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Graduate Courses

AAE 512 Development Economics

This course provides a graduate-level overview of development economics from a policy-oriented perspective. The goal of this course is to allow students to analyze policy debates surrounding economic growth and development from a broad and rigorous analytical base. Topics covered include theories of economic growth, poverty, inequality, education, health, gender inequality, development programs, and psychological and social foundations of economic development.

Course Syllabus: AAE/ECON 512 Fall 2026

AAE 513 Consumption Economics

Fundamentals of consumption economics. Theory of consumer preferences and utility with emphasis on choice, demand, uncertainty, and time. Competitive markets, exchange, welfare, and efficiency are considered. The economics of information (moral hazard, adverse selection, signaling) are explored.

Course Syllabus: AAE 513 Spring 2025

AAE 514 Production Economics

This course equips students to apply microeconomic tools to conduct and critically assess cost-benefit analysis (CBA) for projects, programs, and regulations across the economy. Core topics include welfare-economic foundations; valuing market and non-market impacts; discounting, uncertainty, sensitivity analysis, and distributional weights. Students will learn to structure analyses, interpret results, and communicate evidence for real-world decisions through case studies and applied assignments.

Co-convened with AAE 414.

AAE 550 Financial Management for Agribusiness

Application of financial management principals and tools to challenges and opportunities facing agribusiness firms. Emphasis is placed on the acquisition, allocation, control and transfer of capital resources. Graduate-level requirements include a research paper of publishable quality which analyzes a current financial issue or problem in the agricultural sector and selected readings in professional journals.

Co-convened with AAE 450.

Course Syllabus: AAE 550 Spring 2025

AAE 579 Economic Analysis of Water, Food & Environmental Policies

This course focuses on economic methods for designing and evaluating water, food and environmental policies. Topics include optimizing water as an input in producing food, energy, recreation, and other ecosystem services; water & environmental issues in food production; pricing and conservation incentives; managing shortage risks; and economic tools for addressing conflicts over water, food and the environment. Interactive seminar style course. In addition to the requirements for AAE 479, graduate students must complete a class project, including a paper and presentation. Interactive seminar style course; regular attendance essential. Calculus proficiency required.

Co-convened with AAE 479.

AAE 580 Mathematics for Economists

Intensive course in essential mathematics for entering graduate students in the M.S. and Ph.D. programs in Economics and Agricultural and Resource Economics. Topics covered include matrix algebra, functions, limits, differentiation, comparative statistics, and constrained and unconstrained optimization.

AAE 596A Agricultural and Resource Economics

The development and exchange of scholarly information, usually in a small group setting. The scope of work shall consist of research by course registrants, with the exchange of the results of such research through discussion, reports, and/or papers.

Co-convened with AAE 496A

Course Syllabus: AAE 596A Fall 2025

AREC 597A Coding for Applied Economists

This workshop course is designed to give students the skills they need to code for economics, while also providing bits and pieces of information about programming more generally. It's suitable for complete beginners who have never written any code before. Throughout the course, programming assignments will focus on applications important for applied economists. The course also introduces technical concepts for causal inference.

Co-covened with AREC 497A

Course Requisites: AREC 339, ECON 376, OR equivalent economic statistics course