Ohio University
Graduate Catalog
Economics
As a student beginning graduate work in economics, you should ordinarily have some undergraduate training that includes courses in the social sciences or business administration. However, a wide variety of areas of concentration relate to or provide appropriate background knowledge for advanced study in economics. If your undergraduate major is not economics or a related field, you will take a placement test to determine whether you need to take ECON 503 Microeconomics and/or ECON 504 Macroeconomics.
Undergraduate courses in principles of economics, statistics, intermediate micro and macro theory, and some quantitative orientation will ordinarily be deemed prerequisites for graduate work in this area, although you may be permitted to make up these deficiencies while pursuing a graduate program. Your undergraduate program must be approved by the department admissions committee prior to the beginning of graduate work. You should take the Graduate Record Examination and submit scores with your application. If you are an international student, you also should take the TOEFL and submit scores with your application.
It is preferable that you enter the graduate program during the summer or fall quarter. It is possible, however, to begin studies in the winter or spring quarter. For financial assistance, it is advisable to apply before March 1 for the following fall quarter.
For a Master of Arts degree, you are required to
- Complete a core requirement comprising advanced microeconomic theory (603A & B), advanced macroeconomic theory (604A & B), econometrics (635), applied econometrics (638), mathematical economic foundations (500), statistical foundations (501), and colloquium (698);
- Concentrate in one area from the following list of fields: business economics; econometrics; economic history; economic planning, growth, and development; industrial organization; international economics; labor economics; monetary economics; natural resources; public finance and policy; or urban and regional economics; and
- Complete a research paper in a topic within the area of concentration.
Additional elective courses may then be used to complete the required 61 graduate hours.
Faculty
Economics (ECON) Courses
500 Mathematical Economics Foundations (5) Introduction to differential calculus, integral calculus, and linear algebra with economic and business models and applications. Same as QBA 500.
501 Statistical Foundations (5) Basic topics of statistics are discussed, including descriptive statistics, probability theory, random variables, mathematical expectation, binomial and normal distributions, sampling theory and central limit theorem, point and interval estimation, and hypothesis testing.
503 Microeconomics (5) Analysis of prices, markets, production, wages, interest, rent, and profits.
503W Microeconomics (3) Analysis of prices, markets, production, wages, interest, rent, and profits. Accelerated workshop course for M.B.A. students.
504 Macroeconomics (5) Factors determining level of nation's economic activity and growth and stability in nation's economy.
504W Macroeconomics (3) Factors determining level of nation's economic activity and growth and stability in nation's economy. Accelerated workshop course for M.B.A. students.
505 Managerial Economics (5) Prereq: non-econ. Decision making in enterprise: market environment; measurement of influence of policy and nonpolicy variables on sales and cost; empirical studies of market structure and pricing. (Not open to students who have had 505W or graduate students in economics.)
505W Managerial Economics (3)
Prereq: non-econ. Decision making in enterprises: market environment measurement of influence of policy and nonpolicy variables in sales and costs; empirical studies of market structure and pricing. Accelerated workshop course for M.B.A. students. (Not open to students who have had 505 or graduate students in economics.)506 Monetary Theory and Policy (5)
Use of economic theory to formulate monetary policy for minimizing cyclical fluctuations in economic activity.
507 History of Economic Thought (5) Major economic doctrines: mercantilists and cameralists, physiocrats, Adam Smith and classical school, historical school, Austrian school, Alfred Marshall, and neoclassicists.
510 Urban Economics (5) Application of economic analysis to urban problems; urban economic growth and structure (location patterns, land use and environment, urban transportation, and housing); human resources in urban economies and the public sector in a metropolitan context.
511 Inequality of Personal Wealth and Income (5) Prereq: course in statistics. Quantitative and qualitative differences in wealth and income between low, middle, and high income groups in society using historical, statistical, and mathematical techniques.
512 Economics of Poverty (5) Incidence, causes, and consequences of poverty in affluent society. Economic theory, history, statistics applied to analysis of poverty-reduction measures.
513 Economics of the Environment (5) Economic analysis of such environmental matters as air, water, and noise pollution; population growth; and land use. Emphasis on use of economic theory and empirical research in evaluating environmental policies.
515 Economics of Health Care (5) Allocating resources to health care, economics of hospital care, solution of health care problems, paramedics, prepaid plans, malpractice problems.
520 Labor Economics (5) Economic forces generating modern labor problems: history of labor movement, labor in politics, labor-management relations, wages, full employment.
521 Labor Legislation (5) Prereq: 520. Law bearing upon labor problems: labor relations legislation, old-age and unemployment insurance, workmen's compensation, wages-and-hours legislation.
522 Economics of Human Resources (5) Current development in theory, empirical research, and policy with respect to investment in human resources, economic value of education, manpower programs, and growth.
525 Public Policy Economics (5) Survey of economics approach to analyzing public policy issues. Uses concepts of welfare economics, public choice economics, and cost-benefit analysis as applied to samples of policy subjects.
530 Public Finance (5) Role played by government as user of economic resources and redistributor of income: need for government's entry into economy, optimal size of government, selection of tax and expenditure schemes, and effects of government economic activity on the private sector.
531 Economics of Transportation (5) Economics of transport pricing, regulation of transport, and national transport policy.
532 Industrial Organization (5) Market structure, especially oligopoly, and firm behavior in price and non-price competition. Topics include location, product quality, advertising, research and development, and patent incentives. Emphasis on economic welfare.
533 Government and Agriculture (5) American agriculture as an industry; economics of government policies and programs; consideration of forces and objectives in policy formation.
535 Economics of Energy (5) Economic theory applied to energy policy issues in the U.S., including questions of sources of supply, conservation, pollution control, foreign dependence, monopoly control, special interests, and future generation equity.
537 Government Regulation of Business (5) Economics of regulated industries. Economic underpinnings, regulatory instruments, and impact on firm and society. Industries of interest include various public utilities, communications, and transportation. Also focuses upon product and labor safety.
540 International Trade Theory (5) International trade patterns, theories of absolute and comparative advantage, classical and modern trade theory, tariffs, quotas, nontariff barriers, preferential trading arrangements.
541 International Monetary System (5) How exchange rates are determined, fixed vs. flexible rates, government intervention, fiscal and monetary policy in open economy, transmission of inflation and unemployment among nations, international capital movements, covered interest arbitrage, forward exchange, Eurocurrency markets.
542 International Economic Policy (5) Prereq: 540. Current economic developments of foreign and U.S. economic policy. Commercial treaties and tariff policy; exchange rate instability; balance of payments problems including LDC debt situation; international liquidity issues; trade relations among industrial, underdeveloped, and former Soviet-bloc countries; multinational corporations; roles of institutions such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and GATT.
544 Futures Markets (5) Prereq: 360 or FIN 327. Course examines futures markets in terms of the instruments traded, the institutional features of the markets, the participants, and their economic strategies, including speculation and hedging. Course describes and analyzes the various futures and options markets to understand how the exchanges operate and to realize the pitfalls and dangers, as well as the possibilities and opportunities of participation.
550 Economic Development (5) Nature of, obstacles to, and future possibilities for economic growth of nations; problems of underdeveloped countries; studies of selected countries.
551 Agricultural Development (5) Patterns of agricultural development in U.S. and selected foreign areas; technological and demographic changes in agriculture; socioeconomic problems; marketing arrangements; case studies of specific agricultural development projects.
552 Economic History of the United States (5) Economic development of United States. Growth of banking, manufacturing, labor unions, and agriculture from colonial times to present.
553 European Economic History (5) Economic growth of developed countries; industrial revolutions in Great Britain, France, Germany, the former Soviet Union, and Japan. Historical experiences of these countries related to various theories of economic change.
554 Latin American Economic History (5) Fundamental assumption is that current problems of economic development of Latin America can be better understood if student has solid knowledge of economic history of region. One-half to two-thirds of course will cover economic history with emphasis on larger countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Mexico. Particular attention given to legacies of past which affect current foreign private investment, etc. Latter part of course discusses current problems such as declining terms of trade, import substitution, urbanization, national and regional planning, etc.
555 African Economic Development (5) Prereq: 550. African societies as traditional economies and in process of modernization.
556 Area Development (5) Analysis of industrial location and urban growth within regions in connection with community, state, and national planning. Consideration of national policies of aiding special regions, such as Appalachia or metropolitan central city. North/South issues in U.S. and in other nations.
561 Monetary History of the United States (4) Correlation of developments in American history with development of monetary institutions, policy, and theory. Evolution of commercial and central banking and relationship to economic activity in history of U.S.
570 Comparative Economic Systems (5) Theoretical and institutional characteristics of capitalism and socialism with emphasis on prevailing economic systems in the U.S., England, and Russia.
571 Economics of Planning (5) Major applications of economic planning to private and public planning; national, regional, local, centralized, and decentralized planning. Procedures and techniques; organization, economic analysis, social accounting, input-output analysis, linear programming, location theory, industrial complex analysis; gravity, potential and spatial models, computers and planning; research and development.
572 Economics of the Former Soviet Union (5) Operation of former Soviet Union economy; allocation of resources; planning, saving, and investment; agriculture; public finance; price system; and international trade.
573 Economics of Southeast Asia (5) Prereq: 550. Economic characteristics, development problems, strategies, and prospects of countries of Southeast Asia.
574 Economics of Latin America (5) Prereq: 550. Economics of Latin American countries, prospects for economic developments of the region, nature and origin of institutional obstacles to economic change. Economic heritage of colonial period and subsequent evolution of economic institutions, resources of the area and utilization, and trends in economic activity and policy in post-WW II period.
575 The Chinese Economy (5) Prereq: 550. China's early industrialization, 1880-1931; socialist transformation of each economic sector, 1949-1967; overall performance of Chinese economy and each economic sector, and Maoist revision of orthodox Marxist-Leninist economic doctrines.
600 Managerial Economics (5) Prereq: 303 or 305. Measuring economic relationships, analyzing market behavior, and examining some major economic decisions of business firm.
603A Advanced Microeconomic Theory I (5) Utility analysis, individual demand, and market demand functions. Production and cost behavior of firm under perfect competition, factor pricing under perfect competition, general equilibrium, and welfare economics.
603B Advanced Microeconomic Theory II (5) Prereq: 500 and 501, or 603A. Utility maximization, properties of Marshallian demand function, Slutsky matrix, Hicksian demand function and duality. Technology set, production and input requirement sets, profit maximization, function, supply map, general law of supply and duality. Theory of imperfect markets.
604A Advanced Macroeconomic Theory I (5) National income accounting, classical macro-model, simultaneous equilibrium in goods and money market in Keynesian model. Aggregate supply under flexible wages and fixed nominal wage. Simultaneous equilibrium in goods, money, and labor markets.
604B Advanced Macroeconomic Theory II (5) Prereq: 500 and 501, or 604A. Price expectations, rational expectations, Phillips curves, stabilization policy, new classical macroeconomics, wealth in a macro model, open economy macro equilibrium, and econometric literature of macro models.
635 Econometrics I (5) Prereq: 500 and 501. Basic topics of econometrics are discussed, including simple linear regression models, violation of classical assumptions (heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation, etc.), multiple linear regression models, multicollinearity, specification errors, dummy variables models, and basic simultaneous equations models.
636 Econometrics II (5) Prereq: 635. Advanced topics of econometrics are discussed, including convergence in distribution, multivariate normal distributions, distribution of quadratic forms, large sample tests (LR, Wald, LM tests), generalized linear regression models, seemingly unrelated regression models, simultaneous equations models, and generalized method of moments estimators.
637 Applied Forecasting (5) Prereq: 501. Simple forecasting methods, forecasting with econometric approach, time series methods, and the Arima models. Empirical model building using real-life data and these models.
638 Applied Econometrics (5) Prereq: 636. Basic techniques of empirical econometric modeling are introduced and applied topics of econometrics are discussed. Applied topics include specification error tests (RESET, CUSUM, etc.), model selection tests, causality tests, unit root tests, cointegration tests, error correction models, distributed log models, logit and probit models, limited dependent variables models, GARCH-type models, and translog cost functions.
685 The Methodology of Economics (5) Economics as a scholarly discipline. Nature and role of theory in economics. Relationship between economic theory, hypothesis formulation, and methods of empirical testing of hypotheses.
691 Seminar in Economics (2-6) Seminars in following general areas: theory and thought; growth and development; monetary and fiscal; theory and policy; labor and human resources.
693 Readings in Economics (1-6) Readings in selected fields in economics under direction of staff member.
696 Master's Seminar (5)
Writing of scholarly papers in areas of economics. (Required of all master's candidates.)697 Independent Research (1-12)
Research in selected fields in economics under supervision of staff member.
698 Colloquium (1) Selected topics of current interest. Required of all graduate students.
Return to 1995-1997 Graduate Catalog Table of Contents
University Publications and the Computer Services Center revised this file ( https://www.ohio.edu/~gcat/95-97/area/econ.html
) April 13, 1998.
Please e-mail comments or suggestions to " gcat@www.cats.ohiou.edu ."