Public Policy (PUBP)

Fall; McBeth. Graded Pass/Fail. An introduction to mathematical methods applied to economics and policy analysis. The emphasis is on learning the techniques rather than proving theorems. Topics include: linear algebra, comparative static analysis, and optimization problems.

Fall and Spring; Staff. Topics change each semester. Please consult the Open Course List for the current listing of topics offered.

Fall and Spring; Graded Pass/Fail. No credits earned in this course may be applied to the number of credits required to satisfy graduate degree requirements. This course may be repeated for credit.

Fall and Spring; Greener. Graded Pass/Fail. An introduction to the practice of public policy. Students must complete a portfolio of experiences involving the practice of public policy outside of the classroom. Those experiences must include, at a minimum, the following three elements: (1) participation in the Washington Program, normally in the fall of the first year of study; (2) completion of an approved 10-week full-time internship, normally occurring between the first and second year of study; and (3) participation in at least three Policy Dialogues offered by the program. This course may be repeated for 3 credits.

Fall and Spring; Staff. Graded Pass/Fail or letter graded. Course content varies: special topics courses; independent supervised research; experimentation with new seminars. This course may be repeated for 6 credits.

Fall; K. Lopresti. An introduction to the methods and techniques of statistical analysis with emphasis on public policy applications. Topics include: descriptive statistics; probability; sampling; survey design; hypothesis testing; correlation; regression; and introduction to multiple regression. This course includes training in the responsible and ethical conduct of research, including discussions of the proper use of data and reporting of results in order to avoid fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism.

Spring; Periera. An introduction to theory and practice of econometrics with emphasis on techniques most useful to policy analysts. Topics include: regression estimation and the theory of least squares including examination of Gauss-Markov assumptions, properties of estimators, and estimation issues when Gauss-Markov assumptions are violated.

Fall; Pereira. This course develops basic concepts of microeconomic theory, with an emphasis on the economics of the public sector. Topics include: market economy, prisoner’s dilemma, preferences, constrained choice, consumer demand, profit maximization in a competitive market, market failure, and the effects of taxes, subsidies, and regulation

Spring; Staff. The course provides a broad based understanding of macroeconomic concepts and an introduction to the tools of global macroeconomic policy analysis. It starts with the role of government policy in promoting long-term growth. In addition, the focus lies on the role of fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies in both developed and developing countries. The impact of policies is studied both domestically and internationally with emphasis on the interdependence and global repercussions of specific policy choices.

Spring; Periera, Stafford. This course examines basic concepts and techniques involved with benefit-cost analysis. This approach will be applied to a variety of public policy issues and programs. Topics include: choice of discount rate, treatment of income distribution, intergovernmental grants, tax expenditures, regulation, and program evaluation.

Fall; Byrne, Kennedy. Law and Public Policy examines the role of the judiciary as a policy-making institution, including its interactions with legislative, regulatory, and private-sector entities. Students analyze a range of actual cases and, through the prism of those cases and other readings, explore the concepts of judicial review, separation of powers, and federalism, and also external influences on law-making bodies, including lobbying, public opinion, and the media. Sections will focus either on the U.S. legal system or comparative legal systems.

Fall; Staff. An introduction to public budgeting at the national, state, and local levels, presented from three perspectives: macroeconomics, political science, and public administration. Emphasis is also given to the budgetary strategies employed by bureaucrats, politicians, and interest group representatives as they pursue their policy agendas.

Spring; Kennedy, Manna, Richardson. Values such as equity, justice, duty, accountability, transparency, freedom, and efficiency are central to understanding the role of public policy in society. The Applied Ethics course will provide students with an understanding of the role that values play at various stages of the policy process, including the definition of problems to be solved, the design and implementation of public policy solutions, and the analysis of the impacts of public policy. Additionally students will consider solutions to common ethical challenges faced by public policy professionals and develop the ability to exchange ideas about ethics in a professional manner.

Fall; Mathew, Richardson. This one semester research and writing intensive seminar involves both the further development of policy research skills and communication skills relevant to policy-making. Students will be involved in small-group, client-driven policy analysis projects and an individual project. In addition, students will analyze at least one quick-turnaround policy problem.

Spring; Staff. Public policy analysts and researchers are trained to use rigorous, appropriate methods and data to develop answers to pressing policy questions. These include questions about the design, implementation, and evaluation of policy. But what happens when such policy expertise is ignored by elected officials, the media, and ordinary people? How are policy experts to operate in environments where Individuals disparage, distort, or refuse to consider dispassionate policy analysis? This course prepares students trained in public policy to engage such challenging environments as they work to ensure that policy decisions are informed by careful thinking. logic. and evidence and that. in practice. uphold core democratic values.

Fall; Joosse. An examination of the ways in which public organizations and their leaders cope with the policy and management challenges that confront administrative agencies in a democratic society. Theoretical literature as well as case studies will be utilized.

Spring; Joosse. An examination of policy environment, funding constraints, and other management issues facing non-profit organizations and their leaders. Theoretical literature as well as case studies will be utilized.

Fall and Spring; Staff. Topics change each semester. Please consult the Public Policy web site for the current listing of topics offered. This course may be repeated for 6 credits if there is no duplication of topic.

Fall; Staff; Economic data often come as a cross-section of data points, frequently collected as part of a sample survey. The nature of these data calls for the use of a specialized set of tools, which will be developed in the course. Among the models to be examined are discrete, censored and truncated dependent variable, sample selectivity and duration models. Hands-on analysis of data sets will feature prominently.

Spring; Staff. This course is an introduction to the econometric analysis of time series data. Topics include ARIMA models, forecasting, analysis of nonstationary series, unit root tests, co-integration and principles of modeling.

Spring; Staff. An introduction to the formulation, implementation and analysis of political and public policy surveys. Topic to be covered include the psychology of the survey response, sampling, interviewing, focus groups, experimental design, hypothesis testing and data analysis. Students will carry out individually designed and group designed surveys, and write papers and reports around this projects.

Spring; Richardson. This course revolves around a policy case competition. The competition requires teams of students to research a policy issue, write a policy memo, and give a presentation to a panel of judges. Leading up to the competition, students learn skills like memo writing, creation of presentation aides, public speaking, and data visualization.

Spring; Joosse. A social network is a collection of actors (people, organizations, countries, etc.) and the relationships (friendships, advice-giving relationships, financial exchanges, common membership in a club, trade relationships, etc.) that connect them. Social network analysis (SNA) is a discipline that arose from the revelation that these relationships matter in understanding how individual actors behave. By visualizing and calculating the mathematical properties of these networks, SNA provides important information that traditional analysis tools do not.

Spring; Parman, Stafford. An in-depth study of government intervention in markets. Principal focus on characteristics and effects of rules and institutions governing markets and the definition of areas of market failure. Topics include: regulation of monopoly, antitrust enforcement, and regulation of spill-overs.

Fall; Devins. A study of practice in the administrative process, examining the procedures for administrative adjudication and rulemaking; legislative and judicial control of administrative action; and public access to governmental processes and information.

Fall; Staff. This course explores policy making for environmental problems and focuses on issues that are local, national, and international. This course will cover the application of welfare economics to environmental problems. Topics include differences in consumer surplus and other measures of economic welfare and techniques to measure the economic value of environmental resources. We examine national environmental policy, and how that policy is implemented at a local and regional level. We examine the U.S. laws and regulations as well as each agency’s approach for quantitatively assessing the benefits and costs of environmental policy.

Spring; Staff. A study of medical jurisprudence and hospital law focusing on medical malpractice and tort law reform and contemporary problems including the regulation of health care delivery systems, access to health care, and antitrust challenges.

Spring; Malone. A study of the environmental policy-making process. Topics include: ecological and economic foundations of environmentalism, traditional institutional responses, the policy-making process in the context of our legal system, constitutional questions raised by judicial and agency involvement, and economic, political and ethical concerns raised by different theories of environmental decision-making.

Spring; Malone, Rosenberg. A study of nature and causes of environmental pollution and legal techniques for its control. The course considers common law, environmental impact assessment process, and basic regulatory framework for air, water and solid hazardous waste control, and main policy issues presented by each. Other: role of federal courts in reviewing agency action, new developments in administrative law, natural resource management and allocation issues, toxic and hazardous substance regulation, and enforcement of laws.

Fall; Staff. A topics course including, but not limited to, the measurement of state and local fiscal capacity, urban problems, urban infrastructure development, intergovernmental aid to localities, industrial location decisions, and local land use policy and its impact on growth and development.

Spring; Howard, McGlennon. This course examines the nature of state and local governments and their policy processes and outcomes, including relationships among levels of government, explanations for policy variations among states and localities, and constraints on attempts to deal with their public policy responsibilities.

Spring; Rosenberg. This course examines local government powers and relation to state and federal authority with emphasis on state and federal statutory and constitutional restraints on operation of local government entities. Topics include: Dillon’s Rule, home rule, preemption, annexation, personnel matters, public contracts, borrowing and taxation, and public entity tort liability and immunity.

Spring; Staff. This course examines local government powers and relation to state and federal authority with emphasis on state and federal statutory and constitutional restraints on operation of local government entities. Topics include: Dillon’s Rule, home rule, preemption, annexation, personnel matters, public contracts, borrowing and taxation, and public entity tort liability and immunity.

Fall; Staff. This course is intended primarily for students in Law, Public Policy and related disciplines, and is designed to introduce these students to the science of natural systems and ecological processes. The course examines the current state of our understanding in terms that will give the student confidence and the facility to critically assess theories and observations in environmental science. With this as a foundation, topics discussed will include: the enhanced greenhouse effect, coastal eutrophication, biodiversity loss, water resources, sea level rise, environmental contamination, land use trends, and invasive species impacts.

Spring; McHenry. This course examines how public policies affect the labor market. Topics include: wage determination, education, training, minimum wages, immigration, unemployment compensation, social security, disability insurance, comparable worth, workplace safety, welfare reform, and affirmative action.

Spring; Staff. This course examines law relating to major benefits programs, including social security, medicare/medicaid, unemployment, employee rehabilitation, AFDC, and Food Stamps, including decision-making processes used in governance of these programs and the basic substantive law created for and by these programs.

Spring; Staff. A study of federal laws prohibiting discrimination in employment on account of race, national origin, gender, religion and handicapping condition, with emphasis on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Equal Pay Act.

Fall; Staff. An overview of the financing of higher education. Besides becoming acquainted with the literature and main issues in finance, students will develop the ability to examine and analyze financial statements, assess the budget as an instrument of control, and relate the budget to the educational program.

Spring; Staff. A seminar for advanced graduate students in which the general topic of the relationship between the government and higher education is developed. Major attention is given to developments since World War II.

Fall; Abel, Douglas. This course will focus on a variety of common law and statutory legal issues surrounding the employer-employee relationship. Issues considered will include employment at-will, employee privacy, covenants not to compete, regulation of wages and hours, ERISA, worker’s compensation, occupational health and safety, and unemployment compensation. This course will not overlap either LAW 452 - Employment Discrimination or LAW 407 - Labor Law.

Spring; Yishay. This course applies relevant economic theories to the study of growth and structural change in less industrialized countries. Topics include sources of growth, industrialization, trade, income distribution, urbanization, and the state. Various techniques of policy analysis will be examined through selected case studies.

Fall; Staff. An examination of the nature and sources of international law and municipal law; the law of treaties; principles of jurisdiction; statehood and recognition of states and governments; sovereign immunity; rights of aliens; human rights; environmental issues; and regulation of international coercion.

Fall and Spring; Staff. Course for students accepted into the State Department’s Diplomacy Lab program. Separate sections will be offered for each of the Diplomacy Lab projects. Instructor permission required.

Fall and Spring; Graded Pass/Fail. No credits earned in this course may be applied to the number of credits required for a degree. This course may be repeated.