Current Courses
ECON 501 Advanced Microeconomics: Value, Distribution, and Economic Well‐Being Core Course
Core Course
Open to Year I
This course provides an exposition of the analytical foundations of the classical (“surplus”) and neoclassical (“marginalist”) traditions in the theory of value and distribution. Given its dominance in contemporary economics, the latter tradition is emphasized in this course. The historical development of the marginalist theory of value is considered, as are critiques that focus on issues regarding its internal coherence and methodological difficulties. The remainder of the course examines the measurement of economic well‐being and deprivation, including the substantive issues related to the determinants of the standard of living. Topics include Lorenz curves, social welfare functions, inequality indices, and poverty indices.
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 502 Advanced Macroeconomics
Core Course
Open to Year I
The primary objective of macroeconomic analysis is to explain the phenomena of aggregate movements in output, employment, and the price level. This course examines the intellectual influences that have shaped the development of macroeconomic theory and policy since the beginning of the 20th century. Students acquire the skills needed to: 1) identify the main theoretical and methodological differences among competing approaches; 2) discuss the empirical evidence supporting each approach; and 3) explain why particular policy instruments are considered appropriate (or inappropriate) for achieving macroeconomic stability. Prerequisite: Intermediate Macro.
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 503 Public Economics: The Political Economy of Government Expenditures and Taxation
Core Course
Open to Year II
This course examines the role of the state in modern capitalist economies. Students are introduced to alternative theories of state and government intervention. Mainstream approaches are discussed and contrasted with alternative approaches that emphasize social, historical, and institutional factors. Taxation is examined within the standard theory of value and distribution as well as within the classical and Kaleckian approaches; public expenditures, including the provision of education and health care, are analyzed. Topics in the theory of redistribution and the welfare state form the final portion of the course. Readings include a mix of classic works, authoritative surveys, and recent work on specialized topics.
Prerequisite: ECON 501
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 504 Macroeconomic Stability
Elective Course
Open to Year I and Year II
This course will examine the nature of economic instability and financial crises, and the relative effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies. Students will be introduced to John Maynard Keynes’s investment theory of the business cycle and Hyman P. Minsky’s financial theory of investment. They will examine several competing perspectives on the sources of instability and the theoretical justifications for macroeconomic stabilization policy. We will interrogate the impact of postwar stabilization policies on inflation, unemployment, and financial fragility, including but not limited to those during the 70s stagflation period, the 2008 Great Recession, and the COVID19-induced global crisis.
During the first half of the course, graduate students will read primary texts, including J.M. Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, How to Pay for the War, and other policy writings from the interwar period. Students will then turn to the work of H.P. Minsky on banking and financial instability. This is a writing-intensive graduate seminar, where students will produce analytical synopses of the primary texts, which culminate in a research paper.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 505 Research Seminar
MA Core Course
Open to MA
Students will identify a research question for their MA paper. Each student will engage in researching the topic, elaborating the analysis required to answer their question and writing a paper that presents their research. At the end of the semester students will present this work to the faculty. Finished papers will be journal article length and contribute new research in one of Levy's program areas.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 508 Poverty, Gender and Social Policy
Elective Course
Open to Year I and Year II
As countries around the world attempt to lessen the financial and political woes caused by the global economic crisis, discussions by policy makers and development organizations have again focused on the ‘feminization of poverty’. Many would say that a focus on women’s income poverty within this context is a positive sign that gender issues are high on the international political agenda. But as women worldwide have to contend with low incomes as a result of labor force discrimination, and prejudicial gender biases in resource allocation within their homes and communities, this is only part of the story. It is important to conceptualize poverty as multidimensional in order to move beyond preconceived assumptions about the interconnections between women and poverty and extend the analysis to additional aspects such as urban displacement, sustainability and human rights.
This seminar explores the historical development and multifaceted present‐day realities of gender and poverty. We start with an overview of the characteristics of poverty in Latin America in comparison with the rest of the world; The historical development of the specific case of Argentina; the implementation and impact of job guarantee programs in general and Minsky's proposal for an Employer of Last Resort; and the application of a similar program, the Jefes y Jefas de Hogar program in Argentina, its origin and evolution from 2001 to the present focusing on fieldwork done in the Province of Buenos Aires.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 509 Gender and Economics
Elective Course
Open to Year I and II
The objective of this class is to reconceptualize and reorient the study of economics through a gender lens, going beyond the ideas of rational utility maximizing homogenous agents in the economy. The course surveys topics that build a backbone to gender scholarship and provides a feminist critique of and alternative approaches to mainstream economics. The emphasis is on the heterodox tradition of feminist economics, which questions the conceptualization of the economy, economic agency, paid and unpaid work, well-being, and gender-
unaware policy-making. The course further delves into discussions on gendered impacts of development, initiated in the 1970’s which were instrumental in integrating gender dynamics in policy and theory considerations during and beyond mid 1990’s. In this course we reconceptualize the study of both micro- and macro- economics in order to make the role of gender inequalities visible in overall economic analyses and policy making.
Successful students will be able to understand how feminist theory can contribute to the discipline of economics, what are the limitations to mainstream and heterodox economics in analyzing gender, what are the current issues in gender economics that need to be addressed, and how can we go about building a gender sensitive economic theory and develop a gender aware policy agenda.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 510 Development Finance
Elective Course
Open to Year I and Year II
The aim of this course is to present an analysis of economic development that is compatible with post‐Keynesian economics. In particular it will stress the importance of the demand constraint as opposed to the supply constraint on economic development. Since most developing countries are not resource or labor constrained, the basic problem facing them is how to generate domestic demand that is sufficient to fully mobilize labor and other domestic resources.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 511 History of Economic Thought
Elective Course
Open to Year I and Year II
The focus of this course is an examination of the “contest” between classical political economy and neoclassical theory in the context of their respective historical developments. Following an investigation into the origins and development of classical theory through Ricardo, we shall turn to the neoclassical challenge with emphasis on Jeremy Bentham and Jean Baptiste Say.
The post‐Ricardian reaction of the 1820–1850 period will be given significant attention, followed by an examination of the “marginalist revolution” of the 1870’s. Twentieth century advances will be surveyed, and the work of Keynes and the post‐WWII period will be given close scrutiny. In all this, relationships between earlier theory and current debates/controversies will be highlighted.
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 512 Latin American Economic Development
Elective Course
Open to Year I and Year II
Many times during the past century, Latin American countries were believed to have found ways to break out of the class of developing countries. Most of these times, the region ended up frustrating these expectations. The obstacles to economic development showed themselves to be too resistant to yield to policies and strategies that were either less consistent and efficient than their formulators expected, or that implied adverse side effects that had not been properly evaluated. This course will examine the most important policy strategies implemented in the region in the post‐World War II period and the reasons why they failed to allow the region to catch up to the group of developed, or advanced, economies. The program of the course consists of two sets of discussions. The first deals with broad conceptual problems related to the three main ways the economic activity is organized: as exporters of primary goods; through import substitution; and by adopting the so‐called Washington Consensus. The second part examines in depth some aspects of the operation of the region’s economies that are particularly important to understanding their strengths and weaknesses.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 513 Institutional Economics: Theory, Methods, and History
MA Core Course
Open to Year I and Year II
This course covers the major theories and methods comprising (Original) Institutional Economics beginning with Thorstein Veblen and extending to contemporary developments and applications. This includes theories of distribution, consumption and production. The historical evolution of the theories and their application to contemporary institutions is an organizing principle for the course. The connection to and compatibility with post-Keynesian instability theory and modern money theory is integrated as a component especially as applied to Veblenian theory. Pragmatic method, models, and logic are also an integral part of the course.
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 517 Poverty, Inequality, and Wealth
Elective Course
Open to Year I and Year II
This course covers the various theoretical and empirical approaches to the measurement of economic well‐being, poverty, and inequality, both in the United States, as well as more globally, touching on the most recent debates about poverty measurement and comparisons across countries, as well as measures developed at the Levy Institute. It considers characteristics of the distribution of income, consumption, and wealth, and their relative usefulness in terms of assessing the inequality of economic well‐being and studies the disparate experiences of poverty and inequality by race and gender both within and across global regions. In addition, the course examines the impact of economic structures, policy, and development on poverty and inequality. Both mainstream and heterodox theoretical approaches to explaining poverty and inequality will be covered.
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 518 Intersecting Inequalities
Elective Course
Open to Year I and Year II (Offered alternating years)
Economic inequality refers mostly to the differences among individuals in terms of income and wealth. In all societies, economic inequality is tied to other forms of social hierarchies. For example, gender differentials in earnings appear to be universal. Earnings differentials are also driven by other factors such as differences in geography, industry of employment, etc. The latter differences can interact with each other in reinforcing or ameliorating earnings differentials. These factors can also intersect with gender to shape earnings differentials. The purpose of the course is to investigate such intersecting inequalities by examining their root causes, primarily using economic models and analyses, but also drawing from analyses in other disciplines such as history and sociology. We will also study their varying forms in the industrialized world, as well as in the Global South. The course will cover economic models of discrimination, with a focus on the following forms of social hierarchies: gender, race, place (rural vs. urban), immigrant/refugee status, ethnicity, and caste.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 519 Inequalities across Time and Space
Elective Course
Open to Year I and Year II (Offered alternating years)
This course deals broadly with issues of economic inequality both across and as a result of movement through time and space. We will discuss economic models of discrimination, segregation and polarization, as well as measures of segregation and polarization and empirical applications (especially regarding polarization and conflict). We will consider various theoretical approached to explaining rural‐urban inequality and uneven development, including theories of unequal exchange, dependency theory, theories of imperialism, and world systems theories. We will also cover internal migration, development and inequality, international migration and its effects on inequality within nations, the economic dimensions of the refugee crisis and the costs and benefits of international migration.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 529 Research Methods I: Econometrics
Core Course
Open to Year I
Econometrics is a set of statistical models used to explore the links among variables and make forecasts. As such, it is used, among other things: to test if economic theories are congruent with given sets of data; to verify the stability of links among variables over time; to make short‐term predictions, say on stock market prices; and to build dynamic models for policy use.
Different statistical models are used for different types of data, including microeconomic surveys, time series, and panel data where different individuals are observed over time. The core of econometrics is the regression model, which can be applied to all type of datasets.
The course briefly reviews the basics of statistical inference (estimators and their properties; hypothesis testing), covering the multiple regression model, then moving to the analysis of time series (ARIMA models), with particular emphasis on stationarity, and concludes by exploring more complex dynamic models (VARs, error correction models, cointegration approaches).
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 530 Research Methods II
Core Course
Open to Year I
The stock‐flow consistent (SFC) approach to macroeconomics emphasizes the importance of accounting consistency among the various stocks and flows of an economy for macroeconomic analysis. This framework allows a coherent and integrated approach to both the production and financial side of the economy, with the latter having an essential role for the macroeconomic outcome and not just being a “veil.” Such an approach is necessary if we want to understand the functioning of the modern capitalist economies and major macroeconomic events, such as the recent financial and economic crisis or the stagnation of the last few years.
This course aims to expose students to the main principles of SFC macroeconomics. Several theoretical models of increasing complexity will be studied and will be simulated with the use of statistical software (Eviews, R). It will also be shown how this methodology can be used for macroeconomic policy purposes. In particular we will examine the SFC macro model of the Levy Economics Institute, used to produce the various Strategic Analyses and policy reports. The course will start with an in‐depth examination of the related data sources, including national income accounts, flow of funds accounts, and accounts of international trade and capital flows.
The second half of this course aims to expose students to the key types and sources of data used for economic analysis and to provide insights into key technical areas of applied economic analysis at both the macro and micro levels with a special focus on the modeling techniques used in Levy Economics Institute research programs. At the micro level, we will cover a variety of data sources; household surveys, including labor force, income and expenditure, wealth and time use surveys. The associated methods examined include econometrics of cross‐sectional data, distributional analysis and policy simulation. Finally, we survey statistical matching techniques including those used to create the synthetic datasets used in the LIMEW and LIMTIP.
The core data sources to be covered at the macro level include national income accounts; flow of funds accounts; and, accounts of international trade and capital flows. We will also discuss the main principles of the Stock‐Flow Consistent (SFC) Methodology and how this methodology can be used for macroeconomic policy purposes. In particular we will examine the SFC macro model of the Levy Institute, used to produce the various Strategic Analyses and policy reports.
Pre‐requisite: ECON 529
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 531 Monetary Theory and Policy
Core Course
Open to Year I
An investigation of monetary and theory and policy. We will examine both the mainstream and heterodox approaches to each. We will include a detailed examination of Modern Money Theory, which combines various strands of heterodoxy while also including contributions from historical, legal, and anthropological research.
Spring Semester
4 Credits
ECON 590 Contemporary Developments in Finance
Elective Course
Open to Year I and II MS
The seminar will contrast the academic analysis of financial economics with the observed reality (which often differ dramatically). Traditional finance theories concentrate on efficient markets, predictable prices that are determined by the concepts of present value, rates of return and analysis and pricing of computable risks. Human behavior has neither a place in the theory nor a perceived need to be studied. This prevailing view has recently been challenged by behavioral finance, a field that considers the many anomalies of "rational" behavior and "efficiency" of markets. This paradigm concerns itself with economic decision-making and investor psychology, and specifically with questions relating to how and why people exhibit a mixture of rational and irrational behavior. The seminar will examine the influence of economic psychology in the decision-making process of various agents as well as in the market's dynamics. Several guest lecturers will also offer their informed views in the development of contemporary finance. This is an OSUN course.
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 591 A History of Gender, Labor, and the Household in the Modern Middle East
Elective Course
This course takes a historical approach to gender, labor, and household economies in the Modern Middle East. Domestic labor in the household and royal harem provide the primary scene for our exploration of how gender, along with race and ethnicity, shaped spheres of power and access to it. From the Ottoman, Safavid, and Qajar royal harems, to elite households in Aleppo, Istanbul, and Isfahan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to discourses of development surrounding gender in Afghanistan, to today’s Kafala system of migrant domestic labor in the Gulf, Lebanon, and Jordan, we will trace connective threads of empire, enslavement, kinship, nationalism, abolition, and feminism over time and across borders to see how perceptions of difference shaped the social fabric and political economies of the Middle East.
Providing historical contexts to political economy, this course will emphasize the importance of longer historical trajectories and broader social circumstances. Students will leave the course with a better grasp of how to ground their research in historical developments, as well as an understanding of historical approaches to gender and political economy in the Middle East. No prior knowledge of Middle Eastern history or political economy, gender history, or historical approaches more broadly, is required. The Instructor will provide any necessary background information each week, and we will work through understanding the material and its context together.
Fall Semester
2 Credits
ECON 602 Macro Dynamics/Macromodeling
Core Course
Open to Year II
This course focuses on the analysis of contemporary economic problems, viewed from a macroeconomic perspective. It begins with an overview of long‐term structural patterns in developed economies, including the intrinsic nature of growth, the historical dynamics of unemployment, and the recurrence of structural economic crises over long intervals. Different approaches are systematically developed to address the fundamental issues in economic analysis. The final half of the course will develop a stock‐flow accounting framework and demonstrate its connection to the “three balances approach” that underlies the Levy Institute’s Macromodel.
Prerequisite: ECON 502
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 610 Research Workshop I
Core Course
Open to Year II
Students will develop and finalize their research topic. Each student will engage in directed literature research, prepare the literature survey chapter, and present a narrative thesis proposal, including a research agenda to be agreed upon with their supervisor, as well as the literature review and an assessment of how the research project will contribute to the final thesis. By the end of the semester students will present a summary of this work to the faculty.
2 Credits
Econ 611 Policy Seminar
MS Core/MA Elective Course
Open to Year II/MA
The seminar will analyze non-conventional perspectives of theoretical and policy issues ranging from fiscal and monetary policy to development, inequality, and poverty. Invited speakers will discuss policy-oriented topics related to the Levy Economics Institute’s core research areas.
Fall Semester
4 Credits
ECON 612 Research Workshop II
Core Course
Open to Year II
Students will continue work from Research Workshop I by working directly with their supervisors throughout the semester to produce a research thesis consisting of 60–80 pages, depending on the content.
Spring Semester
2 Credits
ECON 617 Econometrics: Poverty, Inequality, and Social Science Research
Elective Course
Open to Year I & II
This course exposes students to a variety of theoretical frameworks and empirical methods in applied microeconometrics, with a goal of providing the foundation necessary for conducting applied quantitative economic research. The primary focus of the course is microeconomic analysis, emphasizing the techniques used to analyze poverty, inequality, and welfare, as well as topics in program evaluation and cross‐sectional econometrics. The course includes critical reading of published empirical research and the application of econometric methods using real‐life data sets.
4 Credits
ECON 629 Applied Econometric Methods for Policy Analysis
Elective Course
Open to Year I & II
This course is design to introduce students to econometric methods used in empirical research, with emphasis on the analysis and identification of causal effects. It aims to provide an overview and general guidelines on practical implementation, discussing the intuition behind the empirical methods. By the end of the course students should have a good understanding of the estimation of causal effects, as well as the main methods used to address this problem, and critically evaluate and interpret the output of such analyses.
4 Credits