ECON 395 - Special Topics in Economics


Credits: 3


Prerequisite: ECON 203 or varies with topic. Course emphasis and prerequisites change from term to term and will be announced prior to preregistration. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different. A maximum of nine credits chosen from all special topics in economics courses may be used, with permission of the department head, toward requirements for the economics major.

Winter 2018, ECON 395A-01: Macro Forecasting (3). Prerequisite: ECON 100 or ECON 102, and ECON 203. This course is focused on time series analysis and forecasting methodologies that are applied to issues in business, finance, and economics. It covers various analytical techniques used by economists to model and forecast the macro and micro levels of economic activity. Topics include smoothing techniques, time series decomposition methods, regression-based forecasting, ARMA models, and unit-root and structural-change tests. Students learn to perform time series regressions, undertake forecasting exercises, and test a variety of hypotheses involving time series data. Stata and Excel software are used throughout. Collins.

Winter 2018, ECON 395B-01: Environmental Valuation (3). Prerequisite: ECON 203 and 210. Recommended: ECON 255. A broad overview of environmental valuation, with an emphasis on choice modeling. Environmental valuation is an important subfield of environmental economics, and very important to informing the decision-making process in the formulation of environmental policy. Both the USEPA and its counterpart in Australia require choice modeling to examine environmental impacts of proposed policies or projects. Students acquire advanced quantitative skills, including multinomial regression analysis (including complex versions such as random parameter models) and experimental design.Kahn.

Fall 2017, ECON 395A-01: Topic: Economic Culture and Development (3). Prerequisite: ECON 203. Economic development is deeply rooted in cultural factors, such as identity, belief, trust, and religion. These cultural factors in turn are rooted in history and economic development. The course explores historic origins of cultural factors and how those cultural factors have direct implication for economic development.   Development, as such, is understood within the backdrop of slow-changing, structural, and systematic elements. We also make use of data availability, methodological improvements, and empirical literature to advance our understanding of the economics of being poor. Silwal.

Fall 2017, ECON 395B-01: Topic: U.S. Economic History (3). Prerequisite: ECON 203. This course examines selected topics in the economic development of the U.S. economy.  The goals are to review major themes in U.S. economic history, to study professional research papers to learn how economists develop and interpret historical evidence, and to give students hands-on experience analyzing historical data.  Major themes include: migration flows to and within the U.S.; slavery and African-American economic progress since emancipation; transportation and industrialization; the Great Depression; and long-run changes in education, income, and urbanization. Shester.

Fall 2017, ECON 395C-01: International Trade (3). Prerequisite: ECON 203. This course examines a set of topics in International Economics, with an emphasis on policy.  We examine the current debates on who wins and who loses from trade and immigration, as well as the role of trade agreements like NAFTA in the U.S. economy.  We focus on a narrower range of topics in order to investigate issues in greater depth including examining primary research. Anderson.




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