The course is designed for individuals who wish to learn more about the investment strategies employed by hedge funds. Students range from those considering a career switch out of a very broad range of activities to this style of asset management to those who are interested in affiliated activities, from marketing hedge funds to selling to them. The course is outlined in more detail in the attached syllabus, or in the brief video.
This class will focus on an increasingly important (yet academically underdeveloped) area of intersection in law and finance: Legal-Financial Arbitrage (LFA). This field is a subset of financial arbitrage, a well-known practice of spotting hard-to-justify price differences among two (or more) identical (or highly correlated) investments and then capitalizing on those differences in a riskless (or nearly riskless) way. LFA is a subset of financial arbitrage, but LFA focuses on pricing differences occasioned by legal/regulatory uncertainties or anomalies (e.g., contract interpretation and enforceability, regulatory status and enforcement, etc.), capitalizing on those differences using the tools of arbitrage trading.
LFA is a true cross-profession enterprise. Although financial arbitrage is nothing new in financial markets, and assessing legal risks is the stock-in-trade for attorneys, the two skill sets have started to intersect meaningfully in LFA, as so-called “strategic situation” and “merger arbitrage” traders have increasingly focused their attention on legal matters that may not be fully appreciated by other market participants, either because they are less attentive to legal and regulatory situations or because the trade rests on unique judgments about how legal matters will unfold.
The most commonly employed LFA trading strategies concern announced M&A transactions (which provide a natural setting where the value of an M&A target’s stock should home in on a known value at a future time if a deal closes). We will focus much of our attention on M&A transactions. But like LFA trading generally, we will not be so limited. LFA opportunities exist in many other law-relevant domains, such as corporate governance and board control fights, bankruptcies, commercial/IP litigation, and mass tort claims. What will link all the situations we study, however, is the central importance of combining sound legal assessments to generate (probabilistic) forecasts of the outcomes of these situations, to assess how these outcomes will affect prices of the firms’ traded securities. We will discuss how biased beliefs and the risks faced by market participants can lead to investment opportunities. Finally, we will discuss the implementation of optimal arbitrage positions. Accordingly, we hope to facilitate dialogues and innovative idea generation
between
JD and MBA students (working in teams).
The purpose of this course is to provide practical experience in analyzing epidemiologic data. The goal is to familiarize you with various analytic methods and their uses to answer specific epidemiologic research questions. Brief reviews of relevant statistical methods, their applications in epidemiologic research and interpretation of results will be covered step by step in this course. You will be provided with several data sets from epidemiologic (case-control and cohort) studies and will be asked to conduct analyses of these data.
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There’s an old Wall Street adage: “Don’t short valuation.” So, is everything else fair game? What about frauds, are those sure things? The purpose of this class is to answer these questions and equip students to profitably employ short-selling investment strategies. We will introduce students to all aspects of short-selling. However, we will assume that students have prior knowledge of the basics mechanics of shorting a stock, as well as various accounting tricks and “shenanigans” that companies employ to mask weaknesses in their business. To that end, we will provide some materials that should be reviewed before the start of class to review these concepts.
In class, we will first dig into the academic literature behind short selling. We will discuss what has worked historically, and whether or not it has been successful as of late. We will then read and discuss case studies on “famous” shorts and frauds. We will, with the benefit of hindsight, try to identify inflection points in the arc of each company. The students will also become familiar with the risks of shorting frauds too early. We will examine various short selling strategies, including “activist shorting”, that are currently being employed in the markets. We will evaluate what elements make for a compelling short “pitch.” Additionally, students will learn about idea sourcing, portfolio management, risk management, and compliance.
While the title and focus of the class is “Short Selling,” it is important to note that the techniques and investment approaches we will discuss are highly applicable to long-focused investing as well. Deciding not to own a security that is included in a tracking index is functionally the same as shorting the security, and understanding a company’s true profitability (and not the version that it promotes through its accounting decisions) is highly important for valuation efforts. A deep and skeptical research approach should assist fundamental analysts in all fields. We will approach this topic from both theoretical and practical perspectives, drawing heavily on the academic literature around short selling as well as highly-experienced practitioners. We will examine what makes a profitable short, and pay particular attention to unsuccessful shorts and
how to avoid them. The mosaic of analysis will include accounting, market microstructure, fundamental factors, behavioral finance, value-added research, and various v
Cities are dynamic centers of human achievement where new ideas are generated, industries flourish, and cultures intertwine. Highly skilled workers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and scientists have long been drawn to these dense urban environments due to social and professional networks, industry clustering and the myriad of cultural and public resources cities offer. However, the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the trend towards increasing urbanization as workers emptied urban downtowns and worked remotely. These disruptions have important consequences for city economies and urban and suburban real estate valuations. Cities are now forced to transform once again and re-imagine their future in a world of hybrid work, AI, and climate change. This course will explore how urban centers are adapting to these seismic challenges and how leaders must reconcile future growth with social and environmental stewardship. This course will explore the process of disruption and transformation using cities as the unit of analysis. It will combine conceptual analysis with real-world strategies pursued by cities such as New York City to effectuate urban regeneration. This includes critical infrastructure underpinning urban mobility, clean energy, and real estate investments in housing, office, industrial and entertainment assets, often through public-private partnerships. This course is meant for MBA students seeking a bigger-picture perspective on the intersection of business and government in the realm of real estate, innovation and infrastructure.
This is a semester-long course that addresses issues in adult psychiatric epidemiology. The course begins with a review of the origins of psychiatric epidemiology in several classic studies. It also describes major recent studies, presents evidence concerning the reliability and validity of psychiatric diagnosis in community studies and summarizes evidence derived from epidemiological studies that is relevant to issues of etiology. The course also covers selection into treatment, treatment effectiveness, the distribution of treatment, and social factors affecting course and role functioning.
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A study of the theoretical and practical aspects of ethnomusicological fieldwork, using the New York area as a setting for exercises and individual projects.
Methods used in cancer epidemiology are critically examined through weekly assigned readings, lectures and class discussion. Topics covered in this course include molecular and cellular biology of cancer, basic mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and the roles of chemical, viral, hormonal, genetic and nutritional factors in human cancer. The natural history of cancer analysis of time trends in cancer incidence, mortality, survival and geographic distribution are also examined. Screening and treatment issues will be discussed.
The course "Private Equity" focuses on the essential aspects of corporate finance relevant to the private equity industry. The course follows the "private equity cycle" of selection, valuation, and harvesting. Initially, students learn to evaluate a target company from the perspective of a private equity firm, keeping in mind the needs of investors and management. The course then delves into financial modeling, deal structuring, PE fund raising and private equity investment management. We will cover the basic LBO model used throughout the industry to structure and value deals.
“Advanced Private Equity” expands on the topics learned in “Private Equity” from a PE investment professional's perspective. The course follows the private equity cycle from sourcing to exit. With the help of guest speakers from the PE industry, students will learn about the early stages of the deal process: sourcing and diligence. The class will build a complex three-statement LBO model, learning about how modern deals are structured with private credit, management rollovers, and non-traditional capital structure decisions. The course shifts to the ownership side of PE deals: value creation. We will cover the strategies used by PE owners to grow and improve their portfolio companies, incorporating initiatives into our models. The course uniquely combines lectures and guest speakers on all topics, where the guest speakers bring applications of all key issues to the classroom.
Spatial epidemiology is the study of geographic distributions and determinants of health in populations. The goal of this class is to introduce students to relevant theory and methods, in order to provide the foundational skills required to understand and critically analyze spatial epidemiologic studies. The course emphasizes spatial epidemiology as a sub-discipline of epidemiology while acknowledging the many scientific disciplines that shape it, including biostatistics, cartography, criminology, demography, economics, geography, psychology, and sociology. We begin by defining spatial epidemiology and exploring these multi-disciplinary roots, with particular regard to the theoretical causal mechanisms that provide a bridge between social and physical environmental conditions and population health. We then provide a basic overview of geographic information systems and their utility for descriptive spatial epidemiology—including data visualization and cluster detection—before demonstrating how to incorporate spatial structures within conventional epidemiologic study designs to examine associational and causational relationships between environmental conditions and health outcomes. Class readings describe advances in theory and methods for spatial epidemiology and related disciplines, as well as concrete examples of applications for communicable disease, non-communicable disease, and injury epidemiology. This course is intended for doctoral and 2ndyear MPH students.
Leveraged Buyout. The term itself has a mystique to many people, but at its core it refers to buying a company (a “buyout”) using leverage (i.e., debt), usually a lot of it. While many types of business owners can utilize borrowings to fund an acquisition, the term is synonymous with private equity firms buying companies using significant amounts of borrowed capital. Leveraged buyouts date back to the 1960s, when the predecessors of the original private equity firms were bootstrapping deals together. While much has changed in the intervening decades—including the development and maturation of the private equity industry—some things have not, including leverage's importance in any buyout. Without one or more lenders or other credit providers, there cannot be a leveraged buyout; therefore, lenders and credit investors are important stakeholders in closing every private equity buyout. In addition, the leverage places certain constraints on the borrower, so the lender or credit provider is a key stakeholder in the ultimate success of the private equity firm’s investment.
By its nature, the financing of leveraged transactions is significantly different from that of large-cap publicly traded or Fortune 500 companies, which often have access to low-cost commercial paper, the investment-grade bond market, global banks, and numerous other parts of the capital markets. While those companies may borrow tens of billions of dollars from banks and other sources, those companies’ debt is typically considered relatively low risk (perhaps having a low debt-to-cap ratio or denoted as “investment grade”). Today, leverage in buyouts is often 40%, 50%, or even 60%+ of the company’s total capitalization. Underwriting for these deals in significantly different than traditional underwriting.
This course will cover the topic of leverage used in private equity buyouts
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: why leverage is important, various commonly deployed forms of leverage, and trends in the overall marketplace (including the rapid growth of private credit, especially in the middle market). This course will provide:
an understanding of the various forms of leverage commonly deployed by private equity firms (and other business owners) in transactions, including borrowings from banks and private credit firms and through the issuance of high-yield bonds
the experience of acti
This course provides students an in-depth simulation of the private equity deal process. The course leverages a single (real-life) confidential information memorandum (CIM) supplied by a PE firm and works through all the major steps to get to the IC meeting. Students will work in groups to prepare the documents and models required for the final IC memo and have the opportunity to conduct deep diligence through interactions with management and industry experts. Guest speakers will be brought to class to recreate the diligence process, arrange financing, plan value creation, and finalize deal documents.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Students will make presentations of original research.
Tech Arts: Advanced Post Production covers advanced techniques for picture and sound editing and the post production workflow process. The goal of the course is to give you the capabilities to excel in the field of post production. We will focus extra attention to concepts and workflows related to long-form projects that can contain a team of technical artists across the post production pipeline. We will cover preparing for a long-form edit, digital script integration, color management and continuity, advanced trimming, and advanced finishing. The hands-on lessons and exercises will be conducted using the industry-standard Non-Linear Editing Systems, Avid Media Composer, and Davinci Resolve.
Each week’s class will consist of hands-on demonstrations and self-paced practice using content created by the students and provided by the program.
See CLS curriculum guide for description
The primary objectives in this course are to gain knowledge about and to critically engage with current topics in the field of injury control and prevention, to develop research and scientific inquiry skills, and to make meaningful connections with experts in this field. In this course, we will learn from experts on four topics in the field of injury control and prevention. By the end of the semester, students will have improved their ability to interpret peer-reviewed research on current topics in injury control and prevention and will be prepared to go forward asking important scientific questions in this field, with a solid sense of what is already known and what is worthy of further inquiry and investigation. Readings will be determined by the four guest speakers based on what is relevant to their field of research.
The course is designed to introduce business students to the application of value investing concepts and disciplines to digital businesses. We will cover a wide range of digital business models in companies at a variety of stages and development.The course is organized around major digital business models and industry verticals. After the introductory sessions, each week will closely examine a leading digital company (or companies) within the model/vertical at issue, as well as an alternative established or emerging digital competitors. The analytical framework will be reflected in an Investment Committee Memorandum template that will serve as a basis for class discussion. The template incorporates the key decision-making variables relevant to a value investing approach. The first half of each class will focus on the overall sector identified and leading company example.The second half will include Investment Committee Memo presentations by two student groups on the alternative digital business examined. Some sessions will include participation of relevant leading digital investors or executives. In addition to weekly readings, the two textbooks for the class are: Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond (VI) by Bruce Greenwald et al. and The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies (COM) by Jonathan Knee et al. The reading assignments for class combine chapters of the book with relevant background materials on the general sector and specific companies studied. Grading is based on:Final examination (65%) Group presentations (25%) Class participation (10%)"
Public health surveillance is the fundamental mechanism that public health agencies use to monitor the health of the communities they serve. It is a core function of public health practice, and its purpose is to provide a factual basis from which agencies can appropriately set priorities, plan programs, and take actions to promote and protect the public's health. This course will cover the principles of public health surveillance, including historical context, vital registration, disease reporting regulations and notifiable diseases, surveillance registries, surveillance for behaviors and risk factors, administrative data sources in surveillance, epidemiologic uses of surveillance data, legal and ethical issues, and dissemination of surveillance information.
This course emphasizes critical analysis of disparities in women’s health both historically and in the current health care system. Institutional racism and misogyny will be examined as a major contributor to health disparities. Health outcomes across the lifespan for women in the United States will be compared and contrasted with outcomes in low and high resource countries. The social and political context will include disparities identified based on the social determinants of health which include age, race, poverty, mental and physical capacity, ethnicity, language, country of national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation. Efforts to close the gap in disparities will be identified and analyzed.
The goals of this class are to familiarize the students with the methodological issues and design strategies used in environmental epidemiology and to develop the student's critical thinking regarding the application of epidemiologic methods. The course covers traditional approaches to environmental epidemiology such as, occupational cohorts and ecologic studies and also covers newer molecular epidemiologic approaches to exposure assessment and the analysis of gene-environment interactions. Discussions of classic environment-disease associations, such as aflatoxin and liver cancer, illustrate methodologies used to investigate the health effects of environmental exposures. Each week readings will be assigned for discussion in the following class, students are expected to be prepared to discuss the readings.
The course examines important international finance issues, and corporate and asset pricing, using a mixture of classes involving lecture/discussion and the analysis of cases. After a review of international finance fundamentals, we will examine international capital budgeting decisions, which require an understanding of exchange rates and the determination of an appropriate cost of capital. To do this, our valuations will use both discounted cash flow analysis, adjusted net present value analysis, and various multiples. We will also explore forecasting, currency risk, and political risk. Finally, the course discusses various tools to manage these different types of cross-border risks.
The course is very experiential. Learnings will be applied to companies that are currently fundraising and you will assess each company as if you were considering investing. There will be 2-3 guest lecturers (in addition to the startup pitches) from experts in the ecosystem so students get a varied perspective. Real company info will be shared in this class. As a result, class slides will be handed out in class but not shared electronically and class sessions will not be recorded.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Students will make presentations of original research.
You might have heard that value, quant value to be specific, has not performed well over the last decade. Consider the Figure below. It shows the returns associated with investing $1 in four quant strategies, big value, big growth, small value and small growth. The facts are straightforward. Big growth has outperformed big value, but the value premium is alive and well amongst small stocks. In general, when one looks at value versus growth, growth has outperformed greatly. Does this mean value investing is dead? Absolutely not. Journalists and observers confuse quant value with value investing Modern value is about value investing: The process by which we estimate the fundamental value of the business operations of the firm in the context of the competitive position the company has in the industry and markets in which it operates. Notice that I wrote process. Value investing is indeed structured and systematic, and it needs to be because it is granular, focused on the specifics of the firm under consideration. Thus, it is easy to get lost in the details of the firm. The process helps you assess the importance of each bit of information and integrate them coherently in the analysis that combines tools from accounting, valuation and the economics of strategic behavior. around the appropriate aspects of the business?
This intensive course offers an introduction to multiple disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches to the major issues defining the emergence, persistence, and transformation of the countries that once comprised the Soviet bloc. The course explores the history, politics, economies, societies, and political cultures of Russia, the non-Russian republics of the former USSR, and East Central Europe, focusing on the conceptual, methodological, and theoretical developments employed by Soviet studies in North America and related disciplines. It also critically interrogates the enduring relevance and problems posed by the widespread use of the term “Soviet legacy” in reference to contemporary features and challenges faced by the region.
The intensive nature of this course is reflected in two ways- preparation and focus. First, the course carries a substantial reading load designed to inform and prepare students for the course sessions. These assignments will mostly be academic readings, but may also include short videos, news articles, and digital archival materials. In order to use our time together productively, the lectures and discussion will build upon, not review, the assignments for the session. Each session typically will be split into 2 segments, roughly of 55-60 minutes each. Many of these segments will be taught by guest lecturers who will give 30 mins presentations on their topic and then field questions. During our limited time for Q&A students should ask single, concise questions.
Clinical epidemiology is a basic science of clinical medicine and a subspecialty of epidemiology. It is the application of epidemiologic methods to studying problems encountered in clinical settings pertaining to the causes and management of diseases and medical conditions in individual patients. The central paradigm of clinical epidemiology is that exposure and outcome patterns of the disease in different population groups can be analyzed methodically to gain scientific knowledge about the etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, safety, and effectiveness of therapeutic and other interventions. Epidemiologic methods are increasingly used in clinical investigations to provide scientific evidence for assessing clinical practice and for improving clinical decision making and outcomes. This course is designed to introduce students to basic theories, concepts, and methods of clinical epidemiology, and provide them with the necessary tools and skills to critically appraise the clinical research literature, competently design and conduct clinical studies, and appropriately analyze and interpret clinical data. This course consists of one lecture and one laboratory session per week. Students will be evaluated based on a mid-term exam, final exam, and homework assignments.
This course provides the graduate midwifery student with theoretical knowledge of complex conditions that may arise during the antepartum period. Maintaining a person-centered approach to care is emphasized within the context of health equity.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: https://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This half session "B" course is focused primarily on the commercial real estate debt markets and is complimented by the half session "A" course, Real Estate Equity Markets. Students may wish to take both half courses sequentially for a complete understanding of the Real Estate Capital Markets or individually. The purpose of this course is to provide the student with a comprehensive understanding of both theory and practice in the commercial real estate debt markets both from the perspective of capital providers as well as property investors. The approach will be to make sure students first have a thorough grasp of the relevant theories and models used to value these assets and then to apply that understanding to reality seeing the limitations of the theory. Students will learn how to underwrite, size, and analyze a variety of commercial real estate debt including balance sheet first mortgage loans, first mortgage loans for securitization and CMBS, and subordinate debt structures including mezzanine loans, B- notes and preferred equity. The course will also teach the student how to analyze the $800 billion CMBS market, the largest commercial real estate debt market and the associated CRE CDO, CRE CLO and CMBX markets both from a theoretical and practical perspective. These markets finance about one quarter of all commercial real estate debt. They were also at the heart of the recent commercial real estate bubble, collapse and rebirth. Some time will also be devoted to agency "CMBS (multifamily)" markets including FNMA DUS MBS, FHLMC K certificates and Ginnie Mae Project and construction loan certificates. As a final project, students will be grouped into teams and given commercial real estate securities to analyze on a Bloomberg to make investment decisions. All students who would like to understand these critical markets and their connection to the commercial property markets are welcome. The course would be particularly appropriate for students wishing to pursue careers in real estate finance and/or trading, creating, investing in, researching, selling or regulating commercial real estate securities. The course is also recommended for students wishing to pursue careers as developers or investors in commercial real estate properties themselves (" the dirt") but want to understand how to fund their ventures via these instruments and how volatility in the real estate debt capital markets for these instruments can create opportunities and risks in the property markets themselves.
REITs have existed as a legal form for over 55 years, but the modern REIT era can be traced to the early 1990’s. Since that time, the sector has grown from approximately $5.0 billion in assets to over $1.0 trillion. More importantly, the migration of assets and talent into the public markets has helped make REITs one of the primary drivers of value creation in the real estate industry as well as a repository of operating expertise. By some estimates REITs today comprise 15.0% - 20.0% of the investible commercial real estate market; given significant competitive advantages, that share is growing. The net result has been irrevocable structural change and increased stability across the real estate industry. The REIT sector has evolved into a very viable and credible investment class; the group now comprises a significant weighting in the major stock indices with its own industry classification. Real Estate Equity Securities Analysis will serve as a substantive introduction to the companies that comprise the REIT and real estate securities sectors, conceptually and as an investment. The course will provide the requisite analytical tools to value real estate stocks; we will utilize conventional securities analysis tools, on an applied basis. It will also look holistically at the REITs as operating entities, specifically how these companies work and what they are worth. We will incorporate qualitative, strategic and technical considerations into the quantitative valuation analyses – to reach more rigorous and successful investment conclusions. Rhetorically, the course will utilize a combination of lectures and case studies, interactive group exercises and discussion. Notably, guest speakers will include senior executives from issuing REITs as well as buy-side securities investors – both hedge fund and global portfolio managers. The final project will group students into teams to select a specific REIT security and prepare a stock recommendation for presentation to an investment committee. Real Estate Equity Securities Analysis will provide the actionable skills and broad analytical insight to participate successfully -– as an investor or as a partner – in a sector that has emerged as one of the most important drivers of the real estate industry globally. Student Profiles: Real Estate Equity Securities is designed to be a second year, upper-level finance course. The pre-requisites below highlight the need for a working knowledge of fundamental real estate concepts, corporate finance, and
This diagnosis and management course identifies complex sexual and reproductive health issues within the scope of nurse midwifery practice. Emphasis will be on the nurse midwifery role in the management of complex cases which includes collaborative care and referrals. Concurrent supervised clinical experiences enhance and ground the didactic experience. Social and reproductive justice issues and health outcome measures with respect to disparities will be integrated throughout.
This course provides foundational knowledge and skills for midwifery management and support of physiologic labor and birth. Hands-on workshops with task trainers and simulation will be utilized to provide instruction and feedback on practical skills necessary for assessment and management of the laboring and birthing person.
This course will introduce fundamental concepts and a high-level overview of the burgeoning blockchain and cryptocurrency space. The course will begin by providing a background in fundamental concepts in Computer Science such as in cryptography, distributed systems, and data structures. It will then move on to an in-depth overview of blockchain, the history of Bitcoin and the proliferation of new consensus models, ICOs, smart contracts, and more. Industry guest speakers will share their perspectives.
The course’s objective is to teach the student how to develop, value, finance, and invest in residential real estate and residential real estate debt securities and derivatives as well as to understand how the US residential financing system works. Given its’ broad and deep sweep, students will learn about a wide range of topics ranging from the importance of fits and finishes in selling homes in a new subdivision, to how to entitle land, to how blockchain is being used to disrupt the mortgage origination process, to how to create an Agency residential CMO companion bond and a lot more. A range of housing types will be covered including: single family subdivisions, market rate urban condominiums, low and moderate income housing, workforce and student housing, manufactured housing, and senior residential living
communities, and rental apartments. At the end of the course we will also focus on racism and real estate.
The course is recommended for Columbia Business School MBA, EMBA, PhD and MSc financial engineering students who
wish to understand these markets better or who want to pursue careers or side businesses in developing and/or buying
residential types of real estate, and/or who wish to trade, sell, research, or institutionally invest in residential real estate
securities and derivatives. Cross registrants from SIPA, the School of Engineering, Law and Journalism schools who want
to better understand how housing development and the US housing finance system works are also welcome.
This clinical course covers the broad scope of sexual, reproductive health and prenatal care including: the history and physical examination techniques aimed at understanding the physiologic parameters of sexual health and pregnancy and recognizing complex conditions, illness or risk for complication. This course focuses on the physical, emotional and educational needs of the person seeking midwifery care and covers a variety of clinical areas including health maintenance, screening, sexual health, family planning, preconception, pregnancy and late postpartum care.
The course is directed towards students who are involved with the management of family businesses, either their own family's or someone else's, as well as towards students who interact with family businesses. The focus of this course is primarily on financing decisions faced by
privately held family businesses. We will explore the family, business, and ownership issues found in family owned and managed companies to get a better understanding of how financial decisions are influenced.
Through lectures, case studies, student work experiences and guest speakers, we consider questions of control, growth, liquidity, and the evolving role of governance and the family office in the financing decisions of the family owned enterprise.
The course has the following objectives:
• Develop a system framework to analyze factors influencing family business financial decisions.
• Increase your understanding, effectiveness and commitment as a member of a family firm (either you own family’s or someone else’s) or as an advisor to such firms
• Identify the characteristics that differentiate a family business from other businesses
• Examine the life cycles of family businesses from the perspective of business, family and ownership
• Learn to identify and evaluate situations and problems in family businesses
• Examine best practices and explore emerging trends in family business management
• Develop family business competitive strategies
Over the past thousand years, modern capitalism has expanded from its European starting point to the entire world. Modern economic activity started with a commercial revolution in the late Middle Ages, concentrated in European city states like Venice and Genoa. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, European colonialism spread this commercial revolution around the globe. The Industrial Revolution in northwestern Europe led to unprecedented and sustained economic growth, which allowed European nations to dominate the rest of the world economically, politically, and militarily, with mixed results for the rest of the world. Over the past hundred years, global capitalism has continued to present countries, and the people in them, with enormous opportunities, crushing constraints, and major political dilemmas.
The course is an introductory overview of the economics and politics of international economic activity in historical and theoretical perspective.
This applied course introduces students to the epidemiology of HIV infection in resource-rich and resource-limited settings. Class sessions focus on the latest approaches to conducting surveillance of HIV and AIDS; the evolving burden of HIV infection in sub-groups, including men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, adolescent girls and older people; the development and evaluation of prevention- and treatment-related interventions across a range of settings; and the application of epidemiologic methods to understand historical and current controversies and determine best practices. Activate participation in class discussion and exercises, homework, a group presentation and a final project will be used to evaluate student progress towards learning objectives.
You cant disrupt any industry without dislodging its incumbents. And no incumbent goes down without a fight. Sometimes those fights happen in court. But usually, they take place in the halls of government: in city councils, state legislatures, municipal regulatory agencies, even local community boards. For 90% of technology startups, not understanding how to anticipate, handle and solve your coming regulatory problems is just as problematic as not being able to hire engineers or raise venture funding. Failure to anticipate politics can be fatal. However, there is a playbook for startups to disrupt and thrive. This class is designed to teach its students exactly how. Working in groups, students pilot new industries through the regulatory process, navigating the halls of power and the economics of disruption by analyzing the regulatory and political obstacles in their way. Students will figure out how to properly assess their opponents, develop and execute the right narrative in the media, build a grassroots movement, effectively lobby elected officials, regulators and political staffers, overcome entrenched interests standing in their way, and ideally, not only win legality for their idea, but build a regulatory moat to box out potential competitors.
Malaria imposes a profound burden on public health and inhibits economic growth. It is distributed over 90 countries accounting for an annual estimate of 400 million cases and over one million deaths, most of them in children. Pregnant women are more vulnerable to malaria, resulting in infection, miscarriages, severe anemia, maternal mortality and low birth weight. Low birth weight poses the greatest risk for neonatal death. The disease also affects non-immune immigrants, refugees and displaced populations during their movement from non-endemic to endemic areas. Resistance to anti-malarial drugs and insecticides by the Plasmodium human parasites and Anopheles vector mosquitoes respectively is widespread. This course examines the ecological and epidemiological characteristics of malaria, transmission dynamics, economic costs of malaria, available intervention strategies and the global challenge of its control.
This course focuses on the branch of epidemiology concerned with how social arrangements, processes, and interactions shape the population distribution of health and disease and produce social inequalities in health. The sub-discipline of social epidemiology has grown dramatically in the past decade and, while still evolving as an interdisciplinary enterprise, it is now an established field of etiologic inquiry, both incorporating and influencing the conventional theories, methods, and principles of epidemiology. This course will familiarize students with the key theories, concepts, methods, findings, and ongoing debates in social epidemiology. Through lectures, readings, and discussion we will review the major social determinants of health, the theories and empirical evidence with respect to how social conditions “get under the skin,” and the methodological challenges involved in measuring social phenomena and making causal inferences about the relationship between social factors and health. By the end of the course students will understand the theoretical, substantive, and methodological parameters of this growing sub-discipline of epidemiologic inquiry, and be able to evaluate both its strengths and limitations.
In what ways has religion been deployed as an analytical category in 20th century American history? Through a case study of how Jews and antisemitism have been conceptualized, theorized and narrated within the annals of American history, we will ponder what to American historians think about religion. What is the heuristic value of such a category? We will also research in Columbia’s archives to see how Jews and Judaism are discussed. This course will also introduce students to the theoretical innovations in the field of contemporary religion and to suggest ways that the study of religion intersects, intervenes and complicates the fields of American urban, cultural, and political history.
The outstanding notional amount of debt instruments in the world is well over $100 trillion which makes it larger than the global equity markets. Credit, is actually what makes the world go around yet it gets much less billing and excitement than other asset classes. If you think credit is just fixed income, I have a few hedge fund managers you should meet Some of them will be our occasional guest speakers!
In recent years, a number of infections have appeared for the first time, while many others have spread rapidly to new areas; these are termed emerging infectious diseases". HIV/AIDS, SARS, the recent Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), human infections with H5N1 and H7N9 avian influenza, and a number of others are recent examples. Infectious causes have also been implicated in such chronic diseases as gastric ulcers and certain cancers. This course examines the concept of emerging infectious diseases and our current understanding of emergence. The course will consider methods for identifying and studying emerging pathogens, factors responsible for disease emergence, and methods for surveillance and intervention.
The primary objectives in this course are to learn to systematically review and summarize primary research in chronic disease epidemiology, to synthesize scientific evidence to establish causal inference, and to understand how this evidence relates to scientific decision making for improving health outcomes. In this course, we will evaluate 4 topics in the epidemiology of chronic diseases. By the end of the semester, students will improve their ability to interpret the literature on current topics in chronic disease epidemiology and will be able to evaluate how the evidence can inform health decision making and causal inference. Readings will be based upon publications highlighted in the Dean’s Seminar Series on Chronic Disease and the Department of Epidemiology’s Chronic Disease Cluster seminars.
How shall we approach the vast collection of artifacts left by Americans in the eighteenth through twentieth centuries? What can silver tea services, Amish quilts, rubber telephone receivers or ebony Art Deco coffee tables tell us about the people who designed, produced and used them? How can we understand the sourcing and transformation of raw materials as culturally embedded practices that reinforce, contest or evolve power dynamics between members of different human communities? What role have everyday objects played in mediating Americans’ relationships to the natural world? How can the study of material culture deepen our understanding of U.S. entanglements with global history?
In this graduate seminar we will explore the methods used by art historians and others to explore the meanings of material culture. The class will involve several visits to local collections and each student is expected to produce an 18-20 page research paper on a single object or class of objects.
Mental, neurological, and substance use (MNS) disorders are substantial drivers of the global burden of disease. The burden is particularly high in low-and-middle-income countries (LMIC) where over 80% of persons in need of MNS services go untreated. Yet for decades, attention to MNS epidemiologic research in LMIC was scarce relative to both psychiatric epidemiology studies conducted in high-income countries as well as infectious disease epidemiology studies in LMIC. Recently, however, the emerging field of global mental health has been recognized by international agencies, including the United Nations (via the Sustainable Development Goals) and the World Health Organization (via the Mental Health Action Plan) as major funding agencies, including NIH, CDC, and the UK MRC have followed suit in prioritizing global mental health research.
As the field has emerged, challenges in how to appropriately conduct public mental health research in LMIC contexts have surfaced. Such challenges require the appropriate application of epidemiologic methods in order to accurately measure and describe MNS problems in LMIC and evaluate and implement intervention approaches. Epidemiologic methods to be discussed in this course include: complex survey designs to measure MNS prevalence in humanitarian and emergency settings; validation of mental health screening tools in the absence of a gold standard criterion among culturally diverse populations; evaluation of MNS intervention effectiveness using experimental and non-experimental designs; novel methods for assessing clinical competency and intervention fidelity of lay mental health providers in LMIC; and implementation science tools, designs, and analysis approaches for translating evidence-based interventions into practice in LMIC.
The course is designed to complement Priorities in Global Mental Health (P6813), which provides a broad overview of priority issues in global mental health, and epidemiologic methods series courses (e.g., Quant Core Module / P6400, and Epidemiology II). The course is also designed to be practical in the sense that the intent is for students to learn the ‘how to’ of conducting global mental health epidemiologic studies in the field. Each lecture will apply a core epidemiologic method or concept (e.g., information and selection bias; survey, cohort, case-control, and RCT study designs; effect modification; and causal inference) to the field of global mental health. Through lectures, int
Seminar for students in the Social Determinants certificate program
Clinical skills preparation is essential before a student enters clinical practicum. A variety of skills relevant to antepartum, well woman gynecology, and intrapartum care are taught and then practiced in simulation settings and peer practice.
The 1960’s and ‘70s witnessed an explosion of performance works in the visual arts. Departing from precedents in the early 20th century, performance during this period is marked both by its international reach and breadth of artistic experimentation: process painting, extreme bodily acts, textual scores, video and audio recordings, sculptural installations, ritualistic drawings, and direct political interventions, proposing complex relations between object, process, and act. This course explores this history and its legacy through the lens of two contributing factors: first are political events, upheavals and revolutionary movements that erupted across the globe, generating artistic performance as protest and activism; and second is an emergent media culture characterized by technologies of repetition and recording, resulting in performance works that are defined through reproduction rather than liveness, while taking inspiration from experimental film, music, and dance. To explore these themes, the class will examine select case studies of individual artists, movements and collectives: among which include the NY based Guerilla Art Action Group; Japanese Gutai and international Happenings; Brazilian neo-Concretism; South Korean Experimental art (
silheom misul
); as well as video, audio, photographic and durational works (by Ana Mendieta, Bruce Nauman, Adrian Piper, Tehching Hsieh, etc.), to name a few. In final research papers, students will trace this genealogy, examining contemporary performance works that are realized variously through networked and digital forms, uncapturable ephemerality, or direct social action.
Life course epidemiology is the study of exposures, both physical and social, that occur during the periconceptional period, during gestation or during early childhood and adult health and disease risk. This course will examine conceptual models and identify study designs appropriate for a variety of life course research questions, as well as the limitations of these designs. Understanding the approaches to the life course, the development and evaluation of epidemiologic research designs related to the life course, and the contextual models and their relevance for the design and evaluation of research studies will be covered using a combination of lectures, case studies and small group work.
This course will introduce the student to the epistemology and scholarship of practice and to lifelong learning. Using the DNP Competencies in Comprehensive Care as the framework, students will analyze clinical decision-making and utilization of evidence for best clinical practices in a variety of reproductive health settings. Individual plans for guided study will be mapped for each student. Clinical review and discussion of interesting, complex cases from the practice environment will facilitate the students’ development of the knowledge base and skills essential to the role of the nurse midwife.
Individual work with an adviser to develop a topic and proposal for the Ph.D. dissertation.
This course offers a graduate level introduction to the literature of nineteenth century U.S. history. It uses a reading list of recently published and classic texts to help students map the critical questions and debates that have shaped the field. The list is designed to represent key methodological developments, including in gender and transnational histories. Taken as a whole, the course seeks to situate the United States within the nineteenth century world and to identify the broad set of historical forces that worked to define it. The course is designed to serve as an introduction to graduate study in American history, as preparation for Ph.D. field exams, and as a place to explore potential dissertation topics.
This course examines the impact of the display of different photographic practices around the world beginning in the 1990s on the heretofore universalizing discourse around photography and modernism. It will read certain canonical texts of photo criticism in counterpoint with research on African photography. We will also consider how the display of these photographs has heightened ethical questions around the competing rights of photographers and their subjects. Who has influenced whom?
Large data sets provide crucial information for monitoring the health of our nation and evaluating public health policies. The principal goal of this course is for students to develop the skills to identify, process, and analyze these data to answer a specific research or policy question. The class is an applied, hands-on course that provides an introduction to several major health data sets and guides students in processing and analyzing these data. Students will hone computer and statistical skills developed in other research methods courses. Students with also gain insight into active research projects that utilize large scale health data sets via a series of guest lectures. By accessing data that measure health variables of current importance, the class provides a foundation for developing a variety of health policy research questions.
This course examines the movement to health care quality in the US, providing students with definitions of quality and a historical perspective on quality initiatives. Primary focus of the class is on quality initiatives in the past 10 years, including efforts by the Institute of Medicine, Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, various accrediting organizations (e.g. NCQA), and employer-based initiatives such as HEDIS and Leapfrog. There will be in depth analysis of establishing and measuring the quality of health care in various organizational settings, on risk management and legal issues, and on recent efforts to link quality with pay for performance.
The current systems for the delivery of health services in the United States often fall short of addressing the health needs of many people living in the communities they cover and in so doing contribute to health status disparities. The objective of this course is to help students develop a framework to understand the needs of traditionally under-served populations and the challenges facing the delivery systems that handle these groups. This course has two major foci. The first is understanding who the “vulnerable” populations are as it relates to access to needed health services and disparities in health status. The interaction between health care systems and health care disparities will be explored. Particular attention will be paid to issues surrounding poverty, literacy, immigrant health care and several vulnerable sub-populations including gay-lesbian, homeless and prison. The second focus is service delivery for individuals traditionally under-served. This component includes an examination of organizations and provider (particularly physician)-patient relationships. Students will have the opportunity to move from the classroom to the street, observing, first-hand, several hospital and community-based arrangements.
This course is intended to provide students with the legal framework governing health care administration, management and policy. Students will analyze case law, and selected statutes relevant to health care administrators, providers, and consumers of care. Students will be exposed to the evolution of laws and the ethical, practical and political impact of laws in the management of health care institutions.
An examination of the complex and evolving healthcare and insurance system from the perspective of managed health care and insurance companies, hospital systems, IPAs, physicians, employers, patients, and pharma companies. This course will focus on the interplay among these key stakeholders. There will be four guest speakers from the healthcare industry who will help the students apply their readings and discussions to real challenges.
This course will take an in depth look at hospital finances using data from the New York area. Students will develop technical skills, learn hospital operations, and be asked to examine how structures created to optimize finance affects access to services for disparate patients across varying services.
Students will develop technical skills by creating their own excel models. Assignments will include budget and staffing models; financial plan projections; and cash-flow forecasts.
Students will also be asked to participate in a course long group research project that evaluates the nexus between healthcare reimbursement policy and access to services.
Managing professionals is crucial to the success (or failure) of health care organizations because the provision of services primarily relies on human decision-making and interaction. Health care professionals determine the level of quality as well as the costs associated with health care services directly or indirectly. The goal of this course is to introduce students to the functions and issues associated with managing human resources in health care organizations through in class exercises and outside of class assignment that demonstrate the human resource challenges that graduates may face as health care executives in the future. Significant attention is given to: 1) workforce issues, 2) understanding legal issues related to the employment setting, 3) selection and retention of employees, 4) establishing performance standards and evaluating performance, and compensation, and 5) understanding the use and effects of monetary and non-monetary incentives in human resources management in the United States and globally.
This reading and research course covers major themes in the history of New York City, with a focus on the twentieth century. We will look at the transformation of the city over the years that followed its consolidation in 1898; the ways New York was changed by the massive immigration of the first twenty years of the twentieth century; racial segregation in the city; the impact of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II on New York; urban renewal in the postwar years; deindustrialization and gentrification; and the economic, political, and social transformations of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Throughout, we will think about New York in relationship to other cities, and we will read classic works in urban history to gain comparative perspective. Finally, the course will feature archive visits and some walking tours to learn more about how to conduct research on New York City.
This course examines one of the most significant but relatively recent developments in the healthcare market place: the trend toward increased consolidation of healthcare providers into larger practices and into vertically integrated delivery systems, as well as the parallel trend toward consolidation of health insurance companies into fewer, but much larger entities. It will draw upon economic theory, empirical research, and health policy and economic analysis to explore the implications of these developments, coupled with other emerging trends, on healthcare market competition, prices, profits, expenditures, and consumer welfare