GPA

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Every day, every one of us makes choices and engages in social interactions, including exchange. We do this within a context of institutions formal rules and informal norms that shape our incentives. The outcomes that emerge, and the value we create in the process, depends on those institutions and incentives. Economics is a broad and diverse body of ideas that helps us understand those everyday choices and the kinds of outcomes they generate. We will explore these economic ideas and the ways that institutions affect outcomes, from informal social norms all the way to big questions of social organization such as the contrast between capitalism and socialism. Our main method of exploring economic ideas will be communicating those ideas through writing, video, and other multimedia approaches; we will build and deepen our understanding of economic ideas in society by explaining them, applying them, and sharing them with others. Course readings will include work by some of the most eloquent and effective economics communicators over the past 250 years up to today. Typically offered Fall.