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 considers some of the main problems of macroeconomics and addresses their policy implications.

Static and dynamic general equilibrium modelling; computation, calibration and simulation. Sensitivity analysis. Policy applications.

This course covers the techniques, and associated coding, required to compile, manage, manipulate and describe economic data. Topics may also include recent data generation and data description techniques including data visualization, text analysis, unsupervised learning techniques, and an introduction to numerical analysis.

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 microdata structures and draws links between theoretical economic models and statistical models. It devotes considerable attention to analytical 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 explores a variety of machine learning methods used to analyze complex economic data and inform policy decisions. The course introduces students to predictive methods and exploratory data analysis for high-dimensional data. These methods, such as decision trees and neural networks, are applied to observational data with an emphasis on the analysis of large and/or complex datasets of interest to social scientists and policy makers

This course is aimed at exploring the nexus between international trade, growth, and development through a set of selected readings. The course will not present a comprehensive treatment of the subject area. Rather, it will provide an introduction to a few selected topics that are suggestive of both the typical questions posed in the literature and of the manner in which the literature has developed over time. The topics will include models of international trade under perfect and imperfect competition, models of north-south trade, immiserizing growth, the Dutch disease, trade as an engine of growth, and international trade, technological change and long-run growth.

This course studies the economic role of the public sector in a modern market economy. Topics include the efficient provision of public goods, externalities and public choice analysis of the growth in government spending. Time permitting, some issues in the public economics of taxation may be covered.

This course introduces students to the role of economics in health care and health policy. It is meant to be a survey of major topics in health economics and an introduction to the ongoing debate over health care policy. Topics include the economic determinants of health and health policy, the market for medical care, the market for health insurance, and the role of the government in health care, and health care reform.

This course examines public policies in imperfectly competitive markets. The focus is on how different public policies impact dynamic welfare through their effects on innovation. The course explores the role of innovation in antitrust policy, examines in detail different forms of intellectual property rights, and introduces students to concepts such as technological opportunity, induced innovation, and preference externalities. Throughout the course the methodological emphasis is on studying when economic research - whether theoretical or empirical - can inform public policy.

The economics of renewable and non-renewable resources in a Canadian context. Problems peculiar to the fisheries, forestry, mineral industries and oil and gas production and consumption are analyzed. Also considered are economic and constitutional issues arising from the uneven distribution of resource rents in Canada.

The course combines water economic theory and practice, addressing major global water challenges such as climate change, water scarcity, flood risks, water quality, and resource recovery in a circular economy. Particular attention will be paid to water resource valuation and water pricing. Students will play water games and write an economic assessment paper about the costs and benefits of water, food and energy security related to large-scale water infrastructure such as dam building in a transboundary river basin.

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

In this course, students organize individually, or in teams of two or three, to write a report on a contemporary topic in economics that relates to their co-op work term experience. Teams are responsible for organizing regular meetings to coordinate work tasks, keeping a record of individual contributions to the project. The report should reflect the connection between academic studies and co-op work experience, demonstrating evidence of critical analysis, good organization, clarity, and conciseness. The report with be presented to the current cohort of MA students and members of the department's graduate committee. The final grade will be assigned by the Graduate Advisor. This course is restricted to students in enrolled in the MA in Economics and MA in Economics - Water - Co-operative programs.

The main purpose of this advanced course is to prepare PhD students to conduct research to conduct research in macroeconomics.

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.