Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Master of Public Policy (BA/MPP)

The required core curriculum for the BA/MPP is different than that for the two-year Master of Public Policy.

Core Courses

Policy Analysis and Public Welfare: The course explores the political and economic foundations of public policymaking, examining both the processes through which preferences of individuals are converted into public welfare policy and the public’s response. Included are an introduction to the concepts of rationality, individual decision making, cooperation, collective action, and market failures. The course is writing-intensive and includes cases on the U.S.

Market Failures and Policy Interventions: Applies economic reasoning to public issues, policies and programs. It considers incentives and organizations; models of economic behavior, including markets, the absence of markets and interventions; the price system; policy objectives and instruments.

Policy Making Processes: This course is designed to teach students how to “read” a country’s political and economic system. The course examines how the evolution of different institutional frameworks in the countries of the Pacific region influences the way in which political choices are made.

Public Finance and Taxation: This course introduces principles of taxation and expenditure analysis, public budgeting and assessment of budget priorities.

Policy Analysis and Decision Theory: This course introduces students to the methods of policy analysis and decision-making theory—methods to assemble panel data to capture the impact of new policy on observable data, decision-making theory, uncertainty, decision criteria, expected utility and risk.

Capstone Courses

Students take the Capstone in their second year and after the successful completion of all first year core courses.

Public Policy Capstone: The capstone is designed to test the hard skills of policy design and evaluation by using them in the analysis of a real-world problem. The course requires a research project that examines an existing pubic or nonprofit sector policy or managerial problem.

Students must complete at least one Area of Specialization. Each requires five courses (20 units), three of which are electives. The Areas of Specialization are intended to provide depth in an area of applied policy.

American and Comparative Business Regulation

Required Course

• Government and Regulation

Must Choose One

• Corporate Non-Market Strategies
• Innovation and the New Economy

Sample Electives Classes

• Accounting and Finance for Policy Makers
• California Politics and Public Policy
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Cyber Security
• Fiscal and Monetary Policy
• Global Corporate Accountability: Governance, Responsibility, and NGOs
• Governance, Public Administration, and Development
• International Political Economy: Trade and Investments
• International Trade Agreements
• Organizational Economics
• Technology, Trade and Globalization
• The Political Economy of Authoritarian Regimes
• Urban Economic Policy
• Workers and Labor in International Markets

Environmental Policy

Required Course

• Environmental and Regulatory Economics

Must Choose One

• Modeling Environmental Systems
• The Politics of Energy and Environmental Regulation

Sample Electives Classes

• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Cost Benefit Analysis
• Environmental Law and Policy
• Food Security
• Introduction to Marine Biodiversity and Conservation
• Marine Science, Economics, and Policy
• Science and Marine Environmental Policy
• Special Topics in Remote Sensing and Data Analytics- Environmental Policy
• Special Topics in Remote Sensing and Data Analytics- Urban Policy
• Sustainable Development
• The Economics of Nonmarket Valuation

Health Policy

Required Course

• International Health Economics

Must Choose One

• The Politics of Economic Inequality
• Introduction to Health Policy (MPH program)

Sample Electives Classes

• Aging: Social Health and Policy Issues
• Case Studies in Health Care Programs for the Poor and Underserved Populations
• Comparative Social Welfare Policy
• Economics of Health Consumers
• Economics of Health Producers
• Environmental and Preventative Health Issues
• Environmental and Regulatory Economics
• Essentials of Global Health
• Global Health and Diversity
• Global Health Policy
• Immigrant and Refugee Health
• Managing Mission Driven Organizations
• Social Norms Changes and Development
• The US Health Care System

Inequality and Social Policy

Required Course

• The Politics of Economic Inequality

Must Choose One

• Education Policy Around the World
• Comparative Social Welfare Policy

Sample Electives Classes

• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Economic Development
• Food Security
• Human Rights, Public Policy, and International Relations
• Immigration and Immigration Policy
• International Health Economics
• Urban Economic Policy
• Workers and Labor in International Markets

Peace and Security

Required Course

• Central Issues in International Peace and Security

Must Choose One

• International Law and Regulation
• Debating US Security Policy

Sample Electives Classes

• Comparative Grand Strategy and Defense Policy
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Corruption and Development
• Counterinsurgency and Counter Terrorism
• Cyber Security
• Education Policy Around the World
• Food Security
• Foundations of Strategic Studies
• Geopolitics, Insurgency, and Weak States
• Global Corporate Accountability: Governance, Responsibility, and NGOs
• Human Rights, Public Policy, and International Relations
• Humanitarian Interventions
• Immigration and Immigration Policy
• Policy, Politics, and Markets in Modern Financial Crises
• Public Opinion and Foreign Policy
• State Building and Modeling State Capacity
• The New ‘New’ Civil Wars
• The Political Economy of Authoritarian Regimes
• The Political Economy of Foreign Aid
• The Political Economy of State Capacity
• The Politics of Economic Inequality
• U.S. National Security and Decision Making
• Violence in Latin America

Program Design and Evaluation

Required Course

• Applied Data Analysis and Statistical Decision Making "QM III"

Must Choose One

• Evaluating Social Programs
• GIS and Spatial Data Analysis

Sample Electives Classes

• Advanced GIS and Remote Sensing
• Big Data Analytics
• Cost Benefit Analysis
• Designing Field Experiments
• Evaluating Technological Innovation
• Integrated Development Practice
• Making Policy with Data
• Management of Nonprofit Organizations
• Managing Mission Driven Organizations
• Public Opinion and Foreign Policy

While the MPP does not have a language requirement, students may decide that language proficiency is an important skill for their career goal. Students will be allowed to use up to 12 graded units of undergraduate or GPS language courses toward the 48 units required in the graduate year and must match a regional/country specialization as indicated with course work at GPS. Language courses taken as an undergraduate count only toward the BA. Language classes taken as a graduate student must be approved by petition prior to enrollment in the first quarter.

Country/Regional Specialization

• China—Mandarin Chinese
• Japan—Japanese
• Korea—Korean
• Latin America—Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese
• Southeast Asia—Bahasa Indonesian, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Burmese, Tagalog, Hindi and Thai
• Other regions/countries and appropriate languages may be allowed by petition and intellectual justification.