Courses Taught
ECN 101 - Principles of Microeconomics
Summary: Principles of Microeconomics is an introductory course that focuses on how a free market system resolves the basic social questions of what goods and services to produce, how scarce resources are organized to produce goods and services, and to whom goods and services are distributed once they are produced. In pursuit of these objectives students will develop the basic tools needed to understand and analyze the behavior of consumers, households, and firms. Particular attention will be placed on how the actions of these groups of economic actors are coordinated by markets through price adjustments that balance demand and supply. A variety of economic and social issues will be examined including the nature and impact of several forms of market failure.
Download syllabus
ECN 102 - Principles of Macroeconomics
Summary: Principles of Macroeconomics is an introductory course that develops the basic tools needed to analyze the behavior of various macroeconomic phenomena. The course will start with an introduction to macroeconomic concepts such as gross domestic product (GDP), the price level, unemployment, and inflation. We will then cover the fundamentals of economic decision-making including demand and supply. Returning to macroeconomics, we will study long-run macroeconomic topics, such as economic growth, and short-run macroeconomic topics, such as the income-expenditure model, the aggregate demand – aggregate supply model (AD-AS), fiscal policy, and monetary policy. The role of the government in the economy will be discussed throughout the course.
Download syllabus
FYS 199 - The Economics of America's Civil Rights Movement
Summary: Why did America’s civil rights movement take place almost 100 years after the Fourteenth Amendment declared that “No State shall…deny to any person…the equal protection of the laws”? What economic incentives created the Jim Crow system of segregation in the American South after the Civil War? Did economic motivations fuel the Civil Rights Movement? What economic and social impacts did the movement have on black and white Americans? This first year seminar course analyzes these questions and more by exploring the causes and consequences of America's Civil Rights Movement through an economic lens. Students will also explore various interpretations of the movement through history, biography, graphic novels, and film.
Download syllabus
ECN 391 - Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
Summary: Environmental and Natural Resource Economics is a course that develops the basic tools needed to analyze environmental and natural resource problems, such as pollution and climate change, from an economic perspective. Students will become familiar with economic tools and concepts such as property rights, externalities, market failure, cost-benefit analysis, discounting, optimality, and sustainability. These tools will be used in the discussion of environmental policy design and analysis.
Download syllabus
ECN 420 - History of Economic Thought
Summary: This is a course about the development of economic ideas from ancient to modern times. Special attention will be paid to major economic thinkers including, but not limited to: Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall, Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes, and Milton Friedman. We will attempt to place these thinkers in the context of their times, which will involve understanding how political, economic, and social problems influenced the development of their ideas.
Download syllabus
ECN 498 - Senior Thesis
Summary: The primary objective of this course is to develop students' abilities to do independent research using the concepts and tools of economic analysis. The goal is to produce a creative and independent research project that will act as the major capstone course for economics majors. The thesis requires students to review and synthesize related literature from economics journals, and also to gather and analyze new data in support of a particular hypothesis. Such analysis typically requires extensive use of statistical and econometric techniques.
Download syllabus
Summary: Principles of Microeconomics is an introductory course that focuses on how a free market system resolves the basic social questions of what goods and services to produce, how scarce resources are organized to produce goods and services, and to whom goods and services are distributed once they are produced. In pursuit of these objectives students will develop the basic tools needed to understand and analyze the behavior of consumers, households, and firms. Particular attention will be placed on how the actions of these groups of economic actors are coordinated by markets through price adjustments that balance demand and supply. A variety of economic and social issues will be examined including the nature and impact of several forms of market failure.
Download syllabus
ECN 102 - Principles of Macroeconomics
Summary: Principles of Macroeconomics is an introductory course that develops the basic tools needed to analyze the behavior of various macroeconomic phenomena. The course will start with an introduction to macroeconomic concepts such as gross domestic product (GDP), the price level, unemployment, and inflation. We will then cover the fundamentals of economic decision-making including demand and supply. Returning to macroeconomics, we will study long-run macroeconomic topics, such as economic growth, and short-run macroeconomic topics, such as the income-expenditure model, the aggregate demand – aggregate supply model (AD-AS), fiscal policy, and monetary policy. The role of the government in the economy will be discussed throughout the course.
Download syllabus
FYS 199 - The Economics of America's Civil Rights Movement
Summary: Why did America’s civil rights movement take place almost 100 years after the Fourteenth Amendment declared that “No State shall…deny to any person…the equal protection of the laws”? What economic incentives created the Jim Crow system of segregation in the American South after the Civil War? Did economic motivations fuel the Civil Rights Movement? What economic and social impacts did the movement have on black and white Americans? This first year seminar course analyzes these questions and more by exploring the causes and consequences of America's Civil Rights Movement through an economic lens. Students will also explore various interpretations of the movement through history, biography, graphic novels, and film.
Download syllabus
ECN 391 - Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
Summary: Environmental and Natural Resource Economics is a course that develops the basic tools needed to analyze environmental and natural resource problems, such as pollution and climate change, from an economic perspective. Students will become familiar with economic tools and concepts such as property rights, externalities, market failure, cost-benefit analysis, discounting, optimality, and sustainability. These tools will be used in the discussion of environmental policy design and analysis.
Download syllabus
ECN 420 - History of Economic Thought
Summary: This is a course about the development of economic ideas from ancient to modern times. Special attention will be paid to major economic thinkers including, but not limited to: Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall, Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes, and Milton Friedman. We will attempt to place these thinkers in the context of their times, which will involve understanding how political, economic, and social problems influenced the development of their ideas.
Download syllabus
ECN 498 - Senior Thesis
Summary: The primary objective of this course is to develop students' abilities to do independent research using the concepts and tools of economic analysis. The goal is to produce a creative and independent research project that will act as the major capstone course for economics majors. The thesis requires students to review and synthesize related literature from economics journals, and also to gather and analyze new data in support of a particular hypothesis. Such analysis typically requires extensive use of statistical and econometric techniques.
Download syllabus