Teaching
Classes Taught
- MBA BPUB 621 (Core class)
The Government and Legal Environment of Business -
BPUB 201: The Political Economy of Social Policy
This course uses microeconomics to evaluate public policy. The course has two aims. The first aim is to provide a microeconomic toolkit that we will use to identify failures of the competitive market; the circumstances in which government intervention can improve economic efficiency; and alternatives to government intervention. The second aim of the course is to apply this toolkit to current policy issues, including environmental regulation, tax policy, health care reform and the problem of the uninsured; education policy; social security reform and the costs and benefits of private accounts; antitrust policy, and policy to promote research and development. - BPUB 203: Business in the Global Political Environment
This course focuses on business issues that are mediated through the public sector. Specific governmental policies towards markets will be examined, including antitrust policy, economic regulation and deregulation, social regulation, and market infrastructure (intellectual property, fraud and securities regulation). The course includes discussion of corporate responsibility and ethical issues in international business. Lectures and case studies focus on currently pending actions worldwide, including Internet related issues. The course applies theoretical principles of strategic thinking, industrial organization, and political science to studying the interactions between multinational firms and political institutions. - Economics of Marriage and Divorce
Sophomore Tutorial, Harvard University
Designed and taught class, 1999-2000 and 2000-2001.
The business environment has market and nonmarket components. The market component is characterized by the economics of an industry and a firm’s position in it. The “non-market” component is the broader political, legal, and civil context in which companies function. This course addresses how businesses manage their interactions with political and regulatory institutions, the law, and the public.
This course explores a new and burgeoning literature that applies the tools of economics in order to gain insight into marriage, divorce and the family. We will start by evaluating what we mean by the “economic approach” to the family. The standard economic assumption of self-interested maximization will be contrasted with insights from sociology, philosophy and feminist theory. We will then look at what motivates people to form a family and, once formed, how families make decisions. Further, we will examine models in which differences in opinion may be resolved through bargaining, threats, or cooperation. Finally, theories of the family will be applied to one of the most contentious social policy issues of our time: the decline in traditional family structures. We will ask why divorce rates are rising so rapidly, and what the main effects of this may be. Our aim is to develop your skills as an economist, as a social policy analyst, and as a multi-disciplinary scholar. Because this research agenda is still in its infancy, we will come fairly quickly to the frontiers of economic knowledge, which holds the prospect that your final paper can make an innovative contribution.
