Economics

All goods and services are subject to scarcity at some level. Scarcity means that society must develop some allocation mechanism – rules to determine who gets what. Over recorded history, these allocation rules were usually command based – the king or the emperor would decide. In contemporary times, most [...]

If you really care about the big questions in the economies and societies of the 21st century, such as distributive justice - namely, inequality of income or wealth, and its correlation with economic growth - this course is meant for you. The knowledge you will gain can truly change [...]

Learn how debt and equity can be used to finance infrastructure investments and how investors approach infrastructure investments. The course focuses on how private investors approach infrastructure projects from the standpoint of equity, debt, and hybrid instruments. The course concentrates on the practical aspects of project finance: the most [...]

We live in a complex world with diverse people, firms, and governments whose behaviors aggregate to produce novel, unexpected phenomena. We see political uprisings, market crashes, and a never ending array of social trends. How do we make sense of it? Models. Evidence shows that people who think with [...]

Explore the reunification of China under the Tang with a focus on aristocratic culture — from poetry to calligraphy to literature. By the Tang period, China was divided into northern and southern dynasties with different rulers and political systems. The north was conquered by relatively unsophisticated barbarians, but in [...]

Learn about the Qin and Han dynasties, and how Buddhism and ideas of self-realization influenced the medieval period. This course, the second in a collection on Chinese history and culture, addresses how the Qin dynasty conquered China and established a new system of government and how the Han dynasty [...]