The class will introduce students to the current research in tax policy (broadly defined) and will give them an opportunity to develop skills in reading and evaluating contemporary economic and legal research related to tax policy. Following the discussion of the fundamental tax policy questions during the first several weeks of the term, the format will shift to a series of weekly paper presentations by leading scholars from around the country, both economists and lawyers. The second part of the course (six weeks) will meet together with the parallel class in the law school.
This course is strictly limited to doctoral students, primarily in Sociology. It is designed to provide students with an understanding of the methodological approaches we commonly think of as qualitative, with special emphases on case studies, mixed method research, interview-based research, ethnography, and comparative research. No auditors will be allowed.
This course is organized with the following four objectives in mind: (1) To give you basic training in qualitative research. This requires exposing you to issues of conceptualization, theory, research design, and strategies for framing questions. (2) To consider the various domains or topical areas in sociology where qualitative work has made major contributions. This includes reflecting on the usage of qualitative method in interpretive, descriptive, and explanatory research. (3) To examine the ethical responsibilities of qualitative researchers, who have closer contact with “subjects” and “informants” than other researchers typically do. (4) To think collectively and critically about the forms of writing (articles, dissertations, books, etc.) and professional presentations that sociologists must master to present qualitative work to their peers and the public.
The purpose of this course is: (1) to familiarize participants with current issues in US and international economic policy development; (2) to better understand the interplay of domestic and international political factors that influence public sector decision-making, and (3) to improve skills for drafting memoranda and making presentations to senior policymakers. The class will focus on domestic and international economic policy issues in which the US has played a significant role, or has a substantial interest. It will focus on topics that arise in a variety of contexts: unavoidable issues with looming deadlines; managing to avoid a potential crisis; and affirmative initiatives where policy leaders choose an objective to advance. Discussions will put class participants in seats at different policy tables, and memos will reflect these varying perspectives.
Instructor permission required. Join the waitlist in SSOL and submit an application via https://fs23.formsite.com/SIPA/U6092app/index.html
Prerequisites:
PHYS W3008
or its equivalent.
Fundamentals of electromagnetism from an advanced perspective with emphasis on electromagnetic fields in vaccum with no bounding surfaces present. A thorough understanding of Maxwells equations and their application to a wide variety of phenomena. Maxwells equations (in vacuum) and the Lorentz force law - noncovariant form. Scalar and vector potentials, gauge transformations. Generalized functions (delta functions and their derivatives), point changes. Fourier transforms, longitutdinal ad transverse vector fields. Solution of Maxwells equations in unbounded space for electrostatics and magnetostatics with given charge and current sources. Special relativity, Loretnz transformations, 4-momentum, relativistic reactions. Index mechanics of Cartesian tensor notation. Covariatn formulation of Maxwells equations and the Lorentz force law, Lorentz transformation properties of E and B. Lagrangian density for the electromagnetic field, Langrangian density for the Proca field. Symmetries and conservation laws, Noethers theorem. Field conservation laws (energy, linear momentum, angular momentum, stress tensor). Monochromatic plane wave solutions of the time-dependent source-free Maxwell equations, elliptical polarization, partially-polarized electromagnetgic waves, Stokes parameters. Solution of the time-dependent Maxwell equations in unbounded space with given chare and current sources (retarded and advanced solutions). Properties of electromagnetic fields in the radiaion zone, angular distribution of radiated power, frequency distribution of radiated energy, radiation form periodic and non-periodic motions. Radiation from antennas and antenna arrays. Lienard-Wiechert fields, the relativistic form of the Larmor radiation forumla, synchrotron radiation, bremsstrahlung, undulator and wiggler radiation. Electric dipole and magnetic dipole radiation. Scattering of electromagnetic radiation, the differential scattering cross-section, low-energy and high-energy approximations, scattering from a random or periodic array of scatterers. Radiation reaction force, Feynman-Wheeler theoryy. The macroscopic Maxwell equations (spatial averaging to get P, M, D, H). Convolutions, linear materials (permittivity, permeability, and conductivity), causality, analytics continuation, Kramers-Kronig relations. Propagation of monochromatic plane waves in isotropic and non-isotropic linear materials, ordinary ad extraordinary waves. Cherenkov radiation, transition ra
This course will address four questions. Do recent financial reforms represent sufficient change to address the forces that led to the combined Great Recession and financial crisis? How well do the multiple new or revised requirements integrate into a system of regulation and supervision that matches the degree of restraint to the forward-looking vulnerabilities and risks in financial institutions? Do the new requirements encourage or impede firms to develop sustainable business models with prudent levels of risk? Should the regulation and supervision of individual institutions take into account vulnerabilities that develop in the financial system and if so, how?
In this course we will study financial market failures due to externalities, incomplete information and financial fragility and we will investigate the ways that a benevolent government might use regulation to improve matters. We will also consider theories about the behavior of regulators drawn from political and behavioral economics. We will examine the difficulties associated with designing financial regulation. We will analyze how regulatory failures contributed to the recent financial crises and discuss post-crises attempts at regulatory reform.
Required of all incoming sociology doctoral students. Prepares students who have already completed an undergraduate major or its equivalent in some social science to evaluate and undertake both systematic descriptions and sound explanations of social structures and processes.
Prerequisites: SIPA U6500 and (INAF U6301 or SIPA U6200 or INAF U6022)
The development of quantitative risk management by the financial industry has gone hand-in-hand with that of quantitative approaches to financial regulation. The interactions between industry best practice and regulation have grown even closer since the global financial crisis, reflecting lessons learned (or not), the widening scope of regulation, and the now-central role of financial risk in the public policy agenda. This course introduces risk management principles in the context of public policy, presenting market, liquidity and credit risk measurement techniques employed by banks and other intermediaries, as well as their drawbacks and limitations. To help understand current approaches to risk management and regulation, the course studies financial market behavior in normal times and crises, the treatment of firms and debt in bankruptcy and how it differs for financial firms, the role of securitization in the financial system, and the roles of leverage and of market and funding liquidity in times of calm and distress.
Prerequisites:
PHYS G6037
and
PHYS G6092
.
A large variety of elementary natural phenomena will be considered using a wide background in basic physics but minimal mathematical analysis. Topics include order of magnitude estimates and scaling for physical and biological systems , the flows of liquids and gases in nature, the strength of molecular forces and strengths of solids, superfluids and superconductors, structure and evolution of stars, cosmology, and similar subjects which may not have received attention in courses taken by the enrolled students.
This course introduces students to central questions and debates in the fields of African American Studies, and it explores the various interdisciplinary efforts to address them. The seminar is designed to provide an interdisciplinary foundation and familiarize students with a number of methodological approaches. Toward this end we will have a number of class visitors/guest lecturers drawn from members of IRAAS's Core and Affiliated Faculty.
Please note: This course is required for ICLS graduate students, and priority will be given to these students. Generally the course fills with ICLS students each semester. Students MAY NOT register themselves for this course. Contact the ICLS office for more information at icls.columbia@gmail.com. This course was formerly numbered as G4900. This course introduces beginning graduate students to the changing conceptions in the comparative study of literatures and societies, paying special attention to the range of interdisciplinary methods in comparative scholarship. Students are expected to have preliminary familiarity with the discipline in which they wish to do their doctoral work. Our objective is to broaden the theoretical foundation of comparative studies to negotiate a conversation between literary studies and social sciences. Weekly readings are devoted to intellectual inquiries that demonstrate strategies of research, analysis, and argumentation from a multiplicity of disciplines and fields, such as anthropology, history, literary criticism, architecture, political theory, philosophy, art history, and media studies. Whenever possible, we will invite faculty from the above disciplines and fields to visit our class and share their perspectives on assigned readings. Students are encouraged to take advantage of these opportunities and explore fields and disciplines outside their primary focus of study and specific discipline.
Eulerian and Lagrangian descriptions of motion. Stress and strain rate tensors, vorticity, integral and differential equations of mass, momentum, and energy conservation. Potential flow.
This course is an introduction to the study of Europe as a unique region with a distinctive relationship to the other regions of the world. The course acquaints students with key, long-standing debates over the origin and dynamics of contemporary European society and the evolution of the European political and economic systems since the early modern period. These debates have generated an extensive literature across disciplinary, national, and regional lines that students will survey. The course thus provides professional training in both the theoretical and practical aspects of European policy-making, preparing students for careers in European affairs.
Prerequisites: Completion of year 1 of the graduate program in Sociology. Sociology PhD students from year 2 onward only.
Writing research articles for journals is a lot of intellectual fun … but it’s also a rather demanding craft. This seminar prepares you for the challenge. It will help you to find an interesting question, a way to answer it, and a mode of communicating this to fellow sociologists in a way that they might find worth paying attention to. (Even) more pragmatically, the goal of this year-long seminar is to help you writing a quantitative research paper that will ultimately be suitable for presentation at a conference and submission to a journal, building valuable research and professional skills and, in many cases, providing you with a jump-start for your dissertation research.
As crucial milestones in the process, you will:
• Develop a theoretical argument that motivates hypotheses
• Identify a data set that can be used to test those hypotheses
• Format and analyze the data to draw conclusions about your hypotheses
• Interpret your results
• Present your argument and findings in a precise and compelling narrative form
In short, the course is partly about theory, and how it can be used to specify hypotheses and measures; partly about methods, and how data can be analyzed appropriately to test hypotheses; and partly about the craft of sociological writing, and how good writing can be used to make a clear and compelling case for your research.
Students entering their second year of graduate school are expected to be familiar with the main theoretical traditions in Sociology, have developed areas of substantive interest, be acquainted with the basic methodology of the social sciences, have an applied knowledge of statistical techniques, and be familiar with datasets they could possibly work with. The “Empirical seminar” is not intended to offer training in any of these areas—and this particular instructor’s capacity to provide advise on statistical techniques is rather limited indeed. Please consult with other faculty for more technical advice necessary to bring your research to fruition or make use of the statistical consulting service offered elsewhere at Columbia.
Debye screening. Motion of charged particles in space- and time-varying electromagnetic fields. Two-fluid description of plasmas. Linear electrostatic and electromagnetic waves in unmagnetized and magnetized plasmas. The magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model, including MHD equilibrium, stability, and MHD waves in simple geometries.
Prerequisites: the instructor's permission prior to registration.
A survey of selected issues and debates in political theory. Areas of the field discussed include normative political philosophy, history of political thought, and the design of political and social institutions.
Major theories of religion and principal approaches to the study of religion.
First semester of the doctoral program sequence in applied statistics.
To design and manage successful economic policy professionals need a sophisticated command of modern microeconomics. This course strengthens and extends understanding of microeconomic theory, and gives practice applying it. We study the relationship between market structure and market performance, exploring conditions under which policy intervention can improve market performance, and when it can be counter-productive. Both distributional and efficiency aspects of intervention are stressed. An introduction to formal strategic analysis is included, along with its application in the modern theory of auctions.
This is a Public Health Course. Public Health classes are offered on the Health Services Campus at 168th Street. For more detailed course information, please go to Mailman School of Public Health Courses website at http://www.mailman.hs.columbia.edu/academics/courses
This lecture intends to answer questions about the nature of Roman monuments and their decoration: What was their function? And how did they actually fulfill that function? To what extent was the diffusion of Roman public imagery the outcome of a planned scheme, and to what extent should we instead see it as the unintended result of different factors? In addressing these questions, the lecture will focus particularly on the mechanisms that led to the entrenchment of imperial ideology in Roman society, moving beyond conventional narratives that frame this issue in terms of an ‘acceptance vs resistance’ dichotomy.
Introduction to Historical Musicology: the history of the discipline, major areas of research, source materials, and methodological problems.
The course starts with a review of exchange rates over the long and short run and with a discussion of the real effects of nominal exchange rate fluctuations, deviations from interest rate parities, and the role of expectations in determining exchange rate dynamics. The course proceeds with the study of the international allocation of capital flows, the dynamics of external wealth, and global imbalances. The course continues with the analysis of exchange rate regimes, the rationale for their adoption and abandonment, and the implications for fiscal and monetary policies of floating and fixed exchange rates depending on the degree of openness in international financial markets. The course deals with the macroeconomics of the public sector budget and the links between money, inflation, and the budget. Topics discussed include: the sensitivity of the public-sector budget to external and domestic macroeconomic variables, along with the concept of sustainable fiscal deficits; the economic consequences of devaluations (actual and anticipated), including the discussion of contractionary devaluations; the causes and consequences of capital flows and their sudden stop; the time consistency of economic policies and the inflationary effects of various institutional arrangements between monetary and fiscal authorities. The course also surveys monetary policy transmission mechanisms and the choice of nominal anchors, with particular reference to inflation targeting and interest-on-reserves regimes. The course closes with a review of stylized facts concerning policies for economic growth, with particular focus on international trade liberalization and financial sector development. A general and pragmatic framework for prioritizing growth policies is introduced with applications to country case studies.
Prerequisites: STAT GR6102 or instructor permission.
The Deparatment's doctoral student consulting practicum. Students undertake pro bono consulting activities for Columbia community researchers under the tutelage of a faculty mentor.
This is a Public Health Course. Public Health classes are offered on the Health Services Campus at 168th Street. For more detailed course information, please go to Mailman School of Public Health Courses website at http://www.mailman.hs.columbia.edu/academics/courses
Lectures cover principal topics in evolutionary biology including genetics, genome organization, population and quantitative genetics, the history of evolutionary theory, systematics, speciation and species concepts, co-evolution, and biogeography.
Government plays an incredibly important role in citizens’ everyday lives. Public action, and by extension, inaction, determines our access to lifesaving medical procedures, safe air, food, and drinking water, quality education for our children, and protection against physical harm from others. Policymaking is the process by which public officials decide when and how to leverage the enormous power of the state – for good or for ill. This class will give students a background in how advanced democracies – countries with well-developed democratic institutions and economies, like countries in Western Europe and the United States – make public policy. This class is divided in two units. In the first unit, we will review major political and economic institutions that structure the policymaking process in advanced democracies. We will see how these institutions generate very different possibilities for policymaking outcomes. For instance, we will consider how rules about elections can powerfully shape the coalitions that can be assembled in support of redistribution and inequality reduction. In the second unit, we will zoom in on the policymaking process within the United States to understand how different actors and policymaking venues work. For instance, we will consider how policy reformers can seek change through arenas like Congress, the courts, or the states, and how these venues present different opportunities and challenges. We will also review the relevance of actors such as the mass public, interest groups, and bureaucrats at each stage in the policymaking process.
Prerequisites: (COMS W4111) and knowledge of Java or instructor's permission.
Continuation of
COMS W4111
, covers latest trends in both database research and industry: information retrieval, web search, data mining, data warehousing, OLAP, decision support, multimedia databases, and XML and databases. Programming projects required.
Corequisites: PUAF U6110
This course is the required discussion section for PUAF U6110.