Course subject: Economics (ECON)

This course studies models of economic decision making. Topics include: choice under uncertainty, consumer and producer theory and game theory.

This course for MA students examines the monetary and financial aspects of the macro-economy. Its main purpose is to prepare students to conduct analyses of problems and policies in monetary economics. Topics may include the link between monetary policy and output, the economic cost of aggregate fluctuations, the costs and benefits of price stability, the role of central banks and the banking system.

This course focuses on increasing students' understanding of the roles of economic theory and empirical methods and on the development of skills in the critical analyses of economic research. Through reading a variety of research papers and attending seminars, students will gain exposure to different research methodologies used in economics. Students will learn how to synthesize and critique research on a particular topic by writing reviews of academic papers and/or research reports from government and non-governmental agencies, as well as by writing a paper such as literature survey on an assigned topic. Students will enhance their writing skills and will also gain practice in presenting a research paper.

This course provides an introduction to the analysis of microdata - data in which the unit of analysis in an individual decision-maker, such as a consumer, worker, or firm. The course familiarizes students with the various types of mircodata structures and draws links between theoretical economic models and statistical models. It devotes considerable attention to anlytical techniques for describing univariate and bivariate distributions, including the use of kernel density estimators and scatterplots. The course addresses statistical inference using multivariate regressions, covering a series of techniques and issues of particular significance in the analysis of microdata. Examples include Monte Carlo methods; bootstrapping; the use of sampling weight; omitted variable bias; measurement error; and instrumental variables. Completion of an empirical project is a course requirement.

After exploring solutions for first and second-order difference and differential equations, the course studies the calculus of variations, optimal control theory, discrete and continuous dynamic programming, with applications to various fields; including micro and macroeconomics, natural resource and environmental economics, finance and investment theory. Techniques of dynamic simulation are discussed.

This course presents classical and new international trade theories and discusses selected topics representative of recent empirical research. Theory, extensions, applications and empirical tests of models such a Ricardian, Hecksher-Ohlin, increasing returns to scale and imperfect competition, political economy, heterogeneous agents (Melitz) will be covered. Additional elective topics include trade and environment; economic geography; trade, aid and development; trade and conflict; trade and growth.

This course demonstrates the usefulness of economic analysis to the study of global governance. Topics include the economic analysis of international trade, foreign direct investment, and international finance. Students with more advanced economics background (as a minimum, at least one economics course above the 100 level that focused on international economics or an equivalent applied course such as development economics, environmental economics) are recommended to replace 637 with one of a list of courses, including internationally oriented economics courses, some of the PSCI international political economy courses, or Faulty of Environment courses that include significant international political economy content.

This course discusses the economic effects of taxation. Topics may include the design of a desirable tax system, the structure of income, consumption and wealth taxes in Cananda, the efficiency cost and incidence of various types of taxes, international aspects of taxation, and fiscal federalism. Time permitting, some issues in public expenditure theory may be covered.

Study of the firm as a rational economic agent, how it makes decisions and implements strategies in markets that are imperfectly competitive, and the differences in industry equilibrium relative to perfect competition. The course covers market owe (oligopolies and monopolistically competitive models), the theory of the firm (organization and contracts), vertical restraints, differentiated products, price discrimination, advertising, barriers to entry, and strategic behaviour.

Labour market structure and operations. Theories of real wages, labour supply, employment-unemployment, and labour unions.

This course will review the application of the tools and theory of economics to environmental problems. The normative foundations of economic analysis will be discussed including efficiency, intergenerational equity and sustainability. The design and implementation of environmental policy will be analyzed including the use of command and control regulation, market-based instruments, and legal liability. Applications to various environmental issues may include global warming, trans-boundary pollution, and trade and the environment.

Topics covered include: expected utility theory, no-arbitrage pricing, equilibrium-pricing models, derivative-security pricing, asymmetric information, capital structure theory and dividend policy.

This course builds on the models and the techniques developed in Microeconomic Theory I. Topics may include general-equilibrium analysis, game theory, the economics of information, mechanism design and applications of bargaining theory to the theory of markets.

This course for PhD students examines the monetary and financial aspects of the macro-economy. Its main purpose is to prepare students to conduct analyses of problems and policies in monetary economics. Topics may include the link between monetary policy and output, the economic cost of aggregate fluctuations, the costs and benefits of price stability, the role of central banks and the banking system.

This course reviews identification strategies used in the analysis of cross-sectional and longitudinal microdata. Techniques primarily come from applications in labour economics, health economics and industrial organization. These may include fixed and random effects models, duration analysis, instrumental variables estimators, nonparametric and semi-parametric analysis, decomposition techniques, quantile regression, difference-in-difference estimators, propensity score matching and regression discontinuity design. The primary objectives of the course are to familiarize students with current methods used in microeconometric research and provide them with hands-on experience applying these methods using an appropriate statistical software package.

This course focuses on the theory and application of estimation and statistical evaluation of continuous-time stochastic processes frequently used in finance. In particular, it provides an in-depth discussion of estimation methods and statistical tests in the context of dynamic models of the term structure of interest and option pricing.

This course provides an advanced research-oriented exploration of selected issues in the economics of taxation. By the end of the course, students are expected to know what are the main current academic and policy debates in relation to personal and corporate taxation as well as what research papers form the most recent important contributions to these debates. This course is an essential part of preparation for students aiming to write a thesis in public economics. Topics include, but are not limited to, applied tax incidence and analysis, dynamic tax policy modeling, optimal taxation, tax competition, fiscal federalism and equalization, and tax policy reform.

This course offers a study of the core topics in labour economics. Labour supply, labour demand, wage determination and unemployment are presented in the context of consumer and producer choice theory. Knowledge of graduate level microeconomic theory and econometrics is required. Although no familiarity with specialized econometric methods is assumed, this course will introduce students to common estimation techniques employed in labour economics. Students will also learn about the more recent treatment of the core topics through readings of current research analyzing models' extensions.