Results for ECON

This is an introductory course in economics. We will cover both microeconomics (investigating decisions by individuals and firms) and macroeconomics (examining the economy as a whole). The primary goal is to develop and then build on your understanding of the analytical tools and approaches used by economists. This will help you to interpret economic news and economic data at a much deeper level while also forming your own opinions on economic issues. The course will also provide a strong foundation for those of you who want to continue on with intermediate microeconomics and/or intermediate macroeconomics and possibly beyond.

10 weekly one-on-one conversations with Nobel Laureates and MacArthur fellows, talking about their life story, how they got to their ideas, what they discovered, how the world is a better place as a result, what advice they have for students and young researchers, etc. Readings related to guest research will be assigned. Open to undergraduate and graduate students.

The seminar will provide an introduction and discussion of the impact of public policy on personal finance. Voters regularly rate the economy as one of the most important factors shaping their political views and most of those opinions are focused on their individual bottom lines. In this course we will discuss the rationale for different public policies and how they affect personal financial situations. We will explore personal finance issues such as taxes, loans, charity, insurance, and pensions. Using the context of (hypothetical) personal finance positions, we will discuss the public policy implications of various proposals and how they affect different groups of people, for example: the implications of differential tax rates for different types of income, the promotion of home ownership in the U.S., and policies to care for our aging population. While economic policy will be the focus of much of the course, we will also examine some of the implications of social policies on personal finance as well. There will be weekly readings and several short policy-related writing assignments.

Individual consumer and firm behavior under perfect competition. The role of markets and prices in a decentralized economy. Monopoly in partial equilibrium. Economic tools developed from multivariable calculus using partial differentiation and techniques for constrained and unconstrained optimization. Prerequisites: Econ 1 or 1V, and Math 51 or Math 51A or CME 100 or CME 100A.

Neoclassical analysis of general equilibrium, welfare economics, imperfect competition, externalities and public goods, risk and uncertainty, game theory, adverse selection, and moral hazard. Multivariate calculus is used. Prerequisite: ECON 50.

Capstone and writing in the major course open to Econ majors only. Economic policy analysis, writing and oral presentations will be large components of this course. Students may also complete group projects that include empirical economic analysis focused on a specific topic. The goal of this course is to enable students to utilize the skills they have acquired throughout their time in the major. Section topics vary by instructor. Enrollment limited to application at the start of each school year with student placement notifications before the term starts. Permission numbers will be provided to students. Limited to students applying to graduate in 2023-24. Prerequisites: Econ 51 and 52, 102B, and two field courses. Enrollment by application: https://economics.stanford.edu/forms.

Probabilistic modeling and statistical techniques relevant for economics. Concepts include: probability trees, conditional probability, random variables, discrete and continuous distributions, correlation, central limit theorems, point estimation, hypothesis testing and confidence intervals for both one and two populations. Prerequisite: MATH 20 or equivalent.

Institutional, theoretical, and empirical analysis of the problems of health and medical care. Topics: demand for medical care and medical insurance; institutions in the health sector; economics of information applied to the market for health insurance and for health care; economics of health care labor markets and health care production; and economic epidemiology. Graduate students with research interests should take ECON 249. Prerequisites: ECON 50 and either ECON 102A or STATS 116 or the equivalent. Recommended: ECON 51.

For graduate students and advanced undergraduates. This course teaches the foundations of finance. Topics include internal rate of return and net present value, Black-Scholes option pricing, portfolio diversification and the Capital Asset Pricing Model, relationships between risk and return, market efficiency, and the valuation of derivative securities. Much of the analysis will build on the Arrow-DeBreu state preference model. Next, adverse selection and moral hazard in contracting and the design of auctions will be discussed. Towards the end of the course applied topics such as bank capital regulation, sovereign debt, pension funds, university endowments, and the evaluation of private equity performance and fees will be discussed, depending on time. Prerequisites: MATH 51, ECON 50, ECON 102A, or equivalents or with permission of the instructor; ability to use spreadsheets, and basic probability and statistics concepts including random variables, expected value, variance, covariance, and simple estimation and regression.

May be repeated for credit.

As society faces major challenges, democracies and "free-market" capitalism appear to be in crisis. This interdisciplinary course will explore the complex interactions between corporations, governments, and individuals, drawing on insights from the social sciences, business, and law to understand how institutions and collective actions translate to a set of rules and to outcomes for people and nature. The course aims to help students become savvier in their interactions with our economic and political systems and understand the governance issues that are critical to whether and how well institutions in the private and public sectors serve us. Topics include financial decisions, financial markets, banks and institutional investors; corporations and corporate governance; political economy and the rule of law as it applies to people and to organizations, and the role and functioning of the media. We will connect the material to specific issues such as climate change and justice, and discuss current events regularly throughout the course. Students will have the opportunity to explore a situation of their choosing in more depth through group final projects. Visitors with relevant experiences will regularly enrich our class discussion.

The interaction between firms and consumers in markets that fall outside the benchmark competitive model. How firms acquire and exploit market power. Game theory and information economics to analyze how firms interact strategically. Topics include monopoly, price discrimination, advertising, oligopoly pricing, product differentiation, collusion and cartel behavior, and anti-competitive behavior. Sources include theoretical models, real-world examples, and empirical papers. Prerequisite: ECON 51 or PUBLPOL 301A or INTLPOL 204A, and ECON 102A. ECON 102B is recommended.

Introduces students to the interdisciplinary intersection of data science and the social sciences through an in-depth examination of contemporary social problems. Provides a foundational skill set for solving social problems with data including quantitative analysis, modeling approaches from the social sciences and engineering, and coding skills for working directly with big data. Students will also consider the ethical dimensions of working with data and learn strategies for translating quantitative results into actionable policies and recommendations. Lectures will introduce students to the methods of data science and social science and apply these frameworks to critical 21st century challenges, including education & inequality, political polarization, and health equity & algorithmic design in the fall quarter, and social media, climate change, and school choice & segregation in the spring quarter. In-class exercises and problem sets will provide students with the opportunity to use real-world datasets to discover meaningful insights for policymakers and communities. This course is the required gateway course for the new major in Data Science & Social Systems. Preference given to Data Science & Social Systems B.A. majors and prospective majors. Course material and presentation will be at an introductory level. Enrollment and participation in one discussion section is required. Sign up for the discussion section will occur on Canvas at the start of the quarter. Prerequisites: CS106A (required), DATASCI 112 (recommended as pre or corequisite). Limited enrollment. Please complete the interest form here: https://forms.gle/8ui9RPgzxjGxJ9k29. A permission code will be given to admitted students to register for the class.

Explaining patterns of trade among nations; characterizing the sources of comparative advantage in production and the prospect of gains from economies of scale. Enumerating and accounting for the net aggregate gains from trade, and identifying winners and losers from globalization. Analyzing the effects of international labor migration, foreign direct investment, outsourcing, and multinational companies. Strategic trade policy; international trade agreements; labor and environmental implications. We will review relevant theoretical frameworks, examine empirical evidence, and discuss historical and contemporary policy debates as covered in the popular press; active class participation is an important part of the course. Prerequisite: ECON 51 (Public Policy majors may take PUBLPOL 51 as a substitute for ECON 51).

Game theory is the formal toolkit for analyzing situations in which payoffs depend not only on your actions (say, which TV series you watch), but also others' (whether your friends are watching the same show). You've probably already heard of some famous games, like the prisoners' dilemma and the costly signaling game. We'll teach you to solve games like these, and more, using tools like Nash equilibrium, subgame perfection, Bayesian Nash equilibrium, and the one-off deviation principle. Game theory has traditionally been applied to understand the behavior of highly deliberate agents, like heads of state, firms in an oligopoly, or participants in an auction. However, we'll apply game theory to social behavior typically considered the realm of psychologists and philosophers, such as why we speak indirectly, in what sense beauty is socially constructed, and where our moral intuitions come from. Nearly each week, students are expected to complete a problem set, to read 2-3 academic papers, and to complete a 1-2 page response to short essay questions (`prompts') on these readings. All assignments can be completed in groups of two. There will also be a final exam. Prerequisites: Although there are no formal prerequisites for this course, we will make frequent use of probability theory (Bayes¿ Rule; conditional probabilities), set theory notation, and proofs. Students without a background in these tools have historically found some of the later problem sets to be challenging. TA sessions are not required, but are recommended for students without the necessary math background. Not sure if this class is for you? Take our self assessment, then see how your answers compare with ours. (Assessments and solutions can be found here: https://economics.stanford.edu/undergraduate/forms)

Are you interested in environmental and energy policy? Do you want to improve your data science skills? If so, Empirical Environmental Economics is for you. In the first few weeks of class, you'll use data and microeconomic modeling to quantify the harms from pollution, including estimating the social cost of carbon emissions. For the rest of the quarter, you'll use more data and microeconomic modeling to evaluate major environmental policies such as pollution taxes, cap-and-trade programs, and subsidies for clean technologies. You will consider overall benefits and costs as well as the distributional equity, which can inform discussions of environmental justice. You will learn and practice useful data science skills, including applied econometrics/causal inference methods (e.g., difference-in-differences, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity) and equilibrium modeling. The class has weekly problem sets involving data analysis in R, plus a final paper. Class sessions feature active learning, discussions, and small-group case studies. You should only enroll if you expect to attend regularly and complete the problem sets on time. Prerequisites: You must have experience with regression analysis (e.g., ECON 102 or 108, CS 129, EARTHSYS 140, HUMBIO 88, POLISCI 150C, or STATS 60 or 101). If you plan to take microeconomics (e.g., ECON 1, 50, or 51), we recommend you take those either beforehand or concurrently. If you have no economics background, you may still be comfortable in class if you are strong in math, statistics, and/or computer science. If you have not used R before, that is OK: we will guide you from the beginning. If you have used R before, you can still learn a lot in this class through the applications.

In-depth study of an appropriate question and completion of a thesis of very high quality. Normally written under the direction of a member of the Department of Economics (or some closely related department). See description of honors program. Register for at least 1 unit for at least one quarter after your honors application is approved. Winter registration for one unit under the supervision of the Director of the Honors Program is mandatory for all honors students.

(Non-Economics graduate students register for 202N.) Open to advanced undergraduates with consent of instructors. Theory of the consumer and the implications of constrained maximization; uses of indirect utility and expenditure functions; theory of the producer, profit maximization, and cost minimization; monotone comparative statics; behavior under uncertainty; partial equilibrium analysis and introduction to models of general equilibrium. Limited enrollment. Prerequisite: thorough understanding of the elements of multivariate calculus and linear algebra.

Dynamic programming applied to a variety of economic problems. These problems will be formulated in discrete or continuous time, with or without uncertainty, with a finite or infinite horizon. There will be weekly problem sets and a take-home final that will require MATLAB programming. Limited enrollment.

This course uses economic theory and empirical analyses to understand barriers to human and economic development in lower income countries, as well as how public policies are formulated and their effectiveness at alleviating poverty. Topics include barriers to agricultural productivity; urban and rural labor markets; migration; technological change; models of growth and development and public finance in less developed countries. Prerequisites: 202 or 202N, 270.

Topics in the theory and empirics of economic growth. For PhD-level students.

This course will cover research topics at the boundary between macroeconomics and finance. Topics may include the study of macroeconomic models with financial frictions, conventional and unconventional monetary policy, its transmission mechanism and the term structure of interest rates, sovereign debt crises, search frictions and segmentation in housing markets, (over)leveraging by households, heterogeneous expectations, excess volatility, financial bubbles and crises. Prerequisites: 210, 211, 212.

May be repeated for credit.

Design of tax systems, transfers intended to alleviate poverty, the effect of taxes on earnings, fees intended to internalize externalities like pollution, school finance and other forms of fiscal federalism, local public goods such as schools, policy evaluation with behavioral decision makers. Students will learn to apply sophisticated applications of frontier applied econometric techniques including synthetic controls, regression discontinuity, advanced instrumental variables methods. Prerequisites: ECON 202-204, ECON 210, ECON 270, ECON 271, or equivalent with consent of instructor.

Topics in current applied microeconomic research including intertemporal labor supply models, public policy, program evaluation, job search, migration, consumption behavior, the economics of the family, the technology of skill formation, discrimination. Student and faculty presentations.

We will discuss both theoretical and empirical analyses of environmental problems, ranging from local pollution challenges to global issues such as climate change. Topics include: Analyses of market failures, policy instruments, integrating environmental and distortionary taxes, policy making under uncertainty, valuing the environment, sustainable development, deforestation vs. conservation, and design of climate agreements.

Theoretical and empirical analyses of the determinants of market structure; firm behavior and market efficiency in oligopolies; price discrimination; price dispersion and consumer search; differentiated products; the role of information in markets, including insurance and adverse selection; auctions; collusion and cartel behavior; advertising; entry and market structure; market dynamics; strategic behavior.

This course presents the power system engineering and economic concepts necessary to understand the costs and benefits of transitioning to a low carbon electricity supply industry. The technical characteristics of generation units and transmission and distribution networks as well as the mechanisms used to operate the electricity supply industries will be studied. The fundamental economics of wholesale markets and how intermittent renewables impact the price and quantity of physical and financial products traded in these markets (e.g., energy, capacity, ancillary services, and financial contracts) will be analyzed. Long-term resource adequacy mechanisms will be introduced and their properties analyzed. The role of both short-duration and seasonal energy storage will be analyzed. Mechanisms for determining the engineering and economic need for transmission network expansions in a wholesale market will be discussed. The impact of distributed versus grid-scale generation on the performance of electricity supply industries will be studied. A detailed treatment of electricity retailing will focus on the importance of active demand-side participation in a low carbon energy sector. This course uses knowledge of probability at the level of Stats 116, optimization at the level of MS&E 111, statistical analysis at the level of Economics 102B, microeconomics at the level of Economics 51 and computer programming in R.

Probability, random variables, and distributions; large sample theory; theory of estimation and hypothesis testing; linear econometric models. Limited enrollment. Prerequisites: probability and statistics at the level of Bruce Hansen's textbook "Probability and Statistics for Economists.

This is the first part of a three course sequence (along with Econ 279 & 280-formerly 277) on behavioral and experimental economics. The sequence has two main objectives: 1) examines theories and evidence related to the psychology of economic decision making, 2) Introduces methods of experimental economics, and explores major subject areas (including those not falling within behavioral economics) that have been addressed through laboratory experiments. Focuses on series of experiments that build on one another in an effort to test between competing theoretical frameworks, with the objects of improving the explanatory and predictive performance of standard models, and of providing a foundation for more reliable normative analyses of policy issues. Prerequisites: 204 and 271, or consent of instructor.

This is an introduction to market design, intended mainly for second year PhD students in economics (but also open to other graduate students from around the university and to undergrads who have taken undergrad market design). It will emphasize the combined use of economic theory, experiments, and empirical analysis to analyze and engineer market rules and institutions. In this first quarter we will pay particular attention to matching markets, which are those in which price doesn't do all of the work, and which include some kind of application or selection process. We will also cover some of the basics of auction theory, with a particular emphasis on its connections to matching. In recent years market designers have participated in the design and implementation of a number of marketplaces, and the course will emphasize the relation between theory and practice, for example in the design of labor market clearinghouses for American doctors, school choice programs in a growing number of American cities (including New York and Boston), the allocation of organs for transplantation, online advertising auctions, and the market for transportation. Various forms of market failure will also be discussed. Assignment: One final paper. The objective of the final paper is to study an existing market or an environment with a potential role for a market, describe the relevant market design questions, and evaluate how the current market design works and/or propose improvements on the current design.

This is an advanced course on quantitative methods for empirical research. Students are expected to have taken a course in linear models before. In this course I will discuss modern econometric methods for nonlinear models, including maximum likelihood and generalized method of moments. The emphasis will be on how these methods are used in sophisticated empirical work in social sciences. Special topics include discrete choice models and methods for estimating treatment effects.

Students obtain employment in a relevant research or industrial activity to enhance their professional experience consistent with their degree programs. At the start of the quarter, students must submit a one page statement showing the relevance of the employment to the degree program along with an offer letter. Submit this documentation to the Econ professor, who has agreed to the student enrolling in their Econ 299 section. At the end of the quarter, a three page final report must be supplied documenting work done and relevance to degree program. May be repeated for credit.

Restricted to Economics Ph.D. students. Students present current research. May be repeated for credit.

Macroeconomic Seminar

Information and meeting times are available on the Department of Economics Website: https://economics.stanford.edu/seminars-events/list-seminars

May be repeated for credit. Information and meeting times are available on the Department of Economics Website: https://economics.stanford.edu/seminars-events/list-seminars

Field seminar in experimental and behavioral economics.

Issues in measuring and evaluating the economic performance of government tax, expenditure, debt, and regulatory policies; their effects on levels and distribution of income, wealth, and environmental quality; alternative policies and methods of evaluation. Workshop format combines student research, faculty presentations, and guest speakers. Prerequisite: ECON 241 or consent of instructor.

Information and meeting times are available on the Department of Economics Website: https://economics.stanford.edu/seminars-events/list-seminars

Information and meeting times are available on the Department of Economics Website: https://economics.stanford.edu/seminars-events/list-seminars

Pre-TGR dissertation research.(Staff)