Static Models for Understanding Risk

4 Credits.

This is a course on social science research methods as they apply to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. In other words, it looks at how the skills of a social scientist can be put to use in the ‘real world’. The course begins by looking at how decision makers anticipate future events, it explores what evidence they consider and what they ignore, and it looks at the standard models they apply in projecting the future based on the present. The case studies applied in this early part of the course focus on seemingly straightforward economic and financial questions.