Illinois College
Liberal Arts Since 1829
The following is a list of courses that I teach.
Economics 105 -- Survey of Economics
This course is designed to introduce you to the subject of economics from both a microeconomic and macroeconomic point of view. The micro aspect of the course means that we look at individual components of the economy and the macro aspect has us examine the whole economy. The course will discuss the basic theoretical tools with which an analysis of various micro and macroeconomic economic situations can be undertaken and applied to today's economy.
- Economics 312 -- Intermediate Microeconomics
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This course is an introduction to the economic analysis of consumer and producer choice. The study of consumer choice allows us to understand the economic behavior represented by demand functions. The study of producer choice allows us to understand the economic behavior represented by supply functions. The course will emphasize comparative equilibrium analysis. That is, we will analyze what if questions such as "what will happen to the price of corn if there is no rain for 90 days?"
- Economics 342 -- Public Finance
- In this course we begin our study of government involvement in the marketplace by investigating the concept of economic efficiency. There are many cases where, in fact, government has very little to contribute toward an improvement in market efficiency. In these cases, government involvement in the market harms rather than helps society. In other markets, governments can be very effective in improving the welfare of society though an improvement in resource allocation. Once we have investigated what conditions must be present for governments to justify becoming involved in a market, we begin to look at how governments can best interact in the markets. We will look at the economic basis for why governments spend money and how the economy is affected by the taxes levied by governments to pay for their expenditures. The basic questions we will be investigating are: how is the allocation of resources and the distribution of income affected by the spending and taxing activities of government? What is the economic rationale for governmental activities such as spending in defense, highways, welfare and so on? What is the economic rationale for taxes levied? We will then investigate some methods of analyzing government spending programs which help determine whether a program is efficient from an economic perspective. Investigating these questions requires positive and normative economic analysis using tools of microeconomics.
Economics 344 - Economic Development
This course is an introduction to economics theory of Economic Development. Why have some parts of the world developed economically while other parts of the world have remained underdeveloped. The purpose of this class is to develop a deeper understanding of the social, political, and economic conditions necessary to promote economic development.
This course is an introduction to the economic analysis of environmental economics. In this course we explore the role of humans in the efficient use of the environment. We begin by exploring why, in many cases, an unregulated use of environmental resources results in an inefficient usage of the resources. This discussion is followed by exploring how environmental laws can be developed which allows for a sensible approach to resource usage. The exposition in the course will be primarily verbal and graphical. We will sometimes use the concept of mathematical functions to conveniently express certain relations. Thus, you are expected to have an adequate command of the use of algebra.
Economics 485 -- Senior Seminar
Seminar devoted to special topics of themes, with individual research by participants. This seminar is designed to make connections between overarching themes in the various Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) subject classifications. This is a required Senior experience and is open only to economics majors.
