Primary Objective: This short course is intended to expose the students to a non-mainstream approach to the study of economics. An economic process will be described as a time-evolving system put in motion by causal relations among its components. A comparison with the classic approach predicated on the supply-and-demand equilibrium principle will also be considered. Factors essential to the evolution of economic systems such as cause, effect, transition, positive and negative feedback, critical points and emergent properties characteristic of complex systems will be identified in examples and discussed in class.

 Secondary Objective: In addition to emphasizing the roles of time and causality in the economic process, the students will be introduced to a set of tools for studying an economic process in motion. These tools are: cobweb diagrams for equilibrium problems, analytic modeling of time evolving processes, and agent-based simulation.

Syllabus

Presentations:

• Time and Causality in Economics
• Gravity Trade Model

Assignments:

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