Graduate courses in Public Policy

(Same as IPS 204A.) Microeconomic concepts relevant to decision making. Topics include: competitive market clearing, price discrimination; general equilibrium; risk aversion and sharing, capital market theory, Nash equilibrium; welfare analysis; public choice; externalities and public goods; hidden information and market signaling; moral hazard and incentives; auction theory; game theory; oligopoly; reputation and credibility.

4 units, Aut (Bulow, J)

PUBLPOL 201B. Cost-Benefit Analysis and Evaluation

(Same as IPS 204B.) Ex ante and ex post evaluation of projects and policies, value of life calculations, and welfare evaluation of public and private decisions. Welfare measures; tradeoffs between efficiency and equity. Second best. Behavioral economics: psychological mechanisms behind static choice, intertemporal choice, choice under risk and uncertainty, choice in social situations, and hedonics. Statistical decision theory. Use of incentives in implementing policies. Relationship between microeconomic analysis and public policy making. Economic rationales for policy interventions. Economic models of politics and application to policy making. Relationship of income distribution to policy choice.

4 units, Spr (Kessler, D)

PUBLPOL 202A. Introduction to Law

Differences between common and civil law systems; judge-made law and judicial process; courts and litigation; legislation and its interpretation; administrative law and regulation. Separation of powers and federalism; constitutional law and civil liberties; criminal justice; empirical studies of the legal profession and legal behavior; social change and its impact on the legal order; law and economic development.

2 units, Aut (Friedman, L)

PUBLPOL 202B. Economic Analysis of Law

(Same as LAW 277.) How legal rules and institutions can correct market failures.The economic function of contrasts; role of legal remedies to resolve disputes when contracts fail. The choice between encouraging private parties to initiate legal actions to correct externalities and governmental actors such as regulatory authorities. Economics of litigation; how private incentives to bring lawsuits differ from the social value of litigation. Economic motives to commit crimes; optimal governmental response to crime. Prerequisites: intermediate-level microeconomics; some calculus.

4 units, Win (Polinsky, M)

PUBLPOL 203A. Principles of Research Design and Analysis: Methods

(Same as IPS 205A.) Statistical background and introduction to regression. Topics include hypothesis testing, linear regression, nearest-neighbors regression, and other statistical concepts. Hands-on empirical analysis using popular statistical packages. Goal is to analyze empirical studies, conduct empirical research, and to crossexamine or work with statistical experts.

2 units, Aut (Hensler, D)

PUBLPOL 203B. Principles of Research Design and Analysis: Tools

(Same as IPS 205B.) (Same as LAW 366.) Descriptive statistics. Regression analysis. Hypothesis testing. Analysis of variance. Heteroskedasticity, serial correlation, errors in variables, simultaneous equations. The construction and use of models for analyzing economic and social phenomena. Bayesian analysis. Univariate and bivariate analysis. Simple regression model. Multiple regression model. Inference and heteroskedasticity. Linear probability model. Instrumental variables. Maximum likelihood methods. Measurement of social and political attitudes and ideologies. Statistical analysis of large data sets.

4 units, Win (Strnad, J)

PUBLPOL 203C. Foundations of Statistical Inference

(Same as IPS 205C.) (Same as LAW 362.) Statistical background and introduction to regression. Topics include hypothesis testing, linear regression, nearest-neighbors regression, and other statistical concepts. Hands-on empirical analysis via computer exercises using statistical packages; how to analyze empirical studies, conduct empirical research, and cross-examine or work with statistical experts.

2 units, Aut (Strnad, J)

PUBLPOL 204A. Politics and Collective Action

(Same as IPS 206A, POLISCI 331S.) Classic theories for why collective action problems occur and how they can be solved. Politics of aggregating individual decisions into collective action, including voting, social protest, and competing goals and tactics of officials, bureaucrats, interest groups, and other stakeholders. Economic, distributive, and moral frameworks for evaluating collective action processes and outcomes. Applicable to collective action problems in any realm, but focus is on practical examples from environmental management.

4 units, Spr (Oleson, K)

PUBLPOL 204B. Organizations

(Same as IPS 206B.) Policy reform and organizational resistance. Organizations include government and other bureaucracies such as not-for-profit schools, universities, hospitals, international organizations, political parties, and agencies. Hubris and policy making, including pathologies of decision making and planning, abuse of intelligence, biased information, overselling to publics, lack of knowledge about context, and unintended consequences.

4 units, Spr (Stedman, S; Eden, L)

PUBLPOL 205A. Judgment and Decision Making

(Same as IPS 207A.) (Same as LAW 333.) Theories and research on heuristics and biases in human inference, judgment, and decision making. Experimental and theoretical work in prospect theory emphasizing loss and risk aversion. Support theory. Challenges that psychology offers to the rationalist expected utility model; attempts to meet this challenge through integration with modern behavioral economics. Decision making biases and phenomena of special relevance to public policy such as group polarization, group think, and collective action.

4 units, Win (Brest, P)

PUBLPOL 205B. Public Policy and Social Psychology: Implications and Applications

(Same as IPS 207B, PSYCH 216.) Theories, insights, and concerns of social psychology relevant to how people perceive issues, events, and each other, and links between beliefs and individual and collective behavior. Topics include: situationist and subjectivist traditions of applied and theoretical social psychology; social comparison, dissonance, and attribution theories; social identity, stereotyping, racism, and sources of intergroup conflict and misunderstanding; challenges to universality assumptions regarding human motivation, emotion, and perception of self and others; the problem of producing individual and collective changes in norms and behavior.

4 units, Spr (Ross, L)

PUBLPOL 206. Writing and Rhetoric for Policy Audiences

Techniques of effective writing and argument for addressing decision makers, interest groups, and the public. The importance of apparent simplicity; uses and misuses of history and historical analogies; and incentives, cognitive limits, and biases of audiences. Why some arguments become traditional. Sources include historical briefing papers and oral arguments. Students write briefing papers and make oral arguments, individually and in teams. Enrollment limited. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

4 units, Win (Owen, B; Rosston, G)

PUBLPOL 207. Justice

(Same as ETHICSOC 171, IPS 208, PHIL 171, PHIL 271, POLISCI 136S.) Focus is on the ideal of a just society, and the place of liberty and equality in it, in light of contemporary theories of justice and political controversies. Topics include protecting religious liberty, financing schools and elections, regulating markets, assuring access to health care, and providing affirmative action and group rights. Issues of global justice including human rights and global inequality.

4-5 units, Aut (Cohen, J)

PUBLPOL 209. Practicum

(Same as IPS 209.) Applied policy exercises in various fields. Multidisciplinary student teams apply skills to a contemporary problem in a major policy exercise with a public sector client such as a government agency. Problem analysis, interaction with the client and experts, and presentations. Emphasis is on effective written and oral communication to lay audiences of recommendations based on policy analysis.

5 units, Aut (Sprague, M; Oleson, K), Win (Sprague, M; Oleson, K)

PUBLPOL 231. Political Economy of Health Care in the United States

(Same as MGTECON 331, HRP 391.) The economic tools and institutional and legal background to understand how markets for health care products and services work. Moral hazard and adverse selection. Institutional organization of the health care sector. Hospital and physician services markets, integrated delivery systems, managed care, pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Public policy issues in health care, medical ethics, regulation of managed care, patients' bill of rights, regulation of pharmaceuticals, Medicare reform, universal health insurance, and coverage of the uninsured. International perspectives, how other countries' health care systems evolved, and what the U.S. can learn from their experiences.

4 units, Spr (Kessler, D; Bundorf, M)

PUBLPOL 299. Master of Arts Thesis

Restricted to students writing a master's thesis in Public Policy. May be repeated for credit.

1-5 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff)

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Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09

Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09

Alphabetical Index

Bulletin Archive

Graduate courses in Public Policy