Course Offerings by term

What are the justifications and implications of using markets, and what arrangements are necessary to establish and protect the commons? This course studies foundational texts of (neo-)liberal economics that aim to legitimize market mechanisms; philosophical treatments and critiques of key concepts, such as rationality and motivation, property and common goods; political analyses of how allocative institutions produce distributional outcomes

The course examines the historical transformations at the roots of modern industrial economies, framing the emergence and evolution of political economy as an intellectual discipline against this background. Students will be taught to consider the importance of various driving factors in economic history, such as demographic shifts, capital accumulation, technological adaptation, and institutional change. They will also learn how to see these historical transformations through the eyes of eminent thinkers from the past, thus acquiring a robust knowledge of the major topics in the history of political economy. After a brief discussion of different interpretations about the origins of the modern economy, each unit will focus on a specific period in modern world history, combining an overview of the socioeconomic transformations taking place at the time with an in-depth discussion of representative works from that era. Assessment will be strongly oriented toward essay writing, giving students an opportunity to learn how to develop an academic argument respecting the disciplinary practices of economics.

What are the environmental and ecological challenges economies face today? How can economic policy contribute to tackle those challenges? In this class we will answer those questions adopting the economists’ perspective. Economists have different ways of thinking about the environment and its relation to the economy. To better understand those different approaches, we will adopt a comparative perspective of environmental and ecological economics. The course will focus on the role of economic resources, biodiversity, and climate change in economic growth and equality. After introducing the sources of the discussion of environmental and ecological economics in the 19th century, we will discuss the 20th century debates between environmental and ecological economists on the issues of the limits of growth, natural capital, sustainable development. We will then cover the real-world application of those abstract economic theories by focusing on the different means to measure economic progress, the way the world economy deals with climate change, and on real-world examples of ecological economics. Throughout the course, students will be able to develop a comparative understanding of economic theories and see their importance and application in the real world.

As the bridge-course for the major in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, this team-taught course offers a multidisciplinary perspective on key questions of political economy. First presenting the similarities and differences between philosophical, political and economic approaches to political and economic rationality, the course offers varied analyses of representation and government, the commons, security, inequality and debt. The overall purpose of the course is to engage students, at various levels of theoretical abstraction and empirical precision, with the fundamental issues lying between ethics, politics, and economics.