Center For Economics, Politics, and History

This course introduces students to the most useful mathematical tools that will be applied in the remaining courses in economics and political science offered by the Center for Economics, Politics and History. Students learn each mathematical tool and how to apply it to an economic or political problem. Students will become familiar with the meaning and use of the following key concepts: functions, utility maximization under certainty and uncertainty, solving a system of equations, using derivatives in optimization problem solving, probability and the main families of probability distribution functions, conditional and unconditional probability, the law of large numbers, the central limit theorem, variance, covariance, correlation, projection, regression, stochastic processes, cooperative and noncooperative games, and Nash Equilibrium. Students will also learn the basics of programming in R.

This course introduces students to the basic political and economic facts of human history, seeking both to describe and explain the variation in observed economic and political outcomes across time and space, which also requires a discussion of how to approach identifying causality when studying historical change. Variation that will be studied occurs over several dimensions: material well-being, which activities people are engaged in, the scale of economic and political organizations, the degree of centralization of political power, population density, the extent of individual freedom, the geographic range of economic transactions, and the extent to which political systems are democratic.

This course builds on EPH 1110 by familiarizing students with the essential toolkit social scientists use to make inferences and decisions using data. The class will combine careful mathematical presentation with empirical applications that are run using R. A wide range of topics in probability, statistics and regression analysis are explored, as well as methods for causal inference, model building and evaluation, experiment design, machine learning, neural nets, and cross-validation.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110

This is the first of a two-course sequence in the foundations of microeconomics that will develop students’ understanding about a broad range of problems related to the operation of markets, social policy, and business. The first course covers the following topics: opportunity cost, marginal value, marginal cost, the production possibility frontier, indifference curves, the determination of market supply and demand, how market prices convey information about costs and benefits of goods and services procured in the market, elasticity of demand, income and substitution effects, the efficiency of competitive equilibrium, consumer and producer surplus, externalities, public goods, the Coase Theorem, imperfect and asymmetric information, expected utility, risk aversion, and signaling.

This is the second of the two introductory courses in microeconomics, which covers the following topics: cost functions and their relation to market supply, the effects of entry and exit by producers on long-run market equilibrium, the constant returns to scale production function, the Solow Growth model, the decomposition of output growth into the weighted growth of the factors of production and the growth rate of productivity, the marginal product theory of income distribution, the meaning and importance of expected inflation and the real interest rate, time preference, durable asset returns and their relationship to interest rates and present values, the life cycle-permanent income hypothesis of consumer behavior, and finally, deviations from perfect competition, the inefficiencies they can create, and the regulatory policies that have been developed to mitigate or prevent these deviations.
Prerequisite:  EPH 1210

This is the first of a two-course sequence that will build an analytical macroeconomic framework and then use it to explain changing macroeconomic conditions in the world economy and the challenges these present for modern policy makers and business leaders. Students will become familiar with basic terminology regarding the phases of the business cycle, central banks' behavior in managing monetary policy (including recent tools, such as quantitative easing, and others), economic growth, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, global competitiveness, unemployment, fiscal policy, debt sustainability and the external sector (international reserves and the like). At the end of the sequence, it is expected that students will be able to critically assess how possible developments in the world economy – such as the change in the monetary policy stance by central banks – will affect economic conditions, social conditions, and the business environment. The first course defines basic concepts, including short- and long-run aggregate supply, aggregate demand, inflation, exchange rates, central banks, monetary policy, and Keynesian and Monetarist schools of thought.

This is the first of two introductory courses in political science. The two courses introduce students to the way modern political scientists think, including the fundamental theoretical tools of the discipline, and then applies those theories to key problems in political science. The sequence explores all five major subfields of political science. These are political methodology, political theory (which divides into normative and positive), comparative politics, and international relations. The first course will cover political theory and political methodology.

This course builds on EPH 1110 by familiarizing students with the essential toolkit social scientists use to make inferences and decisions using data. The class will combine careful mathematical presentation with empirical applications that are run using R. A wide range of topics in probability, statistics and regression analysis are explored, as well as methods for causal inference, model building and evaluation, experiment design, machine learning, neural nets, and cross-validation.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110

This course introduces students to many of the most important tools of data science used by social scientists, including tools used in natural language processing and machine learning.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110

This is the first of a two-course sequence in the foundations of microeconomics that will develop students’ understanding about a broad range of problems related to the operation of markets, social policy, and business. The first course covers the following topics: opportunity cost, marginal value, marginal cost, the production possibility frontier, indifference curves, the determination of market supply and demand, how market prices convey information about costs and benefits of goods and services procured in the market, elasticity of demand, income and substitution effects, the efficiency of competitive equilibrium, consumer and producer surplus, externalities, public goods, the Coase Theorem, imperfect and asymmetric information, expected utility, risk aversion, and signaling.

This is the second of the two introductory courses in microeconomics, which covers the following topics: cost functions and their relation to market supply, the effects of entry and exit by producers on long-run market equilibrium, the constant returns to scale production function, the Solow Growth model, the decomposition of output growth into the weighted growth of the factors of production and the growth rate of productivity, the marginal product theory of income distribution, the meaning and importance of expected inflation and the real interest rate, time preference, durable asset returns and their relationship to interest rates and present values, the life cycle-permanent income hypothesis of consumer behavior, and finally, deviations from perfect competition, the inefficiencies they can create, and the regulatory policies that have been developed to mitigate or prevent these deviations.
Prerequisite:  EPH 1210

This is the first of a two-course sequence that will build an analytical macroeconomic framework and then use it to explain changing macroeconomic conditions in the world economy and the challenges these present for modern policy makers and business leaders. Students will become familiar with basic terminology regarding the phases of the business cycle, central banks' behavior in managing monetary policy (including recent tools, such as quantitative easing, and others), economic growth, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, global competitiveness, unemployment, fiscal policy, debt sustainability and the external sector (international reserves and the like). At the end of the sequence, it is expected that students will be able to critically assess how possible developments in the world economy – such as the change in the monetary policy stance by central banks – will affect economic conditions, social conditions, and the business environment. The first course defines basic concepts, including short- and long-run aggregate supply, aggregate demand, inflation, exchange rates, central banks, monetary policy, and Keynesian and Monetarist schools of thought.

This is the second of the two introductory courses in macroeconomics. This course presents balance of payments accounting, defines international competitiveness and the real exchange rate, the examines key relationships between interest rates and exchange rates, various facts and approaches related to monetary and fiscal policy, sovereign default, fiscal dominance, and exchange rate sustainability.
Prerequisite:  EPH 1310

This is the first of two introductory courses in political science. The two courses introduce students to the way modern political scientists think, including the fundamental theoretical tools of the discipline, and then applies those theories to key problems in political science. The sequence explores all five major subfields of political science. These are political methodology, political theory (which divides into normative and positive), comparative politics, and international relations. The first course will cover political theory and political methodology.

This is the second of two courses introducing students to political science. It covers a broad overview of research, and contains specific discussions of American political history, international comparative politics, and international relations, exposing students to the different topic areas within these fields and different research methods.
Prerequisite:  EPH 1410

This course teaches students how to construct business plans and use them to formulate cash flow analysis from income and expense statements and balance sheets, and then use the cash flow analysis as a basis for financial planning, valuation of the business, and creating a strategy to fund the idea.

This course reviews the history of the development of economic and political ideas, with special emphasis on contributions from 1700 to 1950.

This course introduces students to the discipline of history by offering a combination of the history of Western historiography and key readings in the philosophy and methodology of history. Topics include contemporary controversies over the politicization of history, the origins of the Western historical tradition, and recent debates on historical causation and counterfactuals. A key objective is to familiarize students with some of the pioneers of historical scholarship and writing, from Thucydides to Isaiah Berlin.

This course integrates economic and political theory to analyze how choices about public policy are made by voters, candidates, legislators, bureaucrats, and the institutions in which they operate.

This course applies advanced econometric analyses to economic and political problems that arise in a panel context, combining variation over time with cross-sectional variation at a moment in time.
Prerequisite:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1130

This course studies the evolution of the American economy and its consequences from roughly 1600 to 1970.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1610, EPH 1810

This course studies the linkages between financial development and economic development throughout the world, combining historical understanding with an understanding of current events.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1510, EPH 1610

This course applies time series techniques to study variation among variables over time.
Prerequisite:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1130

This course presents advanced topics and tools in data science that are especially relevant to social science.
Prerequisite:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1130

This course presents advanced topics and tools in applied microeconomics.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1510

This course presents advanced topics and tools in applied macroeconomics, public finance, and growth theory.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1610

This course studies political changes (changes resulting from elections, party politics, and public choice) from roughly 1700 to the present.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1610, EPH 1810

This course studies, in theory and in practice, how voting rules affect election outcomes, and how political parties are formed.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1610, EPH 1810

This course introduces students to analysis of how businesses are structured and governed.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1510

This course analyses structural changes in civilization that have coincided with and shaped global history.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1610, EPH 1810

Capitalism, Its Critics, and the History of Growth, Poverty, and Inequality (3 credits)This course considers socialist and other criticisms of economies in which markets outcomes and private ownership determine the allocation of resources. It considers those criticisms in the light of evidence about the growth and distribution consequences over time of capitalist development.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1610, EPH 1710, EPH 1810

This course studies the history of revolutions to under their causes. Cases include the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Latin American Revolutions, the Greek Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, and others.
Britain (1688), US (1776), France (1789), Greece (1821), Mexico (1910), Russia (1917), China (1949), Eastern Europe (1989), Brazil (1990s), Chile (2020s)
Prerequisites:  EPH 1610, EPH 1710, EPH 1810

Prerequisites: EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1610, EPH 1810

This course examines the role of establishing and enforcing property rights for private and public governance outcomes, in theory and in practice.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1610

This course analyses the role of international finance in allocating global resources through various financial instruments, including international capital flows associated with investments in debt, equity, and foreign-direct investment.

This course studies why countries trade and considers the consequences for welfare of trade from theoretical and empirical perspectives, both in the past and the present.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1610

Does rational choice really guide economic decisions? This course juxtaposes rationalist and anti-rationalist behavioral perspectives about how economic actors behave.
Prerequisites:  EPH 1110, EPH 1120, EPH 1210, EPH 1220, EPH 1310, EPH 1320, EPH 1410, EPH 1420, EPH 1510

This course studies the operations and interactions among monetary systems, banking systems, and financial systems, and their relevance for the economy.

This course studies how countries interact in their political decisions and how the various kinds of interactions (trade, migration, international investments, diplomacy, and war) influence one another’s decisions and outcomes.

This course analysis the how entrepreneurs originate and fund business ideas, with special emphasis on understanding the role of venture capital in business formation and growth.