Mathematical Methods For Management Decisions (DECS-433-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Decision Sciences.

Provides frameworks for reasoning about decisions in uncertain environments. Case studies and experiments are used to motivate the importance of probabilistic reasoning to avoid the systematic biases that cloud managers' decision making. Formal probabilistic tools are introduced and their relevance to modern business issues is conveyed via cases, exercises, and class experiments. Some of the applications include: inventory management with uncertain demand, principal-agent models, herd behavior, selection bias, rare events, real options and risk. The course is self-contained, and should be of value to all students, including those with prior exposure to formal probability models.

Microeconomic Analysis (MECN-430-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Managerial Economics.

Among the topics this core course addresses are economic analysis and optimal decisions, consumer choice and the demand for products, production functions and cost curves, market structures and strategic interactions, and pricing and non-price concepts. Cases and problems are used to understand economic tools and their potential for solving real-world problems. Prerequisite: DECS-434, or concurrent registration.

Competitive Strategy and Industrial Structure (MECN-441-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Analytical Consulting, Management & Strategy, Managerial Economics.

The course studies the determinants nature of competitive strategy in a variety of industry structures. The course considers how the structure of a firm's industry affects its strategic choices and performance. Topics include the dynamic aspects of pricing, entry and predation in concentrated industries, and product differentiation, product proliferation and innovation as competitive strategies.

Macroeconomic Analysis For Management (MECN-450-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Managerial Economics

This course provides an overview of modern macroeconomic issues, debates, crises and solutions. Macroeconomic models and case studies are used to better understand the historical and current behavior of the economy as a whole, to better understand the sources of the various historical and current controversies concerning macroeconomic policy and to analyze the effects of macroeconomic phenomena on managerial decision making. The first part of the course concentrates on long-run issues: the wealth of nations, economic growth, the effects of international trade and the effects of government policies on such long-run issues. The course examines the determination of employment, output, prices, wages, interest rates, national saving, investment and international flows of goods, services and assets. The second part of the course concentrates on short-run issues such as inflation, the business cycle and policies attempting to stabilize the economy's short-run fluctuations. The final part of the course focuses on international currency crises, foreign economic fluctuations and current macroeconomic policies that contribute to and combat such problems.

Economics of Competition (MECNX-441-0)
Economics of Competition prepares students to diagnose the determinants of an industry’s structure and formulate rational, competitive strategies for coping with that structure.

Strategic Issues in Commodity Industries (MECNX-442-0)
Strategic Issues in Commodity Industries introduces students to state-of-the-art models for the analysis of commodity markets. These include powerful frameworks for forecasting price trends, incorporating real options and herd behaviors in pricing models, and economic drivers of public policies and regulations.

Decision Theory (MECS-462-0)
This PhD-level course on decision theory focuses on axiomatic theories of individual decision making under risk and uncertainty. The course briefly explores utility theory under certainty and the notion of preferences and their representation, then progresses to the classic theories of decision under risk and uncertainty: von Neumann and Morgenstern, Anscombe and Aumann, and Savage. This lasts roughly half the course and constitutes a basic grounding in the subject. From there the course explores topics that expand on the classical work and are nearer to the current research frontier. These topics may include Allais Paradox, Prospect Theory and Machina's approach; Ellsberg's paradox, uncertainty aversion, and Gilboa and Schmeidler representations; dynamics - Bayesian updating, consistency, preferences over the timing of the resolution of risk/uncertainty; and notions of belief and probability in decision making.

Selected Topics in Economic Theory (MECS-468-2)
Selected Topics in Economic Theory