Courses by semester
Courses for Fall 2023
Complete Cornell University course descriptions are in the Courses of Study .
| Course ID | Title | Offered |
|---|---|---|
| ECON1001 |
Principles of Micro-Economics Supplement
Reviews lecture material presented in ECON 1110 lectures; provides problem-solving techniques, study tips, and additional problems to prepare for exams and problem sets; provides additional time for questions and discussion of concepts. Provides additional instruction for students who need reinforcement.
Full details for ECON 1001 - Principles of Micro-Economics Supplement |
Fall, Spring, Summer. |
| ECON1002 |
Principles of Macro-Economics Supplement
Reviews lecture material presented in ECON 1120 lectures; provides problem-solving techniques, study tips, and additional problems to prepare for exams and problem sets; provides additional time for questions and discussion of concepts. Provides additional instruction for students who need reinforcement.
Full details for ECON 1002 - Principles of Macro-Economics Supplement |
Fall, Spring, Summer. |
| ECON1110 | Introductory Microeconomics Explanation and evaluation of how the price system operates in determining what goods are produced, how goods are produced, who receives income, and how the price system is modified and influenced by private organizations and government policy. | Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer. |
| ECON1120 | Introductory Macroeconomics Analysis of aggregate economic activity in relation to the level, stability, and growth of national income. Topics may include the determination and effects of unemployment, inflation, balance of payments, deficits, and economic development, and how these may be influenced by monetary, fiscal, and other policies. | Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer. |
| ECON2040 | Networks This interdisciplinary course examines network structures and how they matter in everyday life. The course examines how each of the computing, economic, sociological and natural worlds are connected and how the structure of these connections affects each of these worlds. Tools of graph theory and game theory are taught and then used to analyze networks. Topics covered include the web, the small world phenomenon, markets, neural networks, contagion, search and the evolution of networks. | Fall. |
| ECON3030 |
Intermediate Microeconomic Theory
The pricing processes in a private enterprise economy are analyzed under varying competitive conditions, and their role in the allocation of resources and the functional distribution of national income is considered.
Full details for ECON 3030 - Intermediate Microeconomic Theory |
Fall, Spring, Summer. |
| ECON3040 |
Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory
Introduces the theory of national income and determination and economic growth in alternative models of the national economy. Examines the interaction and relation of these models to empirical aggregate economic data. Reviews national accounts, output and employment determination, price stability and economic growth, in the context of alternative government policy programs and the impact of globalization.
Full details for ECON 3040 - Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory |
Fall, Spring, Summer. |
| ECON3110 |
Probability Models and Inference for the Social Sciences
This course provides an introduction to probability and parametric inference. Topics include: random variables, standard distributions, the law of large numbers, the central limit theorem, likelihood-based estimation, sampling distributions and hypothesis testing.
Full details for ECON 3110 - Probability Models and Inference for the Social Sciences |
Fall, Spring. |
| ECON3120 | Applied Econometrics Introduction to the theory and application of econometric techniques. Emphasis is on both development of techniques and applications of econometrics to economic questions. Topics include estimation and inference in bivariate and multiple regression models, instrumental variables, regression with qualitative information, heteroskedasticity, and serial correlation. Students are expected to apply techniques through regular empirical exercises with economic data. | Fall, Spring, Summer. |
| ECON3130 | Statistics and Probability Provides an introduction to statistical inference and to principles of probability. It includes descriptive statistics, principles of probability, discrete and continuous distributions, and hypothesis testing (of sample means, proportions, variance). Regression analysis and correlation are introduced. | Fall. |
| ECON3171 |
Causal Reasoning and Policy Evaluation I
Full details for ECON 3171 - Causal Reasoning and Policy Evaluation I |
Fall. |
| ECON3255 | Economics of Crime | Fall. |
| ECON3340 |
The Evolution of Social Policy in Britain and America
Surveys the history of social policy in Great Britain and the United States from 1800 to the adoption of the British welfare state after World War II. Topics include the role of poor relief in the early 19th century; the changing relationship between public relief and private charity; the adoption of social insurance programs and protective labor legislation for children and women; government intervention in the Great Depression; and the beginnings of the welfare state.
Full details for ECON 3340 - The Evolution of Social Policy in Britain and America |
Fall or Spring. |
| ECON3440 | Women in the Economy Examines the changing economic roles of women and men in the labor market and in the family. Topics include a historical overview of changing gender roles, the determinants of the gender division of labor in the family, trends in female and male labor-force participation, gender differences in occupations and earnings, the consequences of women's employment for the family, and a consideration of women's status in other countries. | Fall or Spring. |
| ECON3460 |
The Economics of Collective Bargaining in Sports
Surveys economic and industrial issues in the sports industry. Topics include salary determination, including free agency, salary caps, salary arbitration; competitive balance and financial health of sports leagues; antitrust issues in sports; labor disputes, union history, and contract administration issues in sports leagues; discrimination in sports; and performance incentives.
Full details for ECON 3460 - The Economics of Collective Bargaining in Sports |
Fall. |
| ECON3480 |
Race and the American Labor Market in Historical Perspective
This class investigates race and class in the American labor market from Colonial America to the present day. We investigate the circumstances and labor institutions that brought labor to the U.S. and how laborers of various classes were received. A primary goal of the class is to understand the degree to which social mobility was historically possible in different time periods in American history. Social mobility is intimately tied to labor market institutions and the ability for workers to get ahead within those institutions. Some of the institutions we study are Indentured Servitude, Slavery, tenant farming, the Great Migration and labor organization in the industrial north. Ultimately we hope to build an understanding of the historical roots of the role of race and class today.
Full details for ECON 3480 - Race and the American Labor Market in Historical Perspective |
Spring. |
| ECON3545 |
Money and Finance in the Digital Age
This course will cover analytical models and empirical evidence on the functioning of international financial markets (exchange rates, capital flows, monetary policy spillovers). Emerging market perspectives on these issues will be emphasized, with a particular focus on the economies of China and India. The course will also survey novel financial technologies (Fintech, cryptocurrencies, central bank digital currencies) and their implications for monetary policy, financial regulation, and other policies. Students will be required to write an independent research paper (knowledge of econometrics strongly recommended).
Full details for ECON 3545 - Money and Finance in the Digital Age |
Fall. |
| ECON3610 |
The Economics of Consumer Policy
Full details for ECON 3610 - The Economics of Consumer Policy |
Fall. |
| ECON3720 |
The Economics of Health Care Markets
Full details for ECON 3720 - The Economics of Health Care Markets |
|
| ECON3800 | Economics and the Law | Fall or Spring. |
| ECON3801 |
Introduction to Game Theory and Strategic Thinking
Some knowledge of game-theory is essential in today's age of complex decision-making, diplomacy, and corporate strategizing. This course is an introduction to the basic principles of game theory and rational choice. The course is designed for students with an interest in economics, political strategy, moral philosophy, and algorithmic reasoning. Important ideas and concepts, with real-life illustrations, will be discussed. Over the semester students will learn the essential ideas of Nash, Schelling and others, different conceptualizations of equilibrium, such as the Nash equilibrium and subgame perfection, and how they apply to different contexts, such as competition among firms, war, and diplomacy. The course will help us understand everyday phenomena, such as addiction, procrastination and moral dilemmas, and show how reasoning can be a critical input for personal happiness. Students will be introduced to some unresolved paradoxes of rational behavior and encouraged to try to solve them on their own.
Full details for ECON 3801 - Introduction to Game Theory and Strategic Thinking |
Fall. |
| ECON3830 |
Economics of Consumer Protection and the Law
Full details for ECON 3830 - Economics of Consumer Protection and the Law |
Fall. |
| ECON3850 |
Economics and Environmental Policy
Full details for ECON 3850 - Economics and Environmental Policy |
Fall. |
| ECON3855 | Urban Economics This course introduces the concepts and methods used by economists to study not only cities, regions and their relationships with each other, but, more generally, the spatial aspects and outcomes of decision-making by households and firms. Areas examined include determinants of urban growth and decline, land and housing markets, transportation issues, segregation and poverty, and the allocation and distribution of urban public services. | Spring. |
| ECON4130 | Statistical Decision Theory Statistical Decision Theory provides a normative framework to think about how to best use data to aid decision making under uncertainty. The goal of this course is to provide an undergraduate introduction to Statistical Decision Theory. At the end of the course, the students will be able to define Statistical Models, Statistical Decision Problems, Statistical Decision Rules, Risk Functions, and to describe different optimality criteria for statistical decision making (Bayes risk minimization, the minimax principle, and the minimax regret principle). The course will present different applications to Economics, Econometrics, and Machine Learning. | Fall or Spring. |
| ECON4260 |
Public Finance: The Microeconomics of Government
Analyzes the role of government in a free market economy. Topics include public goods, market failures, allocation mechanisms, optimal taxation, effects of taxation, and benefit-cost analysis. Current topics of an applied nature vary from semester to semester.
Full details for ECON 4260 - Public Finance: The Microeconomics of Government |
Fall. |
| ECON4290 | Economic Analysis of Politics This is an advanced course intended for upper level economics undergraduates who enjoy learning about and analyzing economic models. The course provides an introduction to the economic analysis of politics. Part I discusses collective choice and introduces some core ideas from social choice theory. Part II provides an overview of economic theories of political behavior. Part III discusses how political decisions are distorted away from those that would be made by the benevolent governments from public economics textbooks. Part IV offers economic perspectives on a number of contemporary issues in American politics. | Fall or Spring. |
| ECON4660 | Behavioral Economics This course introduces students to behavioral economics, a subfield of economics that incorporates insights from psychology and other social sciences into economics. The course reviews some of the standard assumptions made in economics, and examines evidence on how human behavior systematically departs from these assumptions. The course then investigates alternative models of human decision making, and assesses to what extent these alternative models help improve economic analyses. | Fall or Spring. |
| ECON4903 |
Quantitative Analysis of Economic Data
The course will appeal to students who have strong quantitative skills and would like to see applications of economic theory to analyze issues prominent in major public debates. Currently, we offer a very limited number of advanced courses that require students to do independent research, discuss their ideas in teams, present their work, and write a research proposal.
Full details for ECON 4903 - Quantitative Analysis of Economic Data |
Fall. |
| ECON4907 |
The Economics of Asymmetric Information and Contracts
This course provides an introduction to the economics of asymmetric information, contracts and mechanism design. Topics covered include: bilateral contracting problems with moral hazard and/or adverse selection, bargaining with asymmetric information, the design of optimal auctions and other multilateral mechanisms, signaling and incomplete contacts. Prerequisites include intermediate microeconomics and statistics. The student is expected to be comfortable with basic probability (random variables, expectation, independence, and conditional probability) and calculus.
Full details for ECON 4907 - The Economics of Asymmetric Information and Contracts |
Fall. |
| ECON4998 |
Cross-Cultural Work Experiences
Full details for ECON 4998 - Cross-Cultural Work Experiences |
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| ECON4999 | Independent Study in Economics Independent study. | Fall, Spring. |
| ECON6090 | Microeconomic Theory I Topics in consumer and producer theory. | Fall. |
| ECON6130 | Macroeconomics I Covers the following topics: static general equilibrium; intertemporal general equilibrium: infinitely lived agents models and overlapping generations models; welfare theorems; equivalence between sequential markets and Arrow-Debreu Markets; Ricardian proposition; Modigliani-Miller theorem; asset pricing; recursive competitive equilibrium; the Neoclassical Growth Model; calibration; and introduction to dynamic programming. | Fall. |
| ECON6170 |
Intermediate Mathematical Economics I
Covers selected topics in matrix algebra (vector spaces, matrices, simultaneous linear equations, characteristic value problem), calculus of several variables (elementary real analysis, partial differentiation) convex analysis (convex sets, concave functions, quasi-concave functions), classical optimization theory (unconstrained maximization, constrained maximization), Kuhn-Tucker optimization theory (concave programming, quasi-concave programming).
Full details for ECON 6170 - Intermediate Mathematical Economics I |
Fall. |
| ECON6190 | Econometrics I Gives the probabilistic and statistical background for meaningful application of econometric techniques. Topics include probability theory probability spaces, random variables, distributions, moments, transformations, conditional distributions, distribution theory and the multivariate normal distribution, convergence concepts, laws of large numbers, central limit theorems, Monte Carlo simulation; statistics: sample statistics, sufficiency, exponential families of distributions. Further topics in statistics are considered in ECON 6200. | Fall. |
| ECON6590 |
Empirical Strategies for Policy Analysis
Full details for ECON 6590 - Empirical Strategies for Policy Analysis |
Fall. |
| ECON6990 | Readings in Economics Independent study. | Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7240 |
Causal Inference and Machine Learning
This course introduces econometric and machine learning methods that are useful for causal inference. Modern empirical research often encounters datasets with many covariates or observations. We start by evaluating the quality of standard estimators in the presence of large datasets, and then study when and how machine learning methods can be used or modified to improve the measurement of causal effects and the inference on estimated effects. The aim of the course is not to exhaust all machine learning methods, but to introduce a theoretic framework and related statistical tools that help research students develop independent research in econometric theory or applied econometrics. Topics include: (1) potential outcome model and treatment effect, (2) nonparametric regression with series estimator, (3) probability foundations for high dimensional data (concentration and maximal inequalities, uniform convergence), (4) estimation of high dimensional linear models with lasso and related methods, (5) estimation of high dimensional generalised linear models with L1 regularisation, (6) introduction to other machine learning methods such as neural networks, regression trees and random forests, (7) inference on semiparametric models with high dimensional components, orthogonalisation, de-biased machine learning, (8) other related topics, such as balancing methods, treatment choice problems, etc. Class slides will be circulated and students are expected to read theoretic and empirical research papers that involve machine learning methods.
Full details for ECON 7240 - Causal Inference and Machine Learning |
Fall or Spring. |
| ECON7260 |
Econometrics of Network Analysis
An overview of the models and methods for analyzing data with cross-sectional dependence, i.e., those able to explicitly test behavioral models with interdependent agents' decisions. The technicalities are presented in a basic formulation, favoring the transmission of ideas, intuitions, and stressing the links with underlying behavioral mechanisms essential to guiding the interpretation of the results. The open questions in the economics literature are emphasized. They include: 1) the definition of the reference group; 2) the possible presence of unobserved attributes that may generate a problem of confounding variables (spurious spatial correlation); and 3) simultaneity in agents' behavior that may hinder identification of exogenous effects, i.e., influence of agents' attributes) from endogenous effects, i.e., influence of agents' outcomes. This short course focuses on identification issues.
Full details for ECON 7260 - Econometrics of Network Analysis |
Fall. |
| ECON7385 | Economics and Politics Focused on analytical models of political institutions, this course is organized around canonical models and their applications. These include voting models, menu auctions, models of reputation, and cheap talk games. These models are used to explain patterns of participation in elections, institutions of congress, lobbying, payments to special interest groups and other observed phenomena. | Fall. |
| ECON7420 | Seminar in Labor Economics I Includes reading and discussion of selected topics in labor economics. Stresses applications of economic theory and econometrics to the labor market and human resource areas. | Spring. |
| ECON7650 |
Development Microeconomics Graduate Research Seminar
Graduate students and the instructor present draft research proposals, papers, and preliminary thesis results for group review and discussion. Students who actively participate by offering written and oral comments on others' work receive 1 credit. Students who also present their own proposal or paper receive 2 credits. Presentations last 75 minutes and thus represent a substantial investment of time. Students who present a second proposal or paper receive 3 credits.
Full details for ECON 7650 - Development Microeconomics Graduate Research Seminar |
Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7740 |
Law and Economics: A Game-Theoretic Approach
This course introduces graduate students to the main concepts and ideas of law and economics, founded on elementary game theory. These ideas are then applied to contemporary policy concerns, from promoting economic development and designing welfare interventions in developing countries, to controlling corruption and financial fraud. The defining feature of the course is the structuring of these topics within a common conceptual framework, and training students to develop these ideas further and apply them to new research questions.
Full details for ECON 7740 - Law and Economics: A Game-Theoretic Approach |
Fall. |
| ECON7841 | Econometrics Workshop Research workshop featuring guest lecturers. | Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7842 | Microeconomic Theory Workshop Research workshop featuring guest lecturers. | Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7843 |
Industrial Organization Workshop
Research workshop featuring guest lecturers.
Full details for ECON 7843 - Industrial Organization Workshop |
Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7845 | Workshop in Labor Economics Research workshop featuring guests lecturers. Presentations of completed papers and work in progress by faculty members, advanced graduate students, and speakers from other universities. Focuses on the formulation, design, and execution of dissertations. | Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7846 |
S.C. Tsiang Macroeconomics Workshop
Research workshop featuring guest lecturers.
Full details for ECON 7846 - S.C. Tsiang Macroeconomics Workshop |
Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7847 | Development Workshop Research workshop featuring guest lecturers. | Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7848 | Public Economics Workshop Research workshop featuring guest lecturers. | Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7849 | Behavioral Economics Workshop Research workshop featuring guest lecturers. | Fall, Spring. |
| ECON7850 | Third Year Research Seminar Ph.D. students in the Field of Economics are required to take this year-long research seminar, and receive a grade of Satisfactory, in order to remain in good standing in the Ph.D. program. Students present and discuss each second-year paper, which must be completed before the semester opens and Economics 7850 meets for the first time. Students also present at least two additional papers or paper plans. These are intended to be part of the core of the student's thesis proposal, which must be given as part of the student's A Exam prior to the start of the fourth year of graduate study in the economics Ph.D. program. Economics 7851 ends with a mini-conference, attended by faculty and other Ph.D. students, in which each student makes a formal presentation in standard economics conference format, and each student discusses one of these presentations. Professional writing and presentation coaching is also provided. | Fall. |