Michael Busse has been teaching at the University Maryland School of Public Policy since 1997. He has taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, development economics, quantitative analysis and the math refresher workshop. He has a background in both economics and public policy with a wide variety of work experience both in international development and US economic public policy issues. He enjoys drawing on both these experiences and the most important policy initiatives of the day to relate quantitative subjects to real world events. His favorite subject to teach is microeconomics (PLCY 640).
For twelve summers, he had the great pleasure of teaching advanced undergraduates from around the
nation at The Maryland Leadership Institute at SPP. These students were rising seniors from colleges
across the nation entering into careers in the Foreign Service or other walks of foreign policy. Much of
the purpose of the program was to bring greater diversity as well as a wider range of thinking to foreign
policy.
In addition to teaching at Maryland, he has worked for The Survey Center, Inc., a major market research firm in Chicago, at the Illinois State Securities Office, John Mellor and Associates analyzing United Nations World Food Program effectiveness, The US Department of Labor, the American Enterprise Institute, The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) an international research institute in Austria, and on a variety of small development projects done in conjunction with Booz Allen Hamilton.
- Development economics; urban planning; international comparisons of social policy & its consequences; labor economics & market power
Course designed to create intelligent consumers of policy research and enable students to understand the research done by others with a sufficiently skeptical eye to allow them to determine whether the findings of the research are valid given the assumptions made and methods used. This will involve, in part, thinking about the various problems in research design or conduct that could lead to faulty conclusions. It will also involve being able to differentiate between credible sources of information and those that are not objective. At the conclusion of the course, students should be able to differentiate objective evidence from political argumentation. Restricted to students in a major in PLCY.
Schedule of Classes
Prerequisite(s): STAT100
Applies intermediate microeconomic theory to public policy issues: resource allocation by firms and consumers; the response of economic agents to changes in incentives; market allocations in competitive and non-competitive environments; and market failures and government remedies. Uses extended case studies of particular issues in such areas as the environment (acid rain), international trade (tariffs), industry regulation (cable TV), and the provision of public goods (highways).
Schedule of Classes