This concentration is designed to prepare students not only with the skills of the Economic Data Analysis, but also with a set of skills that are directly useful in public sector economic analyses, either as governmental employees such as in state and regional planning organizations, and for the many consulting firms that serve the public sector in nearly every aspect of public service delivery, expenditure, taxation and finance.

The Urban and Regional Analysis concentration requires 7 concentration courses beyond the core. Students take Regional Economics, Applied Qualitative and Limited Dependent Variable Models, Spatial Econometrics Applied Economic Forecasting, and an Applied Cost-Benefit Analysis in the Economics Department. They take Introduction to GIS from the Department of Geography, and Policy Analysis for Regional Development from the School of Planning.

Most students choose electives from within the Economics department (SAS for Economists being a strongly encouraged course). Other recommended courses as electives are Financial Tools from the Finance Department in the College of Business, and Optimization Models from the Department of Quantitative Analysis in the COB. If you have an interest in public investment problems, then strongly recommended are two courses in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the College of Engineering, Transportation Demand Forecasting I and II.

Other commonly selected electives are courses in the Department of Mathematics, and courses in Probability, Sample Survey Methods, Experimental Design in the Department of Quantitative Analysis in COB. Some students choose electives from the Geography department taking courses in Introduction to Geographical Information Systems and Location Theory.

At the end of this concentration, the student should feel very comfortable stepping into a analyst position in any public sector planning and economic analysis organization, as well as any consulting firm that serves the public sector. He or she will have been exposed to various software packages, sources of economic data, and statistical techniques.


Concentration Course Descriptions

Economics 676—Applied Benefit-Cost Analysis
A high-level introduction to the major issues and techniques in evaluation of programs and projects with the tools of applied microeconomics. Topics include measurement of benefits and costs, discounting, project ranking criteria, and uncertainty analysis.
Prerequisite: Economics 651 and 673 or permission of instructor.

Economics 677—Applied Economic Forecasting
This course covers the standard forecasting techniques used by professional economists in business and government. Topics include properties of time-series data, trend-line fitting, ARIMA models, and autoregressions.
Prerequisite: Economics 673 or permission of instructor.

Economics 678—Applied Qualitative and Limited Dependent Variable Models
Prerequisite: Economics 672 or permission of instructor.
Regional Economics 570. Introduction to conceptual, statistical, and empirical applications of spatial variation in economic outcomes. Theory of industrial location choice, agglomeration theory, industrial clusters, central place theory in theoretical and empirical explanations for the spatial structure of cities. Analysis of spatial data and modeling of regional economies and their interrelations.

Spatial Econometrics 680
This course covers the theoretical foundations of spatial econometrics as well as a series of examples from applied research using models of regional and urban economic, economic growth, population-employment dynamics, land use, hedonic pricing models, the effect of environmental policy on foreign direct investment, etc. The course provides interactive demonstration of spatial software for exploratory and econometric analyses. Software includes GeoDa and Matlab.

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems 580
Essential elements of a GIS; hardware requirements; GIS software; data acquisition; data structures; spatial databases; methods of data analysis and spatial modeling; applications of GIS to a variety of environmental and urban economic problems. GIS packages such as ArcView and Idrisi are used in the course.

Policy Analysis for Regional Development Planning 804
Introduction to policy analysis in the context of regional development. Builds on micro- and macroeconomic frameworks and relies heavily on quantitative methods. Emphasize regional economic theories and theoretical modeling. Introduction of various analytical techniques such as input-output Computable General Equilibrium models (CGE). Uses regional microcomputer software packages, including IMPLAN Professional 2.0 and Generic Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS).

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