Senior Seminars Description

FALL 2013 - Seminar Descriptions

Seminars listed below are only open to CC and GS undergraduate economics majors. All prerequisites (Econ W3211, W3213, W3412) must be completed before the seminar may be taken—not after and not concurrently, otherwise the seminar will not count towards the major. Check the CC/GS bulletin for all seminar prerequisites and details.  Scheduled days and times can be found on the Registrar's Directory of Classes site.
 

W4911 (Sec. 1) Seminar in MICROECONOMIC Theory
Instructor: Prof Sunil Gulati
Topic: Sports Economics
This seminar will focus on an economic analysis of the sports industry.  Topics covered will include economics of sports leagues, the labor market for professional athletes, sports marketing and broadcasting, economic impact of teams & stadiums and antitrust policies. A number of guest speakers from the sports world (including the professional leagues and media industry) will be featured. One textbook and a number of separate readings will be assigned. Seminar students are expected to actively participate in class discussions, make an in class presentation of selected readings and of original work and write a term paper on an agreed upon topic.


W4911 (Sec. 2)
Instructor: Prof Graciela Chichilnisky
Topic: Globalization and its Risks
The world is being transformed by dramatic increases in flows of people, goods and services across nations. Globalization has the potential for enormous gains but is also associated to serious risks, both political and economic. Economic gains are related to industrialization and international commerce where industrial nations dominate, while the economic risks involve the global environment, poverty and the satisfaction of basic needs that affect in great measure the developing nations. Economic gains and risks are linked to a historical division of the world into the North and the South: the industrial and the developing nations. Political risks include global terrorism. Key to future evolution are: (1) the creation of new markets that trade privately produced public goods, such as knowledge and greenhouse gas emissions, as in the Kyoto Protocol; (2) the updating of the Breton Woods Institutions into new global institutions, involving the creation of a Knowledge Bank and an International Bank for Environmental Settlements.

W4911 (Sec. 3)
Instructor: Prof Tri Vi Dang
Topic: Hedge Fund Investing
This seminar satisfies the seminar requirement for the financial economics major.
This seminar course discusses the economics of professional asset management with special focus on private equity and hedge fund investing. The aim of this seminar is to provide the students with the analytical skills and conceptual frameworks necessary to significantly deepen their understanding of asset management. The first part of the course examines how private equity funds and hedge funds as the two most prominent alternative investment vehicles are raised and structured. The second part of the seminar discusses the deal making of private equity managers as well as various investment strategies of hedge fund managers.
 

W4911 (sec. 4)
Instructor: Prof Caterina Musatti
Topic: Poverty, Inequality and Mobility (topic change 4/12/13)
This seminar examines the nature, causes and effects (both individual and social) of poverty, inequality and income (im)mobility in the US and in other rich nations. Over the semester we will address questions like: What is poverty? Who are the poor? Is poverty transmitted from parents to children, like a genetic disease? If so, why? How important are parental income and wealth in shaping a child's future? Is the American dream alive and well? Why is inequality increasing in rich nations? Are public programs the answer or the question?

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W4913 Seminar in MACROECONOMIC Theory (Sec. 1)
Instructor: TBA
Topic: TBA
Description: TBA


W4913 (Sec. 2)
Instructor: Prof Richard Clarida
Topic: International Monetary Economics
This seminar satisfies the seminar requirement for the financial economics major.
This seminar will focus on monetary policy in open economies with particular focus on the inter relationship among exchange rates, capital flows. fiscal policy, and monetary policy.  Format will combine lectures/ class discussion, and student presentations.  Requirement for the course will be a term paper on the post crisis monetary policy of a major central bank as well as class presentation of the paper.


W4913 (Sec. 3)
Instructor: Prof Jaromir Nosal
Topic: Consumer Bankruptcy
This seminar satisfies the seminar requirement for the financial economics major.
Over the last few decades we have witnessed dramatic changes in the market for unsecured credit. In particular, a new product emerged: credit cards. They provide access to uncollateralized borrowing in a new form of revolving credit lines. At the time of the huge increase of availability of credit cards, personal bankruptcy and the volume of debt sky-rocketed. In this course we will analyze the market for unsecured borrowing, and its relation to the macroeconomy. We will study the cases of the major credit issuers and also discuss some of the competing stories for the reasons behind rising bankruptcy.

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W4918 ECONOMETRICSSeminar
Instructor: Dr Emanuel Moench
Topic: Topics in Macro-Finance
This seminar satisfies the seminar requirement for the financial economics major.
We will study the linkages between macroeconomic aggregates and equity as well as bond markets. Benchmark cross-sectional pricing models including the CAPM, the Intertemporal CAPM, the Arbitrage Pricing Theory and variants thereof will be discussed. We will be particularly interested in the empirical support for these models. This will involve learning how to use some of the standard estimation methods commonly employed in asset pricing research. We will further study popular models of bond pricing such as affine models and their extensions including macroeconomic factors. This will allow us to discuss the joint modeling of macroeconomic dynamics, monetary policy, and government bond yields. The above models are primarily used to explain and predict asset prices using macroeconomic factors. To complement these analyses we will also explore the predictive content of equity and bond markets for macroeconomic aggregates. This will involve, among other things, discussion of news shock models as well as the empirical evidence regarding the predictive power of yield spreads for real activity and inflation.

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W4921 POLITICAL ECONOMY Seminar
Instructor: Prof Salvatore Nunnari
Topic: Political Institutions and Development
Prerequiistes: ECON W3412 (or POLS W4911), W4370
Priority: Senior Econ-Political Science majors
The focus of this seminar will be on formal models of democratic decision-making (voting, lobbying, and legislative bargaining) that analyze the effects of different political institutions on economic and social policies in modern democracies. We will also address the differences in growth trajectories that may arise from political institutions, with particular emphasis on electoral rules and regime types. The course will ask students to develop an original formal model or design an original empirical study (based on rigorous theoretical predictions).