ECO 495 - Senior Session

ECO 495-A: Urban Economic History of the U.S. - 1865-2015
Instructor: Smith
This Senior Seminar is required of all seniors majoring in economics. Students demonstrate their abilities to engage in economic analyses using the tools developed in their intermediate-level courses by participating in colloquia on economic problems, theory, and policy. Exploiting the seminar nature of the course, students will write, edit, and revise convincing professional economic arguments; they take the ETS Major Field Test in Economics and an oral examination conducted by an external examiner; and hear from guest speakers about their research and policy interests.

At the end of the Civil War, fewer than 40 percent of Americans lived in urbanized areas. Today, more than 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in an urbanized area. Why did America’s cities grow so dramatically over this 150-year time period? How has urban spatial structure evolved over time? Which cities have experienced the greatest economic success, and which cities have experienced urban decay? How has urban success or decline contributed to economic inequality? In this course we will look at a handful of key questions to gain insights into how the urban landscape in the United States has evolved over the past 150 years.  Prerequisites:  Economics 101, 202, 203, 204, and 205.  

ECO 495-B: Milestones in Economics Thought
Instructor: Kumar
Advances in economic thought have emerged not as inevitable products of preceding orthodoxies but from highly contested and intensely debated narratives rooted in the social realities of the times. We study the evolution of economic ideas by inquiring into the historical-social-political contexts of key advances  - milestones  - in the making of modern economics. Tumultuous intellectual battles were lost and won as the Physiocrats rebelled against Mercantilism and inspired Adam Smith and Classicalism, as the Classicals confronted challenges from Marxism and Socialism, and as Neoclassicals coopted or deflected these challenges. We examine how, from the ideas and times of the great thinkers emerged milestones in economic thought that shaped the world. 

ECO 495-C: Topics in Corporate Finance
Instructor: Stroup
Economic analysis can inform decision-making by firms’ stakeholders and top management teams. This course will examine capital budgeting topics such as fixed capital investment policy, project selection, acquisitions. Economic theory and empirical analysis will be used to explore how scholars make arguments about how firms should behave, and the extent to which they follow these recommendations in practice. Students in this course will assess and implement original econometric research.

ECO 495-D: Beckerian Economics
Instructor: O’Keefe
Gary Becker was one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century, whose seminal theories are still inspiring new work. This course will focus on several of the topics Becker worked on: crime, discrimination, marriage, fertility, and human capital development. Each section will include a discussion of Becker’s theoretical model and extensions before diving into more recent empirical research. Each student will complete an empirical project that relates to one of the theoretical models we discuss in class.

ECO 495-E: What’s Wrong with Economics?
Instructor: Jha
The Great Recession of 2007 that unraveled the global financial system brought the discipline-and tools-of economic analysis under harsh scrutiny. Why were lessons of the Great Depression forgotten? Why are questions of finance, discrimination, inequality, climate change, capitalism still largely absent from mainstream ECON 101 courses? This course will explore the achievements and discontents of the economic style of reasoning in the post-World War II era: as the dominant policy tool, what has economics done well, what are its inexcusable failures, and what are the reforms needed to equip students and practitioners of the discipline with tools to tackle pressing problems of the 21st century.

ECO 495-H: Honors Thesis
Instructor: Foley
The Honors Thesis in Economics consists of two semesters of work with a thesis proposal as the output from ECO 494-H in the fall semester and a final thesis as the output from ECO 495-H in the spring semester.   Students conduct independent research guided by faculty in which they develop a feasible, specific research question and apply the empirical tools or methods as well as economic modeling approaches learned in prior courses to answer the research question. 

Satisfies Economics major and minor requirement. 

Prerequisites & Notes
Successful completion of Economics 202, 203, and 205 are prerequisites for registering for the course. Under exceptional circumstance, following a student request, the Chair of the Department may waive one of these requirements.