ECON 295 Topics in Economics
Topics vary semester to semester.
Modeling Business Decisions
Managers usually find spreadsheets natural, intuitive and user-friendly platforms for organizing information and performing “what if” analyses. Spreadsheets have therefore become indispensable tools of modern business analysis. This course will focus on structuring, analyzing, and solving managerial decision problems on Excel spreadsheets. We will address problems of resource allocation (how to utilize available resources optimally), risk analysis (how to incorporate uncertainty in problem parameters), decision analysis (how to synthesize a sequence of decisions involving uncertainty), data analysis (how to summarize available data into useful information), and forecasting (how to extrapolate past data into the future). In each area, we will consider specific managerial decision problems, model them on Excel spreadsheets, analyze and solve the models using available Excel commands, functions, tools, and add-ins, and study economic interpretations of the solutions obtained.