Influence of Public Policy on Financial Markets

Catalog description

Although the United States' economy is said to have a laissez-faire structure, there is a significant relationship between the government and how the market operates. Public policy impacts everything nowadays - legislation that interacts with healthcare, taxes, infrastructure, and other societal areas that demand government intervention is monitored by monetary and fiscal policy. This course will cover how the government intervenes in the market via public policy to control factors that range from inflation to GDP growth to spending on public programs. We will discuss how the government interacts with Wall Street, the regulations that are often imposed on firms, and how the debt and equity markets function and react to government interaction. We will accentuate political intervention during times of crisis and how the financial world's relationship with the government changed as a result. This class will include a combination of lectures and guest speakers to formally analyze course material and to provide real world scenarios and applications.