COURSES
Not all courses are offered every year. For up-to-date course listings, visit the online Schedule of Classes at www.registrar.ucla.edu/schedule.

201. Principles of Microeconomic Theory I
This first course in a two-course sequence (with PS 204) prepares students for the economic analysis of public policy, starting with a review of economic principles and then covering basic microeconomic theory and policy applications. Included are consumer theory and demand, producer theory and supply, and equilibrium of product and factor markets.

202. American Political Institutions and Processes
This course offers the necessary background to develop strategies for dealing effectively with the political environment of policy and administration. Discussion of U.S. constitutional arrangements is followed by an instrumental and integrative examination of the primary institutions of politics and governance, from organized interests to legislatures, bureaucracies and courts. As settings of, and influences upon, policy analysis and administration, these institutions are considered both in the context of national and sub-national levels of government and from a comparative perspective.

203. Statistical Methods of Policy Analysis I
This first segment of a two-quarter sequence taught in the first year of the MPP program reviews basic statistical principles that are useful to policy research and analysis. Topics include descriptive statistics for sample data; notions of probability, the concept of expectations, useful discrete and continuous univariate distributions, bivariate distributions, the concepts of marginal and conditional probability, covariance and correlations, statistical independence, random sampling, estimators, unbiasedness and efficiency, statistical inference, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing.

204. Principles of Microeconomic Theory II
Prerequisite: PS 201 or equivalent. This second course in economics follows PS 201 and covers both theory and policy applications. Topics include monopoly, factor markets, general equilibrium, welfare economics, externalities, public goods, uncertainty, and intertemporal optimization.

205. Bureaucracy and Public Management
Designed to mesh with "American Political Institutions and Processes" and "Political Economy of Policy Adoption and Implementation," this course examines the problems posed by behaviors within and by bureaucracies. It provides students with a set of conceptual tools for understanding the organizational environment in which policy analysts ply their profession and the role of a manager within such organizations. In both instances, it offers practical suggestions for the policy professional seeking to navigate large bureaucracies. Readings and class discussions integrate theoretical analyses of organizations with detailed case studies.

206. Political Economy of Policy Adoption and Implementation
This course provides an analysis of how policy is formed, adopted and implemented, and addresses a series of fundamental questions: How are policies formulated? By whom? How are policy agendas set? How can the relationships between politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and media experts be defined? Other issues examined are the impact of public opinion and why some proposals are successful while others are not; the roles of bargaining and negotiation; what factors promote successful policy implementation; and how to evaluate policies after they have been implemented.

207. Political Economy
This course examines political, legal, and social institutions to show where the United States fits in among the varieties of modern capitalism and business-government relations. Students analyze the major domestic policy options that nations are pursuing in response to economic globalization, including protectionism, mercantilism, and deregulation. They are introduced to the international coalitions being formed as a result of globalization, including NAFTA, and to non-governmental organizations created to deal with special problems such as the global environmental crisis.

208. Statistical Methods of Policy Analysis II
Prerequisite: PS 203 or consent of instructor. This second core course in statistics and quantitative methods prepares students for quantitative studies of public policy, covering regression analysis and its application to public policy questions. Students learn regression analysis techniques during the first half of the course and apply these methods in large-scale policy analysis exercises during the second.

209. Management in the Twenty-first Century
This course addresses the organizational and managerial challenges and opportunities faced by public managers, including devolution of authority, an increasingly diverse workforce and the rapidly expanding role of technology. Topics covered include the effect of organizational structure on management, negotiation, and ethics in management.

M210. Foundations of Social Welfare Policy
(Same as Social Welfare M221A) This course provides students with a historical perspective on the development of the welfare state and the profession of social work. It emphasizes the value premises on which the institutional framework of our social welfare system is based and its differential impact on selected communities, particularly the poor, people of color, and women. By the end of the course, students are expected to command a comprehensive view of the American welfare state; understand how social welfare policies are reached and the questions raised by that process; develop a critical approach to the examination of policy-making processes and their outcomes; and develop a personal perspective on current and proposed policies.

M211. Public Policy for the Elderly and Their Families
(Same as Social Welfare M290P) This course examines the theoretical models and concepts of the policy process and applies them to aging policy, analyzes the decision-making processes that affect social policies, describes the historical development of contemporary policy, and explores current proposals and issues.

M212. Child Welfare Policy
(Same as Social Welfare M290J) This class considers the broader perspectives that have shaped policy affecting families and children in the United States, focusing on the development of social policy as it affects families and children from different cultural backgrounds and is manifested in the public child welfare system. Students examine the development of programs and policies affecting children and youth in a multicultural society, with particular attention to poverty, foster care, and child abuse.

M213. Mental Health Policy
(Same as Social Welfare M290K) This course examines the evolution of social policy and services for the mentally ill in the United States. Emphasis is placed on the political, economic, ideological and sociological factors that affect public views of the mentally ill and services provided to them. The course considers how issues of class, ethnicity, race, and gender have influenced the theory and treatment of the mentally ill.

M214. Poverty, the Poor and Welfare Reform
(Same as Social Welfare M290L) This seminar focuses on the major policy and research issues concerning poverty and social welfare policy in the United States. It provides a descriptive overview of the American poor, introduces students to differing theoretical explanations for poverty; provides an overview of major anti-poverty policies; critically examines the basic assumptions underlying current welfare reform proposals; and examines the potential consequences for women, people of color, children, teenagers; and families.

M215. Health Policy
(Same as Social Welfare M290M) This course is an introduction to contemporary issues in healthcare financing and delivery, providing historical perspective on emergence of these issues. It examines major public programs and their relationship to issues of access and cost.

M216. Public Policy for Children and Youth
(Same as Social Welfare M290N) This course addresses policy issues that affect children and adolescents in relation to their interaction with schools and the community, with an emphasis on impact of policy across federal, state, and local levels.

217. Methods for Evaluating Social Programs
This course examines the design of, and statistical methods used in, evaluations of the impacts of social programs. Students are introduced to the use of experimental and non-experimental designs and to the various methods for estimating impacts of social programs. The course also discusses designs for process analyses.

218. Research Design and Methods for Social Policy
This course teaches students how to become more sophisticated consumers and producers of qualitative and quantitative policy research. In the first half of the course, students learn formal principles of research design. In the second, they study various data collection methods, including ethnography, interviewing, and survey design.

*219. Crime Control Policy
This course covers design, implementation, and evaluation of policies to control crime; operations of major institutions within the criminal justice system; theories of crime causation and prevention and their relationship to the impacts of alternative policies.

M220. Transportation, Land Use, and Urban Form
(Same as Urban Planning M254) This course examines the historical evolution of urban form and transportation systems; intra-metropolitan location theory; recent trends in urban form, spatial mismatch hypothesis, jobs/housing balance, transportation in the strong central city and polycentric city, neotraditional town planning debate, rail transit, and urban form.

M221. Travel Behavior Analysis
(Same as Urban Planning M256) Prerequisites: PS 201 and 203. This course looks at descriptions of travel patterns in metropolitan areas, recent trends and projections into the future, overview of travel forecasting methods, trip generation, trip distribution, mode split traffic assignment, critique of traditional travel forecasting methods, and new approaches to travel behavior analysis.

M222. Transportation Economics, Finance, and Policy
(Same as Urban Planning M289) This course includes an overview of transportation finance and economics; concepts of efficiency and equity in transportation finance; historical evolution of highway and transit finance; current issues in highway finance; private participation in road finance, toll roads, road costs and cost allocation, truck charges, and congestion pricing; current issues in transit finance; transit fare and subsidy policies; and contracting and privatization of transit services.

M223. Transportation and Environmental Issues
(Same as Urban Planning M290) This course examines regulatory structure linking transportation, air quality, and energy issues; chemistry of air pollution; overview of transportation-related approaches to air quality enhancement; new car tailpipe standards; vehicle inspection and maintenance issues; transportation demand management and transportation control measures; alternative fuels and electric vehicles; corporate average fuel economy and global warming issues; growth of automobile worldwide fleet; and the automobile in the sustainability debate.

M224A. Urban Data Analysis: Introduction to Geographic Information Systems
(Same as Urban Planning M206A) This course examines principles of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and applied techniques of using spatial data for mapping and analysis. Topics include data quality, data manipulation, spatial analysis, and information systems; and the use of mapping and spatial analysis to address a planning problem.

M224B. Advanced Geographic Information Systems
(Same as Urban Planning M206B) This course, which covers principles and skills of geographic analysis and modeling--managing, processing, and interpreting spacial data-- is especially useful for students interested in environmental, demographic, suitability, and transportation related records. Course covers scripts (Avenue), modeling (Spacial Analyst), network and analysis and transportation modeling (TransCAD).

C225. Controversies in Education Policy
This seminar focuses on several controversial topics in contemporary education, including multiculturalism, affirmative action, the "test score gap", bilingual education, and school choice. The topic examined changes each year. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the major arguments for and against several important education policies and to encourage them to critically evaluate the logic and evidence behind the policies.

CM230. Labor Markets and Public Policy
(Same as Management M259C) This course provides a basic survey of labor market concepts with an empirical orientation acquainting students with data sources and key trends in the labor market. Topics include such concepts as defining the labor force, labor force participation, unemployment, and labor force trends (demographic, industry, occupation, real wages, wage dispersion),with applications to such issues as immigration, minimum wage, income subsidy, and taxation policy.

CM231. Comparative Industrial Relations
(Same as Management CM255) This course provides a historical and contemporary comparison of alternative, institutional, and policy arrangements in the labor markets and employment practices of various developed countries, including the United States. The course introduces students to the notion of industrial relations systems with various factors—including policy makers—influencing developments in each country, including the impact of global factors such as international trade and new technologies.

M232. Labor Relations: Process and Law
(Same as Management M250A) This basic course in labor relations and related public policy issues is valuable to students interested in careers in labor relations or those entering roles in public and nonprofit agencies and institutions (including the healthcare sector), where labor relations and unionization are important. The course employs a variety of readings, case studies, and films to illustrate concepts and practices in the labor relations field.

233. Employment Issues in California
Drawing on the resources of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, this course introduces students to the general features of the California labor market (including workforce growth, demographics, industry and occupational composition, and long-term projections), analysis of employment fluctuations, and forecasting techniques, including linkages between employment fluctuations in California and elsewhere in the country, and social issues relating to the labor market.

234. Labor Markets and Social Policy
This course acquaints students with the analytical tools and conceptual models needed to understand policies directed toward low-income populations. Concepts covered include static and dynamic labor supply, labor demand, compensating differentials, human capital, and economic models of immigration and crime.

M240. Theories of Regional Economic Development
(Same as Urban Planning M236A) Introduction to theories of location of economic activity, trade, and other forms of contact between regions, process of regional growth and decline, reasons for different levels of economic development, and relations between more or less developed regions.

M241. Introduction to Regional Planning: Evolution of Regional Planning Doctrines
(Same as Urban Planning M230) This course is a critical and historical survey of the evaluation of regional planning theory and practice, with particular emphasis on relations between regional planning and developments within Western social and political philosophy. Major concepts include regions and regionalism, territorial community and social production of space.

M242. Regional Development: Urbanization and Industrial Policy
(Same as Urban Planning M231) This course provides a survey of regional development, urban economic growth, and the geographical foundations of industrial policy. Special topics covered include the organization and dynamics of industrial production; theories of industrial location and localized economic growth; the social and institutional foundations of regional/urban economic systems; and the dynamics of regional/urban development in an increasingly globalized economic order.

CM250. Environmental and Resource Economics and Policy
(Same as Urban Planning CM280) Prerequisites: PS 204 and 208 or Urban Planning 207 and 220B. A survey of the ways in which economics is used to define, analyze, and resolve problems of environmental management. The course provides an overview of the analytical questions addressed by environmental economists, which bear on public policies.

M266. Advanced Topics in Health Economics
(Same as Health Services M249E) Prerequisites: Health Services 200A, 200B, and 236, or PS269, or consent of instructor. This course provides a more advanced treatment of a number of topics in health economics, including mental health economics; pharmaceutical economics; and the relationship between labor supply, welfare, and health.

M267. Medicare Reform
(Same as Health Services M252) This course analyzes the problems of the existing Medicare program and asks students to develop specific options for reforming the program to accommodate the coming pressures generated by the retirement of the baby boom generation.

M268. Microeconomic Theory of the Health Sector
(Same as Health Services M236) Prerequisites: Statistics 100A or equivalent; intermediate economics. This course covers microeconomic aspects of the health care system, including health manpower substitution, choice of efficient modes of treatment, market efficiency, and competition.

M269. Health Care Policy and Finance
(Same as Health Services M269) This course addresses the demand for health insurance, policies for public insurance (Medicaid and Medicare), the uninsured, and health insurance reform. It also examines the effects of managed care on health and on costs, the consumer protection movement, and the rise of competitive health care markets.

271. Urban Poverty, Workforce Development and Public Policy
This seminar examines how urban labor markets function, particularly low-skill labor markets, and explores how public and private interventions affect outcomes for disadvantaged populations. The first half of the course examines major theories of low-skill workers’ labor market problems in employment and wages; the second half examines employment and training programs, policy initiatives and implementation, and new directions in workforce development.

M280A. Research and Development Policy
(Same as Management M292A)This course examines government support of research and development and industrial policy; approaches to fostering science, technology, and industrial growth, and the commercialization of public sector knowledge; selective subsidies and support of R&D and individual firms; technology change and the labor market.

M280B. Growth, Science and Technology.
(Same as Management M292B). This course examines economic growth and change; the role of scientific and technological advances; the actions of maximizing innovators and the factors infringing upon their behavior; and how technological breakthroughs (or discontinuities) can form new industries or transform existing industries.

290. Special Topics in Public Policy
This course is an advanced seminar on emerging issues in public policy. Past topics have included Environmental Policy, Education Policy, Evaluation Methods, and Crisis Decision Making in U.S. Foreign Policy.

291. Methods of Policy Analysis
This course covers techniques of policy analysis, with applications: benefits and costs; optimization and constraint; risk, risk aversion, risk spreading; tax incidence; incentive effects, and deadweight loss; strategic interactions (games and negotiations). The emphasis is on concepts rather than computation.

292. Quantitative Policy Analysis
Prerequisites: PS 203 and 208 or consent of instructor. In this course, students explore additional statistical and econometric tools as a follow-up to prerequisite courses. These tools include discrete choice analysis, methods to deal with endogeneity bias, and analysis of longitudinal data. Application of statistical tools in the conduct of analysis and evaluations of public policy initiatives and policy-relevant issues.

M293. Privatization, Regulation and Public Finance
(Same as Urban Planning M243) Prerequisites: PS 201 or consent of instructor. This course covers evaluation of economic and political determinants of the trend toward privatizing public services; equity and efficiency outcomes of this trend as expressed through new pricing, financing, and service level policies; and exploration of the new regulatory role this trend implies for state and local government.

294. Education Markets and Education Policy
This course provides students with a set of tools that can be used to analyze pressing policy questions in the field of education, and with substantive background in current policy issues. Topics include human capital, school quality, Catholic schools, school choice, and school finance.

M295. Law and the Poor
(Same as Social Welfare M290R; Urban Planning M248; Law M215) This course covers major U.S. income-maintenance programs, with an emphasis on the interaction of moral attitudes toward the poor and the structure and implementation of the law, policy, and administration. The course concentrates on the current reform consensus and major reforms.

298A-298B. Applied Policy Analysis I and II
This two-quarter seminar presents methods of policy analysis in the first quarter; in the second, students enroll in the seminar focused on a current policy issue. In each seminar, students work in teams to prepare a major public policy paper that evaluates a real-life policy question similar to those encountered in a career in public service and offers recommendations on how to address that problem. The paper allows students to apply the knowledge they have gained throughout two years of course work to a specific situation. By petition to the seminar instructor, students may also be able to develop individual applied policy analysis projects.

596. Directed Studies for MPP Candidates
This course is individual programming for selected students to permit pursuit of a subject in greater depth.

*Approval pending