Teaching
Weber State University
ECON 1740: American Economic History
This is a class in American Economic History and institutions. It will focus on agriculture in the Colonial period and the early 19th century. We will explore the development of the colonial economy, the causes of the revolution, the creation of a national economy after independence, and the conflicts between the North and the South in the decades predating the Civil War. We will analyze the institutional determinants of both colonial development and the period between Independence and Civil War. Some of the topics include the institutional and historical origins of property rights on land in the American agrarian economy, the development of a market economy in the United States and the role of the state, the relevance of the ideas of liberty and the legal disputes in the American Revolution, and the development of the northern and southern agrarian systems in the first half of nineteenth century. Economic concepts and models will be used to understand some of the key events and changes in American history. We will also show how other disciplines and perspectives (e.g. Politics, Law or Political Philosophy) complement economics in the understanding of the process of institutional and economic change.
Recent Syllabus: [pdf]
ECON 2010: Principles of Microeconomics
This course applies economic concepts to the analysis of scarcity of individual, firm, and organizational behavior. Topic coverage includes the determinants of prices or the theories about consumers’ choices and decisions of the firms. The course also explores the theory of market structures (perfect competition and imperfect forms such as monopolistic competition, oligopoly or monopoly).
ECON 4010: Intermediate Microeconomic Theory
Intermediate Microeconomics is an upper level course covering the social science of choices. Microeconomics will focus on the individual (micro) decisions made by economic agents -individuals, households, firms, or government. We will study how these decisions interact in markets. Intermediate Microeconomics will build on what you learned in Introduction to Microeconomics in a rigorous, mathematical manner. We will cover consumption decisions (Demand), production decisions (Supply), market equilibrium. We will also introduce game theory, and discuss market failures, that is, what happens when the market doesn’t work efficiently. Prerequisite: ECON 2010 and Business Calculus with a “C” or higher grade (or CR if taken on a CR/NC basis) or by instructor permission.
Recent Syllabus: [pdf]
ECON 3090: History of Economic Thought
The course covers past scholars’ major concepts and contributions in economic doctrine and interpretations. The course blends economic, social, and intellectual history to understand the evolution of economics and how the historical and political context has influenced the focus and questions asked by the leading practitioners of the discipline.
Students will also explore the connections between economics and other disciplines and how the current practice of economics with a significant mathematical and statistical component results from a long evolution and differs from the practice of economics in the past.
Recent Syllabus: [pdf]
ECON 1010: Economics as a Social Science
This is an introduction to basic economic institutions and principles of economics for non-business and non-economics majors. The primary objective of the course is to provide a framework of economic approaches useful in the analysis of social problems. The course focuses throughout on evidence on the economy, from around the world, and from history. Standard economic tools and models are taught by showing how they give insight into real-world problems. Economics as a discipline is set in a social, political, and ethical context in which institutions matter. We will cover topics like the emergence of modern economic growth in the eighteenth-century, the relevance of technology, the functioning of perfectly competitive markets, market failures, finance, and inequalities.
Recent Syllabus: [pdf]
University of Maryland
ECON 311, American Economic History Before the Civil War
Economic concepts are used to analyze various aspects of the founding and early history of the U.S., including the British settlement of the North American colonies, the economics of the American Revolutionary war, the writing of the Constitution, the development of financial markets, policies on public lands and the spread of western agriculture, slavery, banking, and early industrialization.
Instructor: ECON 412, Economic History and Modern Development
This is a class about modern economic, political, and social development. The course combines elements of economic history and economic theory, with a large splash of political science and a bit of sociology thrown in. The task is to figure out what modern development consists of and then attempt to explain why it has occurred in about 25 societies around the world, over the last 200 years. Some time is devoted to look at Africa in the late 20th century, which is a place that, by and large, has not grown.