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Course Match

We are offering pre-enrolment for some 400-level ECO courses for Fall-Winter 2025-26, for fourth-year students who have not yet fulfilled the 400-level Economics program requirement. The purpose of this pre-enrolment process is to ensure that students who require one or two 400-level courses for program completion are better able to enroll in a course. If you qualify for Course Match, you will receive an email from the Undergraduate Office in early June. For more information, see Economics: Course Match.

Special Topics Courses: Fall 2025 & Winter 2026

Scheduling information is available on the Timetable Builder

ECO352H1S LEC0101 - Special Topics in Economics: Firms and the Economy

This macroeconomic course explores the role of firms in the economy. We start by examining what firms populate the economy and what drives the evolution of the firm distribution across time, as well as across countries. We then use both theoretical and empirical analysis to explore how firm behavior impacts various aspects of the economy, such as innovation, economic growth, competition, global economic interactions, as well as inequality and labor outcomes for workers.

ECO353H1F LEC0101- Special Topics in Economics with Data Analytics: Sports Economics

This applied economics course used both theoretical and empirical analysis to explore aspects of the economics of sports and sports leagues. We start by considering the business of professional sports—how teams and leagues make money—and then delve into further topics including competitive-balance policies, athlete labour markets, and the relationship between professional leagues and their amateur counterparts (e.g., US university sports). Representative data assignments include exploring team profitability and athlete value.

Exclusion: RSM384H1, MGEC45H3

The era of free trade has ended. Even before the 2024 re-election of Donald Trump in the United States, a substantial proportion of the world’s population had decided that globalization had gone too far. In response, governments increasingly started to exercise tools to manipulate the amount of exports and imports that left/entered their countries. This class is about these tools and how economists think about their effects. The class will start by examining the rise of globalization through institutions such as GATT and the WTO before turning to globalization’s decline. We will examine the theoretical welfare effects of various tools such as tariffs and quotas before moving to modern empirical work documenting their effects. We will then study quantitative trade models that put numbers to theory, before closing with the field of Geoeconomics which studies the political aspects of economies and resources as they pertain to international trade. Class attendance is mandatory.

This course delves into the diverse economies of the Middle East, moving beyond common generalizations. Utilizing James Rauch's "The Economics of the Middle East: A Comparative Approach," it analyzes the distinct socioeconomic trajectories of Sub-Saharan African, fuel-endowed, and "Mediterranean" states. Through comparative analysis with other developing regions, it explores the impact of natural resources, geography, and global interactions on their unique development paths, examining key issues like unemployment, urbanization, and policy challenges.

Human activity is transforming the climate and the ecosystems that support life on Earth, with profound consequences for people and the planet. In this course, you will examine pressing environmental challenges arising from climate change and the disruption of ecosystems and biodiversity. Topics include global warming, sea-level rise, natural disasters, pollution, species loss, and threats to food security. With a strong focus on current policy debates, we explore what economics can contribute to both understanding and addressing these environmental challenges, and we consider the real progress already made toward greater environmental sustainability. Given the interdisciplinary nature of these issues, we examine how economists integrate economic analysis with insights from climate science, ecology, and ethics. Throughout the course, you will engage in hands-on simulations of economy–environment interactions and study recent, influential empirical and theoretical research in environmental economics.

Historical episodes of the last four decades, like the Great Moderation, the Great Recession, and the inflation that followed the COVID-19 pandemic, have generated a continuing debate about the role of monetary policy and its limits. This course will examine some of the most up-to-date models and statistical tools economists use to make sense of these debates. It will address questions about the effects of conventional monetary policy and quantitative easing, the implementation of monetary policy through the banking system in a modern economy, the role of fiscal policy vis-à-vis monetary policy, and the welfare costs of inflation.

In this course, we look at empirical research that uses big data to study socio-economic questions involving inequality and economic risks. We will learn some technical tools and how they can be applied to questions about inequalities in income, wealth, consumption, health, and others, and within sub-groups (top earners vs. others; inside firms vs. across firms; by gender, age, etc.). We will also discuss questions about micro risks (facing households, workers, or firms) and how they vary over the business cycle and over longer horizons. Most of the research we cover use newly available big socioeconomic datasets from administrative records.

Pairing real economic and geospatial datasets with economic modeling tools and principles of climate science, we will consider how heat, sea level rise, groundwater depletion, and precipitation, will impact society through agriculture, industry, trade, health, and more, in a changing climate. This is a developing field, and few predictions can be made with great certainty. This course will begin to delineate what is currently known, and how progress can be made. In a final project, students will apply real data and modern modeling tools to a climate question of their choice.

Focus in Data Analytics: Major or Specialist

Starting 2020–2021, students will be able to add the Focus in Data Analytics to the Economics Major or Specialist program. The focus ensures that students gain proficiency in applied empirical economics. It provides students with hands-on exposure to the tools empirical economists use to build and analyze datasets - programming languages such as Python, and software programs to manage, statistically analyze, and visualize data such as Excel, GIS, Stata and R. The focus will also direct students to empirical economics courses that apply these tools in a wide variety of contexts. Please see the Focus in Data Analytics (Major) or Focus in Data Analytics (Specialist) typical pathway handout for highlights and refer to the Calendar for details.

Contact us

Chair

Ettore Damiano

Associate Chair, Undergraduate Studies

Michael Baker

Teaching Coordinator

Joseph Steinberg

Students Liaison

Adonis Yatchew

Undergraduate administrator

Undergraduate assistant