions that altered economic thinking.   |Instructor: Chezum | Semester: Fall '10| 

Applied Research in Environmental Economics.  In this seminar, student groups will conduct applied economic research as it applies to environmental issues. The issues studied will be local in nature and will be chosen at the beginning of the semester. In previous seminars a contingent valuation survey was designed and administered to investigate how residents valued wind mills in the area. Strong commitment to working in groups and going "beyond the textbook" are a must to enroll in the class. |Instructor: Boulatoff | Semester: Fall '10|

The Great Depression: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom.  The Great Depression was the most important event in the economic and political history of the United States in the 20th century. Much of our thinking about the relationship between markets and government has been affected not only by the events of the Great Depression, but more important, by the interpretations that have been offered for its causes and cures. The "conventional wisdom" that the Great Depression was a failure of capitalism and the government intervention of New Deal and World War II was the cure still dominates intellectual and public policy debates about markets and government, and particularly so in comparisons to the current recession. In this seminar, we will focus our attention on economic historians who offer critical assessments of this conventional wisdom, including some who argue that government was the cause and market processes were the cure. Though there are no specific prerequisites, we will use insights from monetary theory, labor economics, and political economy to explore and evaluate these alternative narratives and their implications for public policy today, including some ongoing direct comparison between the Great Depression and the Great Recession. |Instructor: Horwitz | Semester: Fall '10|

The Keynesian Revolution.The subprime crisis and the current recession have revived Keynesian style fiscal policies around the world. Keynes is once more in vogue, at least among policy makers, and economists must once again deal with the problems of macroeconomic stability which are reminiscent of pre-war theoretical and policy debates. This seminar will revisit these debates and consider them in light of the current macroeconomic problems. Was there a "Keynesian revolution" as first generation Keynesians proclaimed? Is it true that the "classical" economists had no answer to macroeconomic instability? Did Keynes prove that the economy is not self-correcting? These are the questions we will address as we consider the "Keynes vs. Classics" debate   |Instructor: Young | Semester: Spring '11|

Game Theory. Checkers, chess, hockey, auctions, divorce trials, international treaty negotiations, teen age dating, collective bargaining, and faculty meetings have something in common.. Each constitutes a situation where two or more "players" match wits, where outcomes depend on player strategies, and where there is significant interdependence between players. "Game Theory", the framework commonly used to analyze such situations, was first developed by Von Neuman and Morgenstern in 1944, and has been refined and extended by others, including John Nash, a Nobel laureate portrayed in the recent movie A Beautiful Mind. Since, in the words of another Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson, "to be literate in the modern age you need to have a general understanding of game theory", this course provides an introduction to the theory of non-cooperative games. It then explores applications in the fields of economics, politics, law, and sociology. |Instructor: FitzRandolph | Semester: Spring '11|