Individual and Collective Choice and Public Policy

Catalog description

A one-semester course to be taken in the first semester of the program intended to introduce students to a core set of social science ideas relevant to public policy. These include theories of individual as well as collective action, institutions, and governance -- all of which draw from economics, political science, sociology or psychology. The goal of the course is to provide students with a broad framework for evaluating market and community function as well as failures, identifying possible policy interventions, and predicting how such interventions translate into outcomes. Consent of department required.