Jakub Grossmann, Ph.D.
This course aims to provide students with the basics of labor economics. Theoretical models will be linked to real-life examples, making the course beneficial for subsequent studies and professional life. The tentative list of topics includes labor demand and supply, wages (equilibrium wages, hedonic wages, etc.), human capital, discrimination in the labor market, and unemployment.
Olga Popova, Ph.D.
This course covers the key concepts in public economics, a field of economics that studies the role of government in the economy. The course is designed to introduce seminal theoretical concepts and discuss the most recent empirical developments in public economics with the aim to understand: (i) why and how governments intervene in an economy, (ii) how individuals and firms react to these interventions, and (iii) what are the implications of those interventions for the overall welfare and economic development.
Taras Hrendash, Ph.D.
This course will cover selected topics on Economics of Innovation. It will help students to answer the most common questions about economic aspects of innovations: Why do firms innovate and why do they strive to be first in a race of research and development? How is the intellectual property of innovators protected and what are the costs and scope of such protection? Where can innovative start-up firms get money to finance their projects? How can employees be motivated to produce innovative outputs? How do innovative ideas spread and foster creation of new knowledge?
The contents of this course are based on insights from macro- and microeconomics, contract theory and corporate finance. Previous knowledge in these subjects will be beneficial, but is not required.
Christian Ochsner, Ph.D.
Did you know that men who shave their beards every day live longer? This statement is true in terms of correlation, but there is no causal relationship at all. In fact, empirical research in economics and social sciences faces the challenge of distinguishing correlation from causation. The course introduces concepts of causal analysis in a non-technical way. These concepts were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics. The focus will be on research settings and designs. Figures and graphs will help to train students to understand the intuition behind the respective concepts. We will read and understand research papers in the field of long-run development and political economy that focus on specific concepts of causal empirical analysis.
Vladimir Otrachshenko, Ph.D.
This course introduces major concepts in the field of environmental economics. It is designed to help students understand theories related to natural resources and make use of microeconomic and statistical analysis. This course will also focus on valuation techniques for environmental goods used in the real world by analysts and policy makers. There is a growing demand in economics and public sectors for individuals with quantitative skills who can understand and apply these techniques, analyze results, and produce reports. By the end of this course, students will be able to analyze economic problems related to environmental goods using rigorous valuation techniques.
Daniil Kashkarov, Ph.D. candidate
The aim of this course is to acquaint students with the general ideas behind structural macroeconomic modeling and how it can be applied to better understand real-world data, whether GDP fluctuations, evolution of lifetime income, or propensity to consume out of a monetary transfer. We will cover 2-3 basic macro models focusing on economic growth, the development of income and consumption inequality over the lifetime of individuals, and the differences in behavior of poor vs. wealthy households. For each model, we will define the decision problems of agents in a model (households/firms/government), acquire basic intuition on how a model works, and then describe how a model is calibrated to real data. The discussion of each model will conclude with a debate on how it compares with the real world and what it fails to explain.
Jakub Grossmann, Ph.D.
This course aims to provide students with the basics of labor economics. Theoretical models will be linked to real-life examples, making the course beneficial for subsequent studies and professional life. The tentative list of topics includes labor demand and supply, wages (equilibrium wages, hedonic wages, etc.), human capital, discrimination in the labor market, and unemployment.
Laure de Batz, Ph.D.
Ethics and finance: complementary or conflicting terms? In this highly interactive course, you will dig into the most notorious financial crimes to try and better understand what can possibly drive anyone of us into cheating investors and possibly ruining one’s career.
The course aims to raise your awareness and scrutiny to possible ethical challenges firms, managers and employees face when thinking about financial laws and enforcement, with an economic perspective and illustrated with real-life and up-to-date examples. The scope of unethical financial behaviors covers mostly market abuses, with price manipulation, insider trading, and communication of false information (in particular accounting frauds). This course should contribute to a better understanding of how ethical issues play a role in finance, how they may conflict with firms’ strategies, and how managers’ and employees’ decisions can impact financial markets and investors’ wealth.
The goal of this course is to prepare students for potential ethical dilemmas they might face along their careers. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to challenge and put into perspective the financial behavior of firms (financial institutions and listed firms in particular) in terms of ethics, from an economic perspective.
Silvester Van Koten, Ph.D.
Energy is a necessity of daily life and vital input to industry around the world. Energy also plays a central role in climate policy and geopolitics.
The course, including the viewpoints of economic markets and economic regulation, aims to inform about various energy system topics. The focus will be on the supply side of the market, targeting the main properties of fossil and renewable energy sources. While the economics (supply, demand, and pricing) is the focus, special attention is also given to the security and strategic value of the different energy sources.
Part of the course gives a broad background of knowledge on energy topics and issues. The other part uses economic tools and mathematical models to better understand the economic logic of energy. Such economic tools provide a way to systemize the abundance of information available on energy. This also helps to understand and appraise present policies regarding energy. Though our scope is general, attention is paid to some of the local settings for the EU, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Central Asia, and Russia.
Ella Sargsyan, Ph.D. candidate
The course will introduce regression analysis and cover some of the most recent econometric techniques central to modern econometric practice. Successful students will gain a deeper understanding of the material discussed in other Distance Learning Program courses. They will be up to speed with Western European students at the same education level, making them more competitive in their further studies and on the labor market. At the end of this course students will understand basic econometric concepts, basic estimation methods, and methods for testing statistical hypotheses. They will be able to apply standard methods of constructing econometric models, process statistical information, obtain statistically sound conclusions, and give meaningful interpretation to the results of the estimated econometric models. In addition, students will gain real data processing skills, using econometric packages for building and estimating econometric models in R.