Classes—Fall 05 by Mitra L. '07

It’s always awkward to post an entry about my classes for the semester, because later when classmates google the class number, they end up at my blog. If that applies to you, um, Hi.

14.41 Public Finance and Public Policy
professor: Jonathan Gruber (Formerly, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy with the U.S. Treasury Department. Currently, the author of the class textbook!!)
format: two 1.5 hour lectures a week, one 1 hour recitation
current material: We’ve discussed and graphed externalities (which “arise whenever the actions of one party make another party worse or better off, yet the first party neither bears the costs nor receives the benefits of doing so”) like acid rain, global warming, smoking, drinking, and obesity.
eventual material: Social insurance and redistribution (incl. social security, unemployment insurance, and health insurance) and tax theory/reform.
memorable quotation: “Assume everyone’s life is worth the same. It makse the math easier.”

11.014J American Urban History II
professor: Robert Fogelson
format: one 2 hour round-table discussion a week
current material: So far, we’ve discussed early parks, focusing on Central Park in New York City.
eventual material: Some of the future weekly themes are amusement parks, suburbs, tenements, skyscrapers, department stores, supermarkets, public baths, zoos, and cemeteries. We also will write a term paper on a topic of our choice, due in December.

14.21J Health Economics
professor: Jeffrey Harris (MD and PhD in economics)
format: two 1.5 hour lectures a week
current material: In a positive (as opposed to normative, not as opposed to negative) way, we examine health policy. So far, this includes government-sponsored contraception in developing nations, abortion incidence and services, and large-scale seizures of illegal drugs. We learn a little bit of the medical/biological background behind the topic, and then look at the economics (supply/demand shifts, income/substitution effects, etc) related to the issue.
eventual material: Don’t know yet =)

21H.927J The Economic History of Work and Family
professor: Anne McCants
format: one 2 hour round-table discussion a week
current material: So far, we’ve taken a quick sample of current-day conditions regarding labor, leisure, men, women, wealth, and poverty. It’s sort of hard to summarize our discussions, but I can send you a list of our readings if you’d like more information about this class.
eventual material: We have sections on family labor and standard of living in the Industrial Revolution, on male/female wage gaps, household welfare, and gender and consumption. Like 11.014, we also will write a term paper on a topic of our choice, due in December.

14.33 Economics Research and Communication

professor: Sara Fisher Ellison
format: two 1.5 hour lectures a week
current material: We’re about to begin working on group projects, and have our choice between two topics. #1 is a hedonic analysis of laptop features. You think of the product (laptop) as a bundle of characteristics (weight, memory, brand, etc.), and look at prices and traits to tease out the demand for an individual trait. #2 is an event study of gulf hurricanes. You use the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) for gas companies’ stock prices to test a stock’s reaction to the event. Other data in this analysis includes daily excess returns, hurricane category, weekly retail gas prices, etc.
eventual material: We will write our own formal economics papers on a topic of our choice. The group projects I described above are intended for us to practice interpreting data and writing a paper before we do it individually.