Semester:
Offered:
Jason Furman (Harvard Kennedy School)
First-Year Seminar 71K 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
This seminar will provide you with a broad perspective on the views that economists and economic thinkers have had on how to build a better society. We will discuss foundational questions including: (i) the role of individual freedom to make choices vs. the importance of public policy in helping people fully realize their potential, (ii) the ways that markets and governments succeed and fail, (iii) the downsides and upsides of economic inequality, and (iv) the degree to which we should think of people as behaving rationally or not. Each week we read a different book by an economist, often with contrasting perspectives on these issues, and discuss and debate the relevance of its arguments and how they shape our thinking about both economics and a broader set of questions we all confront in society.