University Bulletin (2009-2010)

BUS 4a Introduction to Accounting and Statistics
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a. A core course for the business minor. Open only to students in the business minor who do not take a statistics course in another department.
An introduction to the accounting and quantitative skills that are central to business decision making. Includes financial statement preparation and analysis, accounting ethics, and basic statistical methods. Usually offered every year.
Staff

BUS 6a Financial Accounting
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Develops basic concepts and accounts and applies them to income measurement, capital values, and costs. Through the use of cases, develops the basis for rational choice and control of business activity. Usually offered every semester.
Mr. Keith and Ms. Weihs

BUS 10a Functions of the Capitalist Enterprise
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a and BUS 6a or permission of the instructor. BUS 6a may be taken concurrently with BUS 10a.
Introduces the internal complexity of modern businesses and the various roles they play in society. First examines the internal workings of firms--marketing, operations, finance, and other functions. Subsequently, the relationships between businesses and their context--the economy, social issues, and government are studied. Usually offered every semester in multiple sections.
Ms. Banerjee, Mr. Bayone, Mr. Canella, Mr. Carver, Mr. Reed, and Ms. Wang

BUS 30a Entrepreneurship and Innovation
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a.
Explores why, when, and how to start a new business venture. Includes identifying opportunities, gaining access to resources, and assembling a team with key skills. Uses lectures, case discussions, and outside speakers to introduce issues in both theory and practice. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Reed

BUS 35a Real Estate and Society
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a.
Provides students with the fundamentals of real estate investment analysis and examines major trends and current issues: affordable housing; preservations, conservation, and environmentalism; green construction; new urbanism and smart growth; and the meltdown in the capital markets. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Harrity

BUS 60a Business and Marketing Strategy
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a.
An introduction to key concepts in competitive strategy and marketing, which are used to help firms create, sustain, and capture value. Topics include industry analysis, competitive advantage, market identification, and marketing policies. Incorporates case studies, discussion method, team projects, and business research. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Zimmerman

BUS 70a Business in the Global Economy
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a.
Modern firms frequently cross national borders to find new markets and resources. Their strategies are then shaped by the international economy and by the policies of national governments. Using case discussion, students explore why and how U.S., Japanese, and European firms operate outside their home countries. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Zimmerman

BUS 71a Introduction to Finance
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a and BUS 6a. This course may not be taken for credit by students who have previously taken ECON 171a. This course cannot be counted as an elective toward the economics major or minor.
Introduces students to topics and methods in the field of finance. Covers how firms secure financing via equity and debt markets, valuation of stocks and bonds, fundamental analysis techniques, capital budgeting techniques, relationship of risk and return, and the time-value-of-money. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Podorefsky

BUS 75a Financial Analysis for Management
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a. Seniors will have priority for admission.
Examines management decisions using quantitative, strategic, and financial analysis. Special attention to large companies with financial challenges and industries in transition, such as automobile, airlines, and oil. Also examines how industry trends affect the decisions of small businesses and investors. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Canella

BUS 89a Work in the Global Business Environment: Internship and Seminar
Normally students arrange an internship placement prior to registration and the internship is concurrent with the seminar. Students wishing to fulfill the internship component during the summer must obtain approval from the instructor prior to the internship and then enroll in the following fall (or spring) semester. The course will meet every other week and a structured journal documenting the internship experience is required as a basis for seminar participation. The course encourages students to pool experiences and lessons drawn from various business environments and to analyze and discuss them in the context of related readings. Usually offered every fall and spring.
Mr. Suderow

BUS 98a Independent Study
Normally available for a student who has taken a course and wishes to pursue further reading or research in that field or study a subject not listed among the department course offerings. Usually offered every year.
Staff

BUS 4a Introduction to Accounting and Statistics
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a. A core course for the business minor. Open only to students in the business minor who do not take a statistics course in another department.
An introduction to the accounting and quantitative skills that are central to business decision making. Includes financial statement preparation and analysis, accounting ethics, and basic statistical methods. Usually offered every year.
Staff

BUS 6a Financial Accounting
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Develops basic concepts and accounts and applies them to income measurement, capital values, and costs. Through the use of cases, develops the basis for rational choice and control of business activity. Usually offered every semester.
Mr. Keith and Ms. Weihs

BUS 10a Functions of the Capitalist Enterprise
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a and BUS 6a or permission of the instructor. BUS 6a may be taken concurrently with BUS 10a.
Introduces the internal complexity of modern businesses and the various roles they play in society. First examines the internal workings of firms--marketing, operations, finance, and other functions. Subsequently, the relationships between businesses and their context--the economy, social issues, and government are studied. Usually offered every semester in multiple sections.
Ms. Banerjee, Mr. Bayone, Mr. Canella, Mr. Carver, Mr. Reed, and Ms. Wang

ECON 2a Introduction to Economics
[ qr ss ]
Common final exam.
A one-semester introduction to economic analysis with policy applications. The economist's approach to social analysis is systematically elaborated. Usually offered every semester in multiple sections.
Mr. Coiner and Staff

BUS 30a Entrepreneurship and Innovation
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a.
Explores why, when, and how to start a new business venture. Includes identifying opportunities, gaining access to resources, and assembling a team with key skills. Uses lectures, case discussions, and outside speakers to introduce issues in both theory and practice. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Reed

BUS 35a Real Estate and Society
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a.
Provides students with the fundamentals of real estate investment analysis and examines major trends and current issues: affordable housing; preservations, conservation, and environmentalism; green construction; new urbanism and smart growth; and the meltdown in the capital markets. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Harrity

BUS 60a Business and Marketing Strategy
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a.
An introduction to key concepts in competitive strategy and marketing, which are used to help firms create, sustain, and capture value. Topics include industry analysis, competitive advantage, market identification, and marketing policies. Incorporates case studies, discussion method, team projects, and business research. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Zimmerman

BUS 70a Business in the Global Economy
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a.
Modern firms frequently cross national borders to find new markets and resources. Their strategies are then shaped by the international economy and by the policies of national governments. Using case discussion, students explore why and how U.S., Japanese, and European firms operate outside their home countries. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Zimmerman

BUS 71a Introduction to Finance
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a and BUS 6a. This course may not be taken for credit by students who have previously taken ECON 171a. This course cannot be counted as an elective toward the economics major or minor.
Introduces students to topics and methods in the field of finance. Covers how firms secure financing via equity and debt markets, valuation of stocks and bonds, fundamental analysis techniques, capital budgeting techniques, relationship of risk and return, and the time-value-of-money. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Podorefsky

BUS 75a Financial Analysis for Management
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 2a, BUS 6a, and BUS 10a. Seniors will have priority for admission.
Examines management decisions using quantitative, strategic, and financial analysis. Special attention to large companies with financial challenges and industries in transition, such as automobile, airlines, and oil. Also examines how industry trends affect the decisions of small businesses and investors. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Canella

BUS 89a Work in the Global Business Environment: Internship and Seminar
Normally students arrange an internship placement prior to registration and the internship is concurrent with the seminar. Students wishing to fulfill the internship component during the summer must obtain approval from the instructor prior to the internship and then enroll in the following fall (or spring) semester. The course will meet every other week and a structured journal documenting the internship experience is required as a basis for seminar participation. The course encourages students to pool experiences and lessons drawn from various business environments and to analyze and discuss them in the context of related readings. Usually offered every fall and spring.
Mr. Suderow

BUS 98a Independent Study
Normally available for a student who has taken a course and wishes to pursue further reading or research in that field or study a subject not listed among the department course offerings. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ECON 8b The Global Economy
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a. This course is not a writing-intensive course.
Applies the basic tools and models of economic analysis to a wide range of topics in micro-, macro-, and international economics. Usually offered every semester in multiple sections.
Staff

ECON 57a Environmental Economics
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Investigates the theoretical and policy problems posed by the use of renewable and nonrenewable resources. Theoretical topics include the optimal pricing of resources, the optimal use of standards and taxes to correct pollution problems under uncertainty, and the measuring of costs and benefits. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Bui

ECON 76b Labor Economics
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Analysis of competitive and less-than-competitive markets. Rationale for alternate methods of paying workers (e.g., hourly wages, piece rates, bonuses). Sources of wage differentials among jobs and workers. The U.S. labor movement, the process of collective bargaining, and the economic effects of unions. Effects of government interventions in the labor market, such as the minimum wage and occupational safety regulation. Extent and effects of discrimination in the labor market. Inequality in the distribution of wages.
Ms. Brainerd

ECON 77a Introduction to Regulation and Public Policy
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Economic rationale behind government intervention in markets. Theoretical, practical, and historical aspects of regulation. Recent trends toward deregulation or regulatory reform. Specific case studies such as telecommunications, electric utilities, environment, transportation, drugs, and workplace safety. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Sanyal

ECON 80a Microeconomic Theory
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 8b. Calculus is required. See "Special Notes Relating to Undergraduates" in the Bulletin for more information.
Analysis of the behavior of economic units within a market economy. Emphasis upon individuals' decisions as demanders of goods and suppliers of resources, and firms' decisions as suppliers of goods and demanders of resources under various market structures. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

ECON 135a Industrial Organization
[ qr ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 80a and ECON 83a or permission of the instructor.
Microeconomic analysis of firm behavior under alternative market structures and implications for market outcomes. Topics include strategic interaction, entry and exit, collusion, predation, price discrimination, product differentiation, vertical relations, imperfect information, advertising, and patents and innovation. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Graddy

ECON 161a International Finance
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 82b and ECON 83a or permission of the instructor.
Applications of international economic theory--regarding trade, the balance of payments, investments, and exchange rates--to the management of import/export firms and multinational corporations. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Mann

ECON 171a Financial Economics
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 80a and 83a, or permission of the instructor.
An introduction to financial economics. Topics include the selection of assets, portfolio choice under uncertainty, equilibrium asset pricing models, the efficient markets hypothesis, futures, and options markets. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ECON 172b Money and Banking
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 82b and 83a or permission of the instructor.
Considers the relationship of the financial system to real economic activity, focusing especially on central banks. Roughly one-half of the course is devoted to a study of the design and operation of central banks in the modern economy. The other half of the course considers the structure, management, regulations and supervision of bank and nonbank financial intermediaries; including examination of the globalization of the financial system. Students are assumed to know intermediate macroeconomics and elementary financial theory. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Redenius

ECON 174a Corporate Finance
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 171a and BUS 6a or permission of the instructor.
An introductory course in corporate finance and financial management. Covers the theory and application of capital budgeting techniques and capital structure choice of firms. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ECON 177b Economic Regulation and Deregulation
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 80a and ECON 83a or permission of the instructor.
Rate regulation of natural monopolies, antitrust regulation of horizontal and vertical mergers and contracts, and the deregulation movement. Focus on the peak-load pricing problem, vertical restraints, and case histories of airlines and savings and loan institutions. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

The following courses are eligible as "alternative perspectives on business" (refer to requirement item C on previous page):

AAAS 126b Political Economy of the Third World
[ nw ss wi ]
Development of capitalism and different roles and functions assigned to all "Third Worlds," in the periphery as well as the center. Special attention will be paid to African and Afro-American peripheries. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Nyangoni

AMST 188b Justice Brandeis and Progressive Jurisprudence
[ ss ]
Brandeis's legal career serves as model and guide for exploring the ideals and anxieties of American legal culture throughout the twentieth century. Focuses on how legal values evolve in response to new technologies, corporate capitalism, and threats to personal liberty. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Gaskins

AMST 189a Legal Foundations of American Capitalism
[ ss ]
Surveys core legal institutions of property, contracts, and corporations. Examines how law promotes and restrains the development of capitalism and market society in America, from the era of mass production through the age of global trade and digital commerce. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Gaskins

ANTH 163b Production, Consumption, and Exchange
[ nw ss ]
Prerequisite: ANTH 1a or ECON 2a or permission of the instructor.
We read in newspapers and books and hear in everyday discussion about "the economy," an identifiably separate sphere of human life with its own rules and principles and its own scholarly discipline (economics). The class starts with the premise that this "commonsense" idea of the economy is only one among a number of possible perspectives on the ways people use resources to meet their basic and not-so-basic human needs. Using extensive cross-cultural case studies, looks at the satisfaction of these needs (which we might call economic activity) as they interact with other aspects of life: gender, kinship, ideas of morality and taste, spirit possession, politics, and so on. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ferry

COSI 133b Internet and Society
[ sn ]
Prerequisite: sophomore standing. This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken COSI 33b in previous years.
An interdisciplinary survey of the Internet. Taught by a team of professors from several different departments, the course content will vary from year to year. Some particular topics to be covered are the architecture of the Internet (and the implications this has on its regulation), intellectual property, privacy, censorship, e-commerce, online education, and research. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Hickey

HIST 160b American Legal History II
[ ss ]
Survey of American legal development from 1865 to the present. Major topics include constitutionalism and racial inequality, the legal response to industrialization, progressivism and the transformation of liberalism, the rise of the administrative state, and rights-based movements for social justice. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Willrich

HS 104b American Health Care
[ ss ]
Examines and critically analyzes the United States health care system, emphasizing the major trends and issues that have led to the current sense of "crisis." In addition to providing a historical perspective, this course will establish a context for analyzing the current, varied approaches to health care reform. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Altman

HS 110a Wealth and Poverty
[ ss ]
Examines why the gap between richer and poorer citizens appears to be widening in the United States and elsewhere, what could be done to reverse this trend, and how the widening disparity affects major issues of public policy. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Shapiro

HSSP 104b Health Economics
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Emphasizes the concepts and tools of health economics applicable to both developed and developing countries. Topics include: cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, the demand for health services, insurance and risk, managed care, provider reimbursement, national health insurance, and an overview of health care systems in other countries. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Hodgkin

JOUR 103b Advertising and the Media
[ ss ]
Combines a historical and contemporary analysis of advertising's role in developing and sustaining consumer culture in America with a practical analysis of the relationship between advertising and the news media in the United States. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Farrelly

LGLS 129b Law, Technology, and Innovation
[ ss ]
Study of interaction of the law and technology, including how law encourages and restrains the processes of technological innovation and change, and how technological innovation and change affect the law. Topics include such issues as intellectual property rights and new information technologies, biotechnology engineering, and reproductive technologies. Shows how law balances personal, social, and economic interests. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

PHIL 13b The Idea of the Market: Economic Philosophies
[ hum ]
Historical survey of philosophical assumptions in the defense and critique of market capitalism, starting from Adam Smith's views on value, self, and community. Explores philosophical alternatives in Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Dewey, and Nozick, including debates on justice and individualism. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Gaskins

POL 172b Introduction to International Political Economy
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: POL 15a.
The politics and modern evolution of international economic relations, comprising trade, money, multinational productions, and development. Also the role of states and transnational actors in international markets and the global differentiation of power, and distribution of wealth. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Chase

PSYC 34b Social Psychology
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: PSYC 1a.
An introduction to theory and research on the psychological processes that relate the individual to the larger social world in terms of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Topics include attitudes, social perception, prejudice and discrimination, attraction, behavior in groups, and the role of culture. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Isaacowitz

PSYC 150b Organizational Behavior
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: PSYC 1a, PSYC 51a, and PSYC 52a.
Covers the fundamentals of industrial/organizational psychology, including the topics of leadership, work motivation, organizational culture, organizational structure, group dynamics, perception, decision making, and cross-cultural interaction. Assignments include group project analysis of real organizational dilemma using concepts covered in class. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Molinsky

SOC 3b Social Theory and Contemporary Society
[ ss ]
Provides an introduction to social theory and ways that core sociological concepts are used to understand social interaction, social problems, and social change. Students read classic works including, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Mead, as well as more recent empirical studies. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Miller

SOC 10b Introduction to Sociological Theory
[ ss ]
Introduces the student to the foundations of sociological and social psychological explanatory systems. Analyzes the major ideas of classical and modern authors and their competing approaches and methodologies--Durkheim, Weber, Mead, Du Bois, Goffman, Marcuse, Haraway, Barrett, Foucault, and others. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Hayim

SOC 117a Sociology of Work and Gender
[ ss ]
Focuses on the transformation of contemporary workplaces in the United States. How gender shapes inequality in the labor force, as well as idioms of skill, worth, care, and service. How women and men combine care for families with paid work. Strategies for empowerment, equity, and flexibility (comparable worth, family leave, flexible working-time options, affirmative action, employee participation, new union strategies, grass-roots organizing). Usually offered every second year.
Staff