Global Economics & Management

Courses and Programs for Academic Year 2020-2021

• 15.216 Central Banks, Monetary Policy and Global Financial Markets (Spring)

  Explores the role of central banks and monetary policy in the global economy and the effects of their policies on countries, companies and global financial markets. Reviews the decision-making process and policy implementation, and provides conceptual tools for analyzing and predicting central bank decisions and assessing their likely impact. Covers monetary policy, bank regulation and crisis management, drawing on the experience of the Federal Reserve, the ECB and other central banks in advanced and emerging market economies.

   

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:  

  • Athanasios Orphanides

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• 15.217 Blockchain Lab (Spring)

  Blockchain Lab is a semester-long, project-based course that immerses students in the latest blockchain developments. To see a full list of past projects, visit the DCI website. This semester, we will be focusing on CBDCs in the public and private sector as well as bitcoin. Students work closely with the faculty, as well as researchers and team members at the Digital Currency Initiative to complete projects for participating companies. Past companies include Deloitte, Fidelity, BCG and more. Please reach out to the course TA at clairema@mit.edu if you have any questions on the course.

   

  Faculty who have recently taught this course:

  • Gary Gensler

  • Simon Johnson
  • Neha Narula

  
   

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• 15.218 Global Economic Challenges and Opportunities (Spring)

  15.218: Global Economic Challenges and Opportunities

   

  This course provides in-depth analyses of the major risks and opportunities in the global economy. It discusses the key economic forces and policy responses that will shape the business environment in the next decade and for which every organization should prepare. The course not only analyzes global economic issues currently in the headlines, but also develops the tools to understand and interpret these events. The objective is to provide students with the context and frameworks to be able to perform their own critical analyses, so that they can plan for and respond to the inevitable surprises in the global economy that will affect them in their future careers.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Kristen Forbes

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• 15.223 Global Markets, National Policies and the Competitive Advantages of Firms (Fall)

  Description: Examines opportunities and risks firms face in today's global market. Provides conceptual tools for analyzing how governments and social institutions influence economic competition among firms embedded in different national settings. Public policies and institutions that shape competitive outcomes are examined through cases and analytical readings on different companies and industries operating in both developed and emerging markets. Restricted to Sloan Fellows in Innovation and Global Leadership.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Simon Johnson
  • Luis Videgaray

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• 15.225 Modern Business in China: China Lab (Spring)

  Description: Provides an integrated approach to analyze the economies of China  through action learning. The classroom portion covers macro issues of China , project-related issues and personal and learning reflections. The onsite portion involves working with a host company in China . Students work in teams to tackle a real world business problem with an entrepreneurial Chinese  company and produce a final deliverable for the host company. Students are required to take a mid semester trip during SIP and Spring Break to China to work onsite with the host company. Past lab projects have included creating a business plan for fundraising, developing a new market strategy, and crafting financial models; the projects have included both for-profit and NGO projects. Limited to graduate students who participate in China Lab 

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • John Grant
  • Yasheng Huang

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• 15.226 Modern Business in India: India Lab (Spring)

  Description: Provides an integrated approach to analyze the economies of India  through action learning. The classroom portion covers macro issues of India , project-related issues and personal and learning reflections. The onsite portion involves working with a host company in India . Students work in teams to tackle a real world business problem with an entrepreneurial Indian  company and produce a final deliverable for the host company. Students are required to take a mid semester trip during SIP and Spring Break to India to work onsite with the host company. Past lab projects have included creating a business plan for fundraising, developing a new market strategy, and crafting financial models; the projects have included both for-profit and NGO projects. Limited to graduate students who participate in India Lab 

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Yasheng Huang
  • Melissa Webster

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• 15.230 Public Policy and the Private Sector (Spring)

  Description: a deep dive into how public policy affects entrepreneurship and business more broadly. Primary focus is on the US but comparisons with other countries will also be included.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:
   

  • Gary Gensler
  • Simon Johnson

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• 15.232 Breakthrough Ventures: Effective Business Models in Frontier Markets (Spring)

  Description: Examines how new approaches to operations, revenue, marketing, finance, and strategy enable improved health care in resource-limited settings across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Draws on system dynamics, design thinking, and strategic analysis. Explores success and failure in innovative healthcare delivery. Analysis of novel business models draws on case studies, videos, industry reports, research, and guest speakers. Students present their assessments of innovative base-of-the-pyramid health enterprises that aim to do more with less. Students who have not taken at least three management or business classes must apply to the instructor for permission to enroll before the first day of class.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Anjali Sastry

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• 15.234 Scalable Civic Action (Fall)

  Description: Democracy thrives on an informed public, and it fails when propaganda distorts truth and people lose faith in institutions of information and governance. It also fails when people feel humiliated and motivated by bias instead of reason. Over the past year we have seen a rise to prominence of new sources of public information as well as new techniques for organizing and mobilizing political action. This seminar will consider recent social, behavioral, and political analysis with the goal of creating a new set of grassroots tools and applications to enable diverse populations to become politically active mobilizers, which we will do as class projects. There are 469 congressional (House and Senate) elections in 2018 occurring throughout the US; if we are successful in this seminar, we will help ensure that these results reflect the true will of the people. And we will learn the dynamics of public opinion and action in 2017. This seminar will meet in two parts. We will have weekly 5:30 - 7PM dinner discussions with periodic invited guest speakers, and a project unit where groups will design and build test viral organizing apps. Students can sign up for the dinners and/or the project component (additional credit). There will be tutorial and demonstration sessions for projects.
  
  Target audience: graduate students and advanced undergraduates. The project teams will be hands-on and cross-functional using tools developed at the Media Lab.
   

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Simon Johnson
  • Andy Lippman

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• 15.235 Blockchain and Money (Fall)

  Explores blockchain technology's potential use - by entrepreneurs and incumbents - to change the world of money and finance. Begins with a review of the technology's initial application, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, giving students an understanding of the commercial, technical and public policy fundamentals of blockchain technology, distributed ledgers and smart contracts in both open-sourced and private applications. Focuses on current and potential blockchain applications in the financial sector. Includes reviews of potential use cases for payment systems, central banking, venture capital, secondary market trading, trade finance, commercial banking, post-trade possessing, and digital ID. Also explores the markets and regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, other tokens, and crypto derivatives. Open to undergraduates with permission of instructor.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Gary Gensler

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• 15.236 Global Business of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (GBAIR)(Spring)

  Description: The objective of the Global Business of AI & Robotics (GBAIR) course is to analytically investigate where the near term opportunities and challenges lie for the commercialization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics around the world. This course will be rooted in the business school but will be cross-disciplined; we openly welcome non-Sloan students. No technical background is necessary. There will be a balance of frameworks, external speakers and projects but the success of the course depends on strong student participation.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:
   

  • Simon Johnson
  • Jonathan Ruane
  • Luis Videgaray

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• 15.239 China's Growth: Political Economy, Business and Urbanization (Spring)

  Examines different aspects of the growth of China, which has the second largest economy in the world. Studies the main drivers of Chinese economic growth and the forces behind the largest urbanization in human history. Discusses how to understand China's booming real estate market, and how Chinese firms operate to attain their success, whether through hard-working entrepreneurship or political connections with the government. Explores whether the top-down urban and industrial policy interventions improve efficiency or cause misallocation problems, and whether the Chinese political system in an enabler of Chinese growth or a potential impediment to the country's future growth prospects. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Yasheng Huang
  • Zhengzhen Tan
  • Siqi Zheng
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• 15.389 Global Entrepreneurship Lab (Fall, cont. Thru IAP )

  Description: Practical study of the climate for innovation and determinants of entrepreneurial success. Teams of students work with top management in one company to gain experience in running and building a new enterprise. Focuses primarily on start-ups operating in emerging markets. Restricted to graduate students.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Michellana Jester
  • Simon Johnson

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• 15.702 Leading in a Global Context: Macroeconomics and Global Markets (EMBA, 2nd Year)(Fall)

  Description: Intensive module on the global economy, combining the key perspectives of macroeconomics and global economic strategy. Focuses on the policy and economic environment of firms, as well as on the development of a more international market in products, services, and capital, and how this affects trade and industries. Presents insights into national economic strategies for development, and into the evolving rules and institutions governing the international economic order. Develops an actionable appreciation for managers of the international dimensions of economic policy and strategy in an increasingly complex world economy. Restricted to Executive MBA students.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Simon Johnson
  • Athanasios Orphanides
  • Rigobon, Roberto
  • Steinwender, Claudia

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• 15.707 Global Strategy - EMBA 2nd Years (Fall)

  Description: Provides students with the evidence, concepts and models for understanding company performance in a global world and the issues facing executives in the early 21st century. Prepares students to manage effectively in todays interconnected world by understanding this changing environment, principles of global strategy, and the relation between global strategy and organization. Focuses on the specificities of strategy and organization of the multinational company. Restricted to Executive MBA students.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Hiram Samel

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• 15.708 Global Organizations Lab: Action Learning Project - EMBA 2nd Years

  Description: Helps students discover and develop new and effective ways of managing and working together across national borders; also helps accelerate development of the context awareness and integrative management skills needed to lead in a globalized world. Involves intensive team engagement with a firm where students integrate their understanding of the relevant global and national economic and institutional contexts, industry dynamics, the firm's strategic position and capabilities, and its management organization and processes to provide the management sponsor with insight and effective recommendations. Includes a week-long site visit for research. Restricted to Executive MBA students.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Donald Lessard
  • Anjali Sastry

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• 15.S19 Hacking the Future (fall)

  Hacking the Future (“HTF”) is a new, cross-disciplinary, project-based course open to all students at MIT, as well as at Wellesley and Harvard. HF has been co-founded by faculty from Engineering, Global Economics and Management, Entrepreneurship and Political Science to help students prepare for a future of increasingly rapid change and associated social disruption. It is a hands-on course that embodies mens et manus – a practical application of proven frameworks and processes to help solve or ameliorate the most intractable problems in the world today.
  
  In this course, students will learn how to help address the aforementioned problems. They will do this by applying a proven disciplined entrepreneurial framework and process combined with engineering tools and thinking. Students will also learn how to integrate public policy considerations to ensure that their efforts have maximum impact. In this inaugural semester of the course, students will identify problems they want to solve related to COVID-19, in all of its dimensions.

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • Ronald Rivest
  • Simon Johnson
  • Michellana Jester
  • Anette (Peko) Hosoi
  • J. Chappell Lawson
  • William Aulet

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• 15.S20 Quantum Computing (Spring)

  Quantum Computing (QC) offers the potential to solve certain types of problems for human kind; problems that are today, prohibitive for traditional computing. It could lead to exciting breakthroughs in areas such as improved efficiency in logistics chains, increased battery performance for cars or helping to find new pharmaceutical treatments. But what is hype and what is realistic given the development of the field in recent years and its current trajectory? What role do scientists, engineers, managers, entrepreneurs, policy makers and other stakeholders play?

  Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

  • William Oliver
  • Jonathan Ruane

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• 15.S57 Collaborative Intelligence Ventures (Fall)

  Faculty who have recently taught this course:

  • Gary Gensler
  • Jonathan Ruane
  • Julie Shah

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