SS 101
Selected Topics in Social Science
Units to be determined by arrangement with the instructor
|
offered by announcement
Not available for social science credit unless specifically approved by social science faculty.
Instructors:
Staff, visiting lecturers
Ec/SS 124
Identification Problems in the Social Sciences
9 units (3-0-6)
|
second term
Prerequisites: Ec 122.
Statistical inference in the social sciences is a difficult enterprise whereby we combine data and assumptions to draw conclusions about the world we live in. We then make decisions, for better or for worse, based on these conclusions. A simultaneously intoxicating and sobering thought! Strong assumptions about the data generating process can lead to strong but often less than credible (perhaps incredible?) conclusions about our world. Weaker assumptions can lead to weaker but more credible conclusions. This course explores the range of inferences that are possible when we entertain a range of assumptions about how data is generated. We explore these ideas in the context of a number of applications of interest to social scientists. Not offered 2019-20.
H/SS 124
Problems in Historical Demography
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first term
Birth, marriage, and death-the most basic events in people's lives-are inextricably linked to larger economic and social phenomena. An understanding of these basic events can thus shed light on the economic and social world inhabited by people in the past. In this course students will be introduced to the sources and methods used by historical demographers to construct demographic measures for past populations. In addition, the course will cover a broad range of problems in historical demography, including mortality crises, fertility control, infant mortality, and the role of economic and social institutions in demographic change. While the emphasis is on societies in the past, there will be some discussion of modern demographic trends in various parts of the world. Not offered 2019-20.
Ec/SS 129
Economic History of the United States
9 units (3-0-6)
|
second term
Prerequisites: Ec 11.
An examination of certain analytical and quantitative tools and their application to American economic development. Each student is expected to write two substantial papers-drafts will be read by instructor and revised by students. Not offered 2019-20.
Ec/SS 130
Economic History of Europe from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century
9 units (3-0-6)
|
third term
Prerequisites: Ec 11.
Employs the theoretical and quantitative techniques of economics to help explore and explain the development of the European cultural area between 1000 and 1980. Topics include the rise of commerce, the demographic transition, the Industrial Revolution, and changes in inequality, international trade, social spending, property rights, and capital markets. Each student is expected to write nine weekly essays and a term paper. Not offered 2019-20.
PS/SS 139
Comparative Politics
9 units (3-0-6)
|
third term
Prerequisites: PS 12.
This course offers a broad introduction to the theoretical and empirical research in comparative political economy. An emphasis will be placed on the parallel process of political and economic development and its consequences on current democratic political institutions such as: electoral rules, party systems, parliamentary versus presidential governments, legislatures, judicial systems, and bureaucratic agencies as exemplified in central bank politics. We will study the differential impact of these political institutions on the type of policies they implement and the economic outcomes they produce. The main objective of the course will be to assess the robustness of the analyzed theories in light of their empirical support, coming mainly from statistical analysis.
Instructor:
Lopez-Moctezuma
CS/SS/Ec 149
Algorithmic Economics
9 units (3-0-6)
|
second term
This course will equip students to engage with active research at the intersection of social and information sciences, including: algorithmic game theory and mechanism design; auctions; matching markets; and learning in games. Not offered 2019-20.
SS 200
Selected Topics in Social Science
Units to be determined by arrangement with instructors
|
offered by announcement
Instructors:
Staff, visiting lecturers
SS 201 abc
Analytical Foundations of Social Science
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
This course covers the fundamentals of utility theory, game theory, and social choice theory. These basic theories are developed and illustrated with applications to electoral politics, market trading, bargaining, auctions, mechanism design and implementation, legislative and parliamentary voting and organization, public economics, industrial organization, and other topics in economics and political science. Open to Social Science graduate students only.
Instructors:
Tamuz, Saito, Pomatto
SS 202 abc
Political Theory
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
Course will introduce the student to the central problems of political theory and analysis, beginning with the essential components of the democratic state and proceeding through a variety of empirical topics. These topics will include the analysis of electoral and legislative institutions, legislative agenda processes, voting behavior, comparative political economy, and cooperation and conflict in international politics. The student will be sensitized to the primary empirical problems of the discipline and trained in the most general applications of game theoretic reasoning to political science. Open to Social Science graduate students only.
Instructors:
Hirsch, Katz, Lopez-Moctezuma
SS 205 abc
Foundations of Economics
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
Prerequisites: Ec 121 ab or instructor's permission.
This is a graduate course in the fundamentals of economics. Topics include comparative statics and maximization techniques, the neoclassical theory of consumption and production, general equilibrium theory and welfare economics, public goods and externalities, the economic consequences of asymmetric information and incomplete markets, and recursive methods with applications to labor economics and financial economics. Open to Social Science graduate students only.
Instructors:
Doval, Echenique, Palfrey
SS 209
Behavioral Economics
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first term
Prerequisites: SS 201 abc or instructor's permission.
This course explores how psychological facts and constructs can be used to inform models of limits on rationality, willpower and greed, to expand the scope of economic analysis. Topics include overconfidence, heuristics for statistical judgment, loss-aversion, hyperbolic discounting, optimal firm behavior when consumers are limited in rationality, behavioral game theory, behavioral finance, neuroeconomic dual-self models, and legal and welfare implications of rationality limits.
Instructor:
Camerer
SS 210 abc
Foundations of Political Economy
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
Prerequisites: SS 202 c, SS 205 b.
Mathematical theories of individual and social choice applied to problems of welfare economics and political decision making as well as to the construction of political economic processes consistent with stipulated ethical postulates, political platform formulation, the theory of political coalitions, and decision making in political organizations.
Instructors:
Gibilisco, Agranov
SS 211 abc
Advanced Economic Theory
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
May be repeated for credit. Advanced work in a specialized area of economic theory, with topics varying from year to year according to the interests of students.
Instructors:
Doval, Echenique/Pomatto, Saito
SS 213 abc
Financial Economics
9 units (3-2-4)
|
First, second, third terms
Mathematical finance: Pricing financial derivatives, risk management, and optimal portfolio selection. Methods of stochastic, Ito calculus for models driven by Brownian motion. Asset pricing theory: Mean-variance theory, information economics, continuous-time finance and differential equations, intertemporal consumption-based asset pricing theories, recent developments in intermediary-based and behavioral asset pricing theories. Behavioral finance: Empirical facts about asset prices, investor trading behavior, and firm behavior. Psychology about investor preferences and beliefs. Behavioral finance models that explain empirical facts. Trading strategies implemented by hedge funds. Prescriptive behavioral finance that aims at helping individuals and institutions to make better financial decisions.
Instructor:
Jin
SS 218
Neuroscience Applications to Economics and Politics
9 units (3-0-6)
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second term
Topics in behavioral, affective, and social neuroscience that inform how individuals make economic decisions. Applications of neuroscience ideas and methods to understanding choice under risk and uncertainty, temporal discounting and self-control, advertisement and preference formation, habit, addiction, and judgment bias. Not offered 2019-20.
SS 222 abc
Econometrics
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
Introduction to the use of multivariate and nonlinear methods in the social sciences. Open to Social Science graduate students only.
Instructors:
Shum, Xin, Sherman
SS 223 abc
Topics in Theoretical and Applied Econometrics
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
Prerequisites: SS 222 abc; may be repeated for credit.
The courses in this sequence cover advanced methods and tools in econometrics, as well as their applications to a variety of topics in economics, including industrial organization, dynamic choice, information economics, political economy, market design, and behavioural economics.
Instructors:
Shum, Sherman, Xin
SS 224
Social Science Data
9 units (3-3-3)
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first term
This course provides broad coverage of empirical methods in the social sciences. This includes both methods of data collection and practical aspects of data analysis, as well as related issues of survey design, experimental design, techniques for handling large datasets, and issues specific to the collection and analysis of field and historical data. This course also provides students with hands-on experience with data. Open to Social Science graduate students only.
Instructor:
Alvarez
SS 225
Experimetrics
9 units (3-0-6)
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third term
This course explores the interaction of experimental design and econometric inference in the laboratory approach to economic questions. The course critically evaluates existing experimental studies to highlight this interaction and motivate consideration of inferential strategies early in an experiments design. Methodological topics may include testing theories in two-by-two designs, power and optimal design, classifying subjects into canonical types, testing based on elicited preferences and beliefs, and challenges introduced by communication and dynamics in economic experiments. Not offered 2019-20.
SS 228 abc
Applied Empirical Methods in the Social Sciences
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
Course covers methods used in contemporary applied empirical work in a variety of social sciences. Topics covered include (a) maximum likelihood, Bayesian estimation, management and computation of large datasets, (b) reduced form methods like instrumental variables (IV), difference-in-differences (DID), natural experiments, event study and panel data methods, and (c) structural estimation. Emphasis is on the application of tools to substantive social science problems rather than statistical theory, in areas including political science, political economy, corporate finance, and accounting. Application focus will vary with instructor interests.
Instructors:
Katz, Ewens, Lopez-Moctezuma
SS 229 abc
Theoretical and Quantitative Dimensions of Historical Development
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second terms
May be repeated for credit. Introduction to modern quantitative history. The tools of economic and political theory applied to problems of economic, social, and political development in a historical context. Second and third terms will be graded together. A pass/fail will be assigned in the second term and then changed to the appropriate letter grade at the end of the third term.
Instructors:
Hoffman, Rosenthal
SS 231 abc
American and Comparative Politics
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, second, third terms
Prerequisites: SS 202 abc, or permission of the instructor.
An advanced graduate Social Science sequence in American and comparative politics. The sequence will focus on political institutions and behavior, introducing students to the important theories of American and comparative politics. Students will learn how historical, observational, and experimental data are used in American and comparative political analysis.
Instructors:
Alvarez, Staff
SS 260
Experimental Methods of Political Economy
9 units (3-3-3)
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first, second, third terms
Survey of laboratory experimental research related to the broad field of political economy. Topics: the behavior of markets, organizations, committee processes, and election processes. Emphasis on experimental methods and techniques. Students will design and conduct experiments. May be repeated for credit with instructor's permission.
Instructor:
Plott
SS 281
Graduate Social Science Writing Seminar
9 units (3-0-6)
|
third term
Only open to advanced graduate students in social science. How can social scientists write in a style that makes someone actually want to read their papers? This seminar combines writing exercises with help in planning a professional social science paper and with extensive comments on drafts. Not offered 2019-20.
SS 282 abc
Graduate Proseminar in Social Science
3 units (1.5-0-1.5)
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first, second, third terms
Course for graduate students in social sciences. Students present their research and lead discussion of material relevant to their research program. Open to Social Science Graduate Students only.
Instructors:
Gibilisco, Doval
SS 299
Writing
6 units (3-0-3)
|
summer term
This course is designed for students to improve their ability for written expression in the English language. This course is only open to graduate students in the Social Decision Neuroscience and Social Science Ph.D. programs.
Instructor:
Staff
SS 300
Research in Social Science
Units to be arranged
Published Date:
July 28, 2022