Lecture notes designed to help students understand the economic aspects of current issues in education.

The Economics of Food and Agricultural Markets is written for applied intermediate microeconomics courses. The book showcases the power of economic principles to explain and predict issues and current events in the food, agricultural, agribusiness, international trade, and natural resource sectors. The field of agricultural economics is relevant, important and interesting. The study of market structures, also called industrial organization, provides powerful, timely, and useful tools for any individual or group making personal choices, business decisions, or public policies in food and agriculture industries.

Economy, Society, and Public Policy has been created specifically for students from social science, public policy, business and management, engineering, biology, and other disciplines, who are not economics majors.

Table of Contents:
1—Capitalism and democracy: Affluence, inequality, and the environment
2—Social interactions and economic outcomes
3—Public policy for fairness and efficiency
4—Work, wellbeing, and scarcity
5—Institutions, power, and inequality
6—The firm: Employees, managers, and owners
7—Firms and markets for goods and services
8—The labour market and the product market: Unemployment and inequality
9—The credit market: Borrowers, lenders, and the rate of interest
10—Banks, money, housing, and financial assets
11—Market successes and failures
12—Governments and markets in a democratic society

This course examines the choices and constraints regarding sources and uses of energy by households, firms, and governments through a number of frameworks to describe and explain behavior at various levels of aggregation. Examples include a wide range of countries, scope, settings, and analytical approaches. This course is one of many OCW Energy Courses, and it is a core subject in MIT's undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

A survey of how America has become the world's largest consumer of energy. Explores American history from the perspective of energy and its relationship to politics, diplomacy, the economy, science and technology, labor, culture, and the environment. Topics include muscle and water power in early America, coal and the Industrial Revolution, electrification, energy consumption in the home, oil and US foreign policy, automobiles and suburbanization, nuclear power, OPEC and the 70's energy crisis, global warming, and possible paths for the future.

Entrepreneurial Finance examines the elements of entrepreneurial finance, focusing on technology-based start-up ventures and the early stages of company development. The course addresses key questions which challenge all entrepreneurs: how much money can and should be raised; when should it be raised and from whom; what is a reasonable valuation of the company; and how should funding, employment contracts and exit decisions be structured. It aims to prepare students for these decisions, both as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. In addition, the course includes an in-depth analysis of the structure of the private equity industry.

Studio-based subject in applied environmental planning. Instruction in client projects dealing with aspects of sustainability assessment. Workshops cover tools for planning (risk mapping, sustainability assessment, impact prediction) and professional aspects of dealing with multiple publics. Students participate in one of several groups that work on a four-month client project. Subject emphasizes both the use of environmental planning tools in real-time and learning how to interface with agencies and NGOs. Faculty and practicing planners speak on the professional side of planning practice and agency culture, and conduct project review.

This course explores the proper role of government in the regulation of the environment. It will help students develop the tools to estimate the costs and benefits of environmental regulations. These tools will be used to evaluate a series of current policy questions, including: Should air and water pollution regulations be tightened or loosened? What are the costs of climate change in the U.S. and abroad? Is there a "Race to the Bottom" in environmental regulation? What is "sustainable development"? How do environmental problems differ in developing countries? Are we running out of oil and other natural resources? Should we be more energy efficient? To gain real world experience, the course is scheduled to include a visit to the MIT cogeneration plant. We will also do an in-class simulation of an air pollution emissions market.

This 4-minute video provides the understanding that a marginal tax rate does not apply to all of income. [Core Finance playlist: Lesson 180 of 184]

This course introduces the core theory of modern financial economics and financial management, with a focus on capital markets and investments. Topics include functions of capital markets and financial intermediaries, asset valuation, fixed-income securities, common stocks, capital budgeting, diversification and portfolio selection, equilibrium pricing of risky assets, the theory of efficient markets, and an introduction to derivatives and options.

Urban governance comprises the various forces, institutions, and movements that guide economic and physical development, the distribution of resources, social interactions, and other aspects of daily life in urban areas. This course examines governance from legal, political, social, and economic perspectives. In addition, we will discuss how these structures constrain collective decision making about particular urban issues (immigration, education‰Ű_). Assignments will be nightly readings and a short paper relating an urban issue to the frameworks outlined in the class.

This course will focus on understanding aspects of modern technology displaying exponential growth curves and the impact on global quality of life through a weekly updated class project integrating knowledge and providing practical tools for political and business decision-making concerning new aspects of bioengineering, personalized medicine, genetically modified organisms, and stem cells. Interplays of economic, ethical, ecological, and biophysical modeling will be explored through multi-disciplinary teams of students, and individual brief reports.

Introduces scientific, economic, and ecological issues underlying the threat of global climate change, and the institutions engaged in negotiating an international response. Develops an integrated approach to analysis of climate change processes, and assessment of proposed policy measures, drawing on research and model development within the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

Global Entrepreneurship Lab: Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa enables teams of students to work with the top management of global start-ups and gain experience in running, and consulting to, a new enterprise outside the United States. The focus is on start-ups operating in emerging markets throughout the world, with a special focus on Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The course combines an internship in a growing firm with in-class discussions of the issues and policies that affect the climate for innovation and start-up success around the world.

This course examines opportunities and risks firms face in today's global market. It provides conceptual tools for analyzing how governments and social institutions influence economic competition among firms embedded in different national settings. Public policies and institutions that shape competitive outcomes are examined through cases and analytical readings on different companies and industries operating in both developed and emerging markets.

This course will focus on the emergence and evolution of industrial societies around the world. The student will begin by comparing the legacies of industry in ancient and early modern Europe and Asia and examining the agricultural and commercial advances that laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution. The student will then follow the history of industrialization in different parts of the world, taking a close look at the economic, social, and environmental effects of industrialization. This course ultimately examines how industrialization developed, spread across the globe, and shaped everyday life in the modern era. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: identify key ideas and events in the history of industrialization; identify connections between the development of capitalism and the development of modern industry; use analytical tools to evaluate the factors contributing to industrial change in different societies; identify the consequences of industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries in different societies; critique historical interpretations of the causes and effects of industrialization; and analyze and interpret primary source documents describing the process of industrialization and life in industrial societies. (History 363)

This subject focuses on the specifics of strategy and organization of the multinational company, and provides a framework for formulating successful and adaptive strategies in an increasingly complex world economy. Topics include the globalization of industries, the continuing role of country factors in competition, organization of multinational enterprises, and building global networks. This particular version of the subject is taught and tailored specifically to those enrolled in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program.

This course examines the economic, political, social, and spatial dynamics of urban growth and decline in cities and their key component areas (downtown, suburbs, etc.). Topics include impacts of industrialization, technology, politics, and social practices on cities. Students will examine the role of public and private sector activities, ranging from zoning and subsidies to infrastructure development and real estate investment, in affecting urban growth and decline. Readings are both theoretical and empirical, with considerable thought paid to comparative and historical differences.

A truly inter-disciplinary course, Housing and Land Use in Rapidly Urbanizing Regions reviews how law, economics, sociology, political science, and planning conceptualize urban land and property rights and uses cases to discuss what these different lenses illuminate and obscure. It also looks at how the social sciences might be informed by how design, cartography, and visual studies conceptualize space's physicality. This year's topics include land trusts for affordable housing, mixed-use in public space, and critical cartography.