Prerequisites: the director of graduate studies' permission.
Corequisites:
ECON G6410
.
Consumer and producer behavior; general competitive equilibrium, welfare and efficiency, behavior under uncertainty, intertemporal allocation and capital theory, imperfect competition, elements of game theory, problems of information, economies with price rigidities.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
Prerequisites: the director of graduate studies' permission.
Concept of full employment. Models of underemployment and theory applicability, determinants of consumption and of investment, multiplier and accelerator analysis, an introduction to monetary macroeconomics, the supply side and inflation. Integration of macroeconomics with microeconomic and monetary analysis.
Prerequisites: the instructor's permission.
This course develops theory of designing markets—namely, “mechanisms” of allocating resources—that are efficient, fair and non-manipulable. Understanding the incentives participants face under alternative mechanisms will be a central theme of the course. Specifically, the course will consist of two parts. The first part deals with environments where monetary transfers can be used, and focuses on topics such as optimal nonlinear pricing, optimal auction design, property rights assignment, dynamic mechanisms and assignment games/sponsored search auctions in Internet advertising. The second part concerns market design without monetary transfers and discusses matching theory as a primarily tool for analyzing the topic. Specifically, we shall discuss matching of agents on one side with agents on the other and matching of agents to indivisible resources/positions, and apply the theories to problems of house allocation, centralized labor market matching, and school choice.
Prerequisites:
G6216
and
G6412
or the instructor's permission.
Starting from the benchmark of rational expectations, where agents at all dates know the full state of the economy and know the structure that generated this state, the course presents several alternative models of imperfect information and expectations, and explores their implications for macroeconomic dynamics. These include: (i) models where agents know the structure but only exogenously observe part of the state (signal extraction and global games), (ii) models where agents do not know the structure but can learn about it (Bayesian learning), (iii) models where agents do not know the structure and use boundedly-rational mechanisms to form expectations (least-squares learning), (iv) models where agents only observe part of the state each date but choose which part (rational inattention), (v) models where agents choose when to observe the state (inattentiveness and sticky information), (vi) models where agents receive incomplete news today about the future state (news shocks). Applications will include consumption, business cycles, inflation, and monetary policy.
The purpose of this course is to examine the claims made by multiple stakeholders for use of the environment, both natural and built, and to determine how contention among them can be ethically resolved in the policy process. Over time, six major clusters of stakeholders have arisen, expressing environmentalist standpoints: three, including proponents of wilderness, ecosystems, and nonhuman species, have been called nonanthropocentric; and three, including proponents of conservation, environmental justice, and sustainability, have been called anthropocentric. Among them a diverse array of ethical quarrels has arisen, yet today the sustainability outlook appears to be ascendant in popular and public discourse. Claims made regarding greater or lesser use of both natural and human resources continue to be debated nonetheless. Many are related to the issues of whether present use should take into account past wrongful, often inter-racially prejudicial actions, and future-regarding, often inter-generationally beneficial actions. The course aims to examine specific principles, such as polluter pays for pollution, prior free informed consent, transboundary accountability, and common responsibility, which can be used to resolve ethical issues. Consideration is given to the possibility of both collective and individual ethical action, even in situations of corruption, including subtle forms involving campaign contributions with a pay-to-play aspect. The objective is to discover how such ethical problems can be managed in the public policy process.
This core course explores welfare systems from a comparative perspective and analyzes the political, economic, socio-cultural, and historical factors that shape and sustain them in advanced industrialized countries.It pays particular attention to the development of key national social welfare policies, such as social security, health care, unemployment insurance, social assistance, childcare, tax expenditure, and public employment and training, and emerging best practice in these areas.The course also identifies pressing global/regional trends (e.g., greying of societies, labor market stratification, and persistent gender inequality) and compares how developed and developing countries address them through policy.
(Seminar).
Whatever they may do, authors do not write books. Books are not written at all.” So proclaimed bibliographer Roger Stoddard. Rather than the pursuit of authorial intent, Stoddard describes that the work of bibliography as the elucidation of the work of the “scribes and other artisans, mechanics and engineers…printing presses and other machines” that do make books. This type of bibliography, he proposes, will limn the distinction between text and book, or in Foucault’s terms text and work.
This course will focus on the range of agents in book production precisely to expand our focus beyond the author to include other agents of book production and preservation to include compositors, editors, bookbinders, librarians, collectors and other book dissemblers and compilers, censors, publicists, “pirates,” readers, and designers. Doing so brings authorship and authority into a new focus. It also allows our reach to extend from late medieval scribes to twentieth-century literary agents and poet/publishers.
The course will introduce students to various methodologies for interpreting text in book form: descriptive and critical bibliography, codicology, critical editing, digital forensics, and press and publication history. Some of these ancillary sciences were part of advanced study in modern languages for decades but how do we return to those methods “after theory,” in the new media landscape, and with the aim of literary interpretation? What concerns can they bring forward that much theory leaves under-explicated? Necessarily this work entails a survey of the development of new technologies, but it attends to the social, cultural, and political conditions that shape how these technologies were and are developed and deployed.
The first half of each class session will be spent examining rare books, documents, and other artifacts from the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, including books from the handpress, industrial, and digital eras of book manufacturing, prospectuses, contracts, oral histories, and archival materials. Because of the hands-on component auditors will not be allowed and the course is limited to 12 students. There will be no final paper for this class, but rather three shorter assignments. By the end of the class students will have a developed vocabulary for discussing the book as physical object, will have a sense of the sets of concerns scholars have brought to such interpretations over the last hundred years, and will be able to trace the ge
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the theoretical and empirical literature on search and matching. Although the main focus is put on the labor market, the course also covers papers with search frictions in the goods and money markets.
This course assumes that climate change and post-normal climate conditions will play a central role in shaping the future of Israel and the Middle East. Cognizant of climate (in)justice, it examines impending climate related vulnerabilities and challenges; looks at their social, economic and political consequences; raises questions regarding the mitigation vs. adaptation conundrum; then looks at policy tools and technologies that might facilitate adaptation.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
Prerequisites: Proficiency in Arabic required.
This graduate seminar is conducted entirely in Arabic sources. We will read various passages from the Qur’an in order to highlight the Qur’an’s moral imperatives about “living in” nature as well as about the generation of wealth and its distribution within the social order. We will then move on to examine the genre of
fiqh
(substantive law) with regard to the same themes, examining the moral structures of society in terms of the ethic of “spending.” Themes such as “making money,” building capital, charity, welfare, etc. will be examined in depth as constituting a system of checks-and-balances, through close readings of the concepts of
kasb, zakat, sadaqa, waqf,
etc.
The course material provides a familiarity with some basic concepts in Finance, especially for students planning to take the Environmental Finance Course in the spring who do not have any background in Finance. The topics covered include: Time Value of Money and Valuation, Cost of Capital and Capital Markets, Capital Markets, Commodity Markets, Futures and Options. This course is required for students who do not have a background in Finance and plan to take the Environmental Finance Class in during the Spring semester.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
The course translates academic study in organization theory, bureaucracy, and public management into practical lessons for public managers. We develop a framework for understanding and applying tools that can be used to influence organization behavior and obtain resources from the organization's environment. Memo-writing, group process and communication skills are taught through hands-on assignments. Earth system-related case studies present a set of problems for public managers to address. The focus is on state and local environmental management cases, and treatment of local land use and NIMBY (not in my backyard) issues. Cases will deal with public, private, and nonprofit environmental management, and will include U.S. and international cases. Each week students are either briefed by a group of their colleagues on a case or submit a two-page memo on the week's case.
We will explore various conceptions of nature and ecology in changing ideas of conservation, preservation, the Dust Bowl, the atomic age, growing environmentalism, and the current focus on biodiversity as one route to a sustainable society. We will look at how scientific information has been constructed and used in environmental debates over pollution and overpopulation and will question the utility of distinguishing between "first nature" (untouched by humans) and "second nature" (nature modified by humans). Along the way, we will address connections between environmentalism and nationalism, the relationship between environmental change and social inequality, the rise of modern environmental politics, and different visions for the future of nature.
This class will address Environmental and climate challenges, the role of public sector funding and financing, and the need and potential for private sector investment and financing; The current state of clean energy deployment around the world: wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, ocean, and biomass, plus nuclear and cleaner fossil fuel options, and advanced transportation and vehicles, and energy efficiency, with attention to the financial characteristics of each; Methods and practices for clean energy investment and financing including government funding and incentives, corporate financing and project financing; Who the players are, and their respective activities and roles including government and corporate sponsors, multilateral development banks, commercial banks, equity investors, capital market equity and debt investors, and others. Students should leave the course with a better understanding of how the world is responding to the challenge of clean energy financing and a sense of where and how they might forge a career.
Studying developing cities, such as Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, and Shanghai, has never been more important. Over half of the world's population is now urban. As cities continue to expand, metropolitan areas around the globe face a growing number of challenges, including: sprawl, poor sanitation, poverty, pollution, corruption, and crime. This course in comparative urban policy will help you develop a keener understanding of these challenges. Our focus will be on how academics and analysts study and debate global developing cities. We will explore questions, such as: What accounts for the global pace of migration from rural to urban places in our time? What are the major challenges facing developing cities? What strategies do individuals, neighborhoods, and economic interest groups have available to influence, and to optimize their experiences in developing cities? How well are developing cities' urban governance and planning geared to resolve controversies and, where appropriate, implement effective remedies? What can we learn from innovative change initiatives?
Prerequisites: Engineering hydrology or the equivalent
Spatial/temporal dynamics of the hydrologic cycle and its interactions with landforms and vegetation. Hydroclimatology at regional to planetary scales, focusing on mechanisms of organization and variation of water fluxes as a function of season, location, reservoir (ocean, atmosphere, land), and time scale. Land-atmosphere interaction and the role of vegetation and soil moisture. Topography as an organizing principle for land water fluxes. Geomorphology and the evolution of river networks. Sedimentation, erosion and hill slope hydrology. Dynamics of water movement over land, in rivers and in the subsurface, with an emphasis on modeling interfaces. Integrated models and the scale problem. Emphasis on data-based spatial/temporal modeling and exploration of outstanding theoretical challenges.
The Earth's Systems are experiencing dramatic changes that bring into question the sustainability of our planet. Essential to addressing these changes is an understanding of the functioning of the earth systems. This course provides fundamental knowledge of the topics within the natural sciences that are critical to address the issues of sustainable development. The interactions between the natural and human environment are complex and interconnected. A strong understanding of the functioning of the earth's processes is essential to addressing sustainable development challenges
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
In this seminar we will study the vocabulary and practices of intellectual elaboration and composition during the pre-modern eras, within the context of
Philosophical and Scientific Fictions
. Some of our fields of inquiry will be: Iberian Studies, Mediterranean Studies, Medieval Theory and Philosophy, Manuscript Studies, and History of the Book. We will investigate these fields in dialogue with the construction and development of pre-modern disciplines.
We will to focus on mainstream views of intellectual creation, including poetics, rhetorics, dialectic, problem-creation, the lie as an intellectual fabrication, narrative of the self, oneirocriticism, legal fiction, sacred and lay exegesis, miracles, fables, and poetry with music. The survey covers two parts (scientific discipline versus experience) that hinge on the particular and even central problem of the narrative of the self—and in a way we will be traveling back and forth between discipline and experience trying not to disentangle them too much. This focus—perhaps a bit obscure for now—will become more evident as we read the different texts.
My suggested and recommended readings cover many other texts from the Antiquity to the (very) Early Modern period. In this sense, I aim to forge a broad intellectual context for a set of Iberian texts that might be considered within a theoretical survey of Medieval Iberian cultures.
The goals of this graduate seminar are multiple. First, we will critically examine the ways in which research has been conducted and how research methodology has been taught in anthropology. Second, we will, drawing on the work of indigenous scholars and critics of the colonial nature of anthropological practice and discourse, attempt to theorize new forms of social inquiry that do not replicate the historic injustices of anthropological research, representation, and the material consequences of the two. Third, we will critically examine the assumed relationship between European social theory and the lived experiences of people living in indigenous worlds and the global south. Finally, each student will produce a draft of a dissertation research proposal. Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. Enrollment limit is 15.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
Urban economics explain the forces that make people want to live in close proximity to each other and the complex economic and social dynamics that ensue. First, urban economics explains the distribution of economic activity and population over space (typical question are: why do cities exists? What drives the location decisions of people and firms? What makes cities grow?). Second, it interprets how production activities and housing are distributed within a city, the value of land, and how it is allocated to what use. Third, it addresses questions of governance, political economy, and public finance: scope and limitations of local government intervention, provision of services, regulation, and governmental funding sources. Fourth, it confronts many fundamental economic and policy problems: transportation, crime, housing, education, homelessness, public health, income distribution, racial segregation, environmental sustainability, fiscal federalism, municipal finance, and others. This course covers the first three aspects of urban economics and a selection of topics from the fourth category.
By the end of the course you will be able to: Have an understanding of introductory theoretical and empirical models of urban economics to interpret location decisions of people and firms (between and within cities); Evaluate local policy using efficiency and equity arguments; Apply your knowledge to a specific policy issue.
Prerequisites:
ECON G6211
and
ECON G6212
or the instructor's permission.
This course provides an introduction to a number of exciting research questions in industrial organization and organizational economics. While most of the content is theoretical, great emphasis is placed on the testable implications of the models we study: related empirical work is surveyed. The course aims to bring students to the research frontier by identifying open research questions and highlighting particularly active research areas.
Prerequisites:
ECON G6211
and
ECON G6212
.
This course provides an overview of topics in industrial organization (IO) economics. Its goals are to survey the main outlines of modern IO, to develop key theoretical ideas, to demonstrate important techniques, to link theory to empirical work, and to relate theoretical and empirical results to policy issues. Empirical two-period models. Empirical single-agent and multiple-agent dynamic models.
Development Practice Lab, or DP Lab, is an effort by the MPA-DP Program to (i) methodically deliver hands-on training for high priority skills in the field of development practice and (ii) integrate its curriculum across different disciplines offered in the program. Each semester, the lab focuses on a different competency, complementing the knowledge learned in the program's core courses. In the fall semester of the first year, DP Lab exposes students to skills related to problem appraisal using cases from the core course of Foundations of Sustainable Development Practice
Commutative rings; modules; localization; primary decoposition; integral extensions; Noetherian and Artinian rings; Nullstellensatz; Dedekind domains; dimension theory; regular local rings.
This course is an introduction to deformation theory, at the level of Hartshorne's book on the subject. Possible topics would include: Schlesinger's criterion, the Tian-Todorov theorem on deformations of Calabi-Yau manifolds, the cotangent complex, infinitsemial variations of Hodge structure, liftability of K3 surfaces, etc. Familiarity with algebraic geometry at the level of Harshorne's "Algebraic Geometry" is a sufficient prerequisite.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
Prerequisites: Written permission from instructor and approval from adviser.
Formal written reports and conferences with the appropriate member of the faculty on a subject of special interest to the student but not covered in the other course offerings.
This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive overview of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and remote sensing technologies as they are used in a variety of social and environmental science applications. Through a mixture of lectures, readings, focused discussions, and hands-on exercises, students will acquire an understanding of the variety and structure of spatial data and databases, gain a knowledge of the principles behind raster and vector based spatial analysis, learn basic cartographic principles for producing maps that effectively communicate a message, and develop sound practices for GIS project design and management. The class will focus on the application of GIS to assist in the development, implementation and analysis of environmental and social policy and practices at the global and regional scale.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the
Law School Curriculum Guide
at:
http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
Prerequisites: degree in biological sciences.
Lectures by visiting scientists, faculty, and students; specific biological research projects; with emphasis on evolution, ecology, and conservation biology.
This course is the first part of a one-year sequence and focuses on microeconomics. The objectives of the course are (i) to provide you with the analytical tools that are needed to understand how economists think and (ii) to help you to develop an open-minded and critical way to think about economic issues. At the end of the course you will be able to understand the concepts that underlie microeconomics models and the jargon that is used in the economic profession. To facilitate your understanding of the concepts that will be discussed in the class, this course will provide you with numerous applications.