Posts Tagged ‘syllabus’

Health Economics
Course numbers:
UIC – ECON 215
Loyola – ECON 329
FULL SYLLABI:
UIC | Loyola

“America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”

– Walter Cronkite

INTRODUCTION

This course will cover supply and demand for health services, the role of insurance in the health care industry, public policy issues, cost and quality regulation. Upon completion of this course you will be able to:

  • Use cost-benefit analysis to evaluate health related topics.
  • Apply economic principles to the production of health and health capital.
  • Use economic tools to analyze health insurance markets.
  • Understand the basics of the health care labor market.

REQUIRED TEXTS

The Economics of Health and Health Care, Seventh Edition
Sherman Folland, Allen C. Goodman, Miron Stano
ISBN-13: 978-0132773690

Irrationality in Health Care: What Behavioral Economics Reveals About What We Do and Why
Douglas E. Hough
ISBN-13: 978-0804777971

Principles of Macroeconomics
Course numbers:
UIC – ECON 221
NEIU – ECON 121
Loyola – ECON 202

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body – the producers and consumers themselves.”

– President Herbert Hoover

INTRODUCTION

This course investigates the determinants of the level of economic activity, inflation, unemployment, interest rates, the roles of fiscal and monetary policies, exchange rates, international trade.

REQUIRED TEXTS

Modern Principles of Macroeconomics, Second Edition
Cowen and Tabarrok
ISBN: 1429239980

The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protectionism, Third Edition
Russ Roberts
ISBN: 0131433547

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Principles of Microeconomics
Course numbers:
UIC – ECON 120
NEIU – ECON 217

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“A planted seed has value long before it becomes a tree. The potential benefits are enough to give it value. Teaching is the planting of seeds. Knowledge, or even better, wisdom, is an investment like a tree that goes on and on producing fruit. But unlike a fruit tree, you have no idea when the fruit will come or what kind it will be.”

– Russell Roberts, The Price of Everything p. 168

INTRODUCTION

This course is an introduction to microeconomics. We will be looking at some general beliefs about how firms, individuals, and households respond to changes in incentives.

REQUIRED TEXT

Modern Principles: Microeconomics, First Edition
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok
Publisher: Worth
ISBN: 1-4292-4638-3

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Intermediate Microeconomics
Course number:
UIC – ECON 218

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“Ask a physicist how long it would take a bowling ball to land if you dropped it from the roof of your house. He will happily assume that your house is located in a vacuum, and then proceed to calculate the right answer. Ask an engineer to predict the path of a billiard ball after it is struck at a certain angle. He will assume that there is no such thing as friction, and the accuracy of his prediction will give him no cause for regret. Ask an economist to predict the effects of a rise in the gasoline tax. He will assume that all people are rational and give you a pretty accurate response.”

– Steven E. Landsburg The Armchair Economist p. 10

INTRODUCTION

The price system, efficient resource allocation by consumers, firms, and government; perfect and imperfect competition; government regulation; ethics and the marketplace; business applications. Prerequisites: Econ 130 or both Econ 120 and 121; and either Math 160 or 165 or 180.

REQUIRED TEXT

Microeconomics: Theory and Applications
Browning and Zupan Tenth Edition
ISBN: 978-0-470-12891-6

Study guide: ISBN: 978-0-470-42949-5

 

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Intermediate Macroeconomics
Course numbers:
UIC – ECON 221
NEIU – ECON 303

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently.”

– Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate Is Central Bank Independence All It’s Cracked up to Be?, Project Syndicate

INTRODUCTION

Macroeconomics is the study of the economy as a whole. We will be discussing the use of aggregate data, trends in the national and international economy, and the role of policy in the economy. Other topics include determinants of the level of economic activity, inflation, unemployment, international economics, impact of domestic and world economy on business decisions, and applications of theory.

The analysis in this course will be deeper than that in the introductory course. The main additions include IS-LM analysis, the determinants of economic growth, and a more rigorous version of the Phillips curve.

REQUIRED TEXT

Macroeconomics
N. Gregory Mankiw
Publisher: Worth
ISBN: 978-1-4292-1887

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Behavioral Economics
Course Numbers:
UIC – ECON 390
NEIU – ECON 341

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“Non decipitur qui scit se decipi: he is not deceived who knows himself to be deceived.”

-Maxim of Roman Law
(from The Student’s Law Lexicon: A Dictionary of Legal Words and Phrases by William Cox Cochran)

“Homo economicus is dead, but whose Homo behavioralis will replace him?”

– Ken Binmore, University College London

INTRODUCTION

This course will discuss recent developments in behavioral economics. The focus will be on economic behavior, heuristics, and experimental economics.

REQUIRED TEXTS

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300122233

Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
Publisher: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
ISBN: 978-0374275631

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
Dan Ariely
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006135323X

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Introduction to Econometrics
Course number:
UIC – ECON 346/300

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“All models are wrong, but some models are useful”

– Statistician George E. P. Box

COURSE OVERVIEW

This course will develop the linear regression model and show how it can be used to analyze economic problems. We will consider the steps needed to perform econometric research, the assumptions required on our part in order to do so, and the consequences of violating these assumptions.

Upon completion of this course you will be able to:

  • Develop a model for empirical testing
  • Distinguish between various types of data
  • Test a model for Multicollinearity, Serial Correlation, and/or Heteroskedasticity
  • Read computer output and interpret the results
  • Use software to estimate a simple multiple regression model

REQUIRED TEXTS

Using Econometrics: A Practical Guide
A.H. Studenmund 6th Edition
ISBN: 0-13-136773-0

Fooled By Randomness
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7521-5

RECOMMENDED TEXTS

Numbers Rule Your World
Kaiser Fung
ISBN: 978-0-07-162653-8

The Drunkard’s Walk
Leonard Mlodinow
ISBN: 978-0-375-42404-5

Freakonomics
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
ISBN: 978-0-06-123400-2

The Signal and the Noise
Nate Silver
ISBN: 978-1-59420-411-1

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Introduction to Mathematical Economics
Course number:
UIC – ECON 345

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

– Einstein, Albert (1923) from Sidelights on Relativity (Geometry and Experience)

INTRODUCTION

This class focuses on the mathematical analysis of microeconomic theory, specifically the mathematical treatment of price theory and the behavior of consumers and firms. Students in this course should have taken and understood both Finite Mathematics for Business and Intermediate Microeconomics.

REQUIRED TEXTS

Mathematics for Economics, Third Edition (March 4, 2011)
Michael Hoy et al.
Publisher: The MIT Press
ISBN-13: 978-0262015073

Schaum’s Outlines: Introduction to Mathematical Economics, Third Edition (August 30, 2000)
Edward Dowling
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
ISBN-13: 978-0071358965

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Industrial Organization
Course number:
NEIU – ECON 332

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“It is not enough to prove that a given industry is not competitive. The crucial question is: how far do the conditions in the industry depart from competition? In many and perhaps most cases the answer is that the departures are not large.”

– George Stigler, The Theory of Price, 1946

INTRODUCTION

Industrial Organization studies market structures, how concentrated industries are, to what extent firms can exercise monopoly power, mergers and takeovers. We will also study the impact of industry structures on consumers: price discrimination, product differentiation, advertising, research and development. Understanding industrial organization brings economic reasoning to cases for which the analyses of extremes of perfect competition or monopoly are not sufficient.

REQUIRED TEXTS

Modern Industrial Organization
Carlton and Perloff
ISBN: 0312180232

The Winner’s Curse
Richard Thaler
ISBN: 0691019347

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Labor Economics
Course number:
NEIU – ECON 306D

FULL SYLLABUS (.pdf)

“Everything in the world is purchased by labour”

– David Hume (1711 – 1776), Essays, Of Commerce

“The property which every man has in his own labour; as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable…”

– Adam Smith (1723 – 1790), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

INTRODUCTION

This course is a more intricate study of labor markets than is offered in the standard microeconomics courses. We will be applying economic theory to labor markets and related economic phenomena including but not limited to: earnings, employment, unemployment, worker mobility, and discrimination.

REQUIRED TEXT

Labor Economics, Fifth Edition
George J. Borjas
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
ISBN: 0073511366

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