Will AI make us richer, or put us out of work? Have the rich really gotten richer - and if so, what should we do about it? Why are housing, health care, and education so expensive? Why do some countries grow rich while others stay poor, and why are so many unicorns born in the US and not Europe (and what to make of China)? Why are stock prices so high and so volatile? These are the kinds of big economic questions this course takes on - the ones people actively debate. For each, we ask not just what the answer is but how we know it: digging into the data and the models economists use. Topics covered will shift with current events and the research frontier. Along the way we discuss the policies these questions raise - rent control, tariffs, wealth taxes, environmental regulation, immigration, industrial policy, intellectual property, and antitrust - and what good policy design looks like. You'll leave with a sharper view of the big economic questions shaping society and your career - and of how much confidence the evidence really supports.
3 units · GSB Letter Graded
Will AI make us richer, or put us out of work? Have the rich really gotten richer - and if so, what should we do about it? Why are housing, health care, and education so expensive? Why do some countries grow rich while others stay poor, and why are so many unicorns born in the US and not Europe (and what to make of China)? Why are stock prices so high and so volatile? These are the kinds of big economic questions this course takes on - the ones people actively debate. For each, we ask not just what the answer is but how we know it: digging into the data and the models economists use. Topics covered will shift with current events and the research frontier. Along the way we discuss the policies these questions raise - rent control, tariffs, wealth taxes, environmental regulation, immigration, industrial policy, intellectual property, and antitrust - and what good policy design looks like. You'll leave with a sharper view of the big economic questions shaping society and your career - and of how much confidence the evidence really supports.
Offered in Winter 2027 at Stanford University.