Microeconomic Analysis (MECN-430-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Managerial Economics.

Among the topics this core course addresses are economic analysis and optimal decisions, consumer choice and the demand for products, production functions and cost curves, market structures and strategic interactions, and pricing and non-price concepts. Cases and problems are used to understand economic tools and their potential for solving real-world problems.

Competitive Strategy and Industrial Structure (MECN-441-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Management & Strategy, Managerial Analytics, Managerial Economics.

The course studies the determinants nature of competitive strategy in a variety of industry structures. The course considers how the structure of a firm's industry affects its strategic choices and performance. Topics include the dynamic aspects of pricing, entry and predation in concentrated industries, and product differentiation, product proliferation and innovation as competitive strategies.

Values and Crisis Decision Making (SEEK-440-A)

This course counts toward the following majors: Social Enterprise

In recent decades corporations have increasingly become the dominant source for political and social change. Increased globalization and technological progress have further accelerated this process. Businesses are now held accountable by standards other than legal compliance or financial performance. Successful business leaders have recognized that these challenges are best mastered by a commitment to values-based management. However, simply "doing the right thing" is not enough. Rather, companies increasingly find themselves as targets of aggressive legal action, media coverage and social pressure. Organizations must be prepared to handle rapidly changing environments and anticipate potential threats. This requires a deep understanding of the strategic complexities in managing various stakeholders and constituencies. To confront students with these challenges in a realistic fashion, the class is structured around a rich set of challenging case studies and crisis simulation exercises.

Economics of Competition (MECNX-441-0)
Economics of Competition prepares students to diagnose the determinants of an industry’s structure and formulate rational, competitive strategies for coping with that structure.

Strategic Crisis Management (SEEKX-910-0)
Strategic Crisis Management provides conceptual tools for managers in high-pressure, complex crisis situations. Topics include management and media, dealing with activists and interest groups, and surviving legal, legislative and regulatory challenges.

Conflict and Cooperation (MECS-473-0)
This course will offer a comprehensive theoretical treatment of conflict. Strategic interaction within and across nations involves conflict and cooperation. Disagreement between a country’s population and its leadership can cause internal conflict, oppression and terrorism. Disagreement between countries can lead to war, costly arms races and impede economic development. Conflict often arises even though there is some cooperative solution that would have satisfied all the relevant actors. We will study the fundamental causes of conflict (positive analysis) and possible solutions that create cooperation (normative analysis). Positive analyses will focus on conflict caused by payoff uncertainty or asymmetric information, the inability to commit to honor agreements, income inequality, fractionalization of the population into distinct and antagonistic groups and extremists who attempt to manipulate conflict to achieve their ends. This part of the course will cover topics such as the reciprocal fear of surprise attack, global games, wars of attrition, bargaining and coalition-formation. Normative analyses will focus on communication, mechanism design and institutions and their impact on cooperation. Communication of motives or confidence-building measures, such as allowing arms inspections, may diffuse tension. Or they may increase the chances of conflict by exposing the strength or weakness of a country’s arms capabilities. Asymmetric information may preclude implementation of cooperation even when transfers are available and it is possible to fully commit. Similarly, “moral hazard arising from a leader’s desire for political survival will affect the chances of conflict or cooperation. Different institutions have different commitment properties. For example, democratization gives the citizens a permanent voice in collective decision-making. This influences their incentives to revolt or accept the decisions of a leader. These issues apply equally across countries and can cause war or within a country and cause civil war. While the course is theoretical, we will offer stylized facts about war and civil war as motivation and a guide to interesting unexploited questions and puzzles. Unlike many topics in economics and political science, these issues are under-explored. We hope to generate interesting research questions